What is the best way to avoid this in future... should I consider switching to a different bank and/ or credit card?
I've never really considered this before so advice on avoiding this in future (if possible) would be appreciated.
I just noticed that for my Postfinance VISA Credit Card I was charged a 1.2% processing fee on all my transactions/purchases while in Asia, which adds up to a not insignificant sum and I never noticed it before now (which was my bad of course).
I use Revolut as my credit card outside of Switzerland, or an EU credit card for Euros (if you can get an EU credit card).
If Revolut is not possible, then I just take enough cash with me, usually dollars and small bills, so I can exchange it on the spot.
Ahhh so Revolut completely avoids this stuff if you charge it and use it? Ouch, if so then that's an expensive lesson!
Cash was not always possible and I don't like carrying much of it anyway even if it was.
1.2% though significant is one of the lowest rates for non CH/non-CHF transactions with a Swiss credit card. Most are 1.5% or higher.
Don't use cards, and don't go to Asia!
Tom
Stay in Switzerland.
Revolut is not free even through the evangelists claim it is. It does not use the mid rate as many claim although their spread is lower than most banks.
Revolut (or any other similar card) is not necessary in CH for domestic purchases in any case as there are cards which have no annual fee available like the Migros and Coop ones. Even the PostFinance card which has a 50 franc annual charge is basically free if you have enough turnover which generates the bonus cashback.
For overseas transactions what is missing on the Swiss market is a safe credit card without the foreign transaction fee and that is not prepaid.
In the UK there has been no fee as such on foreign use of cards for as long as I can remember, however there's usually a 2.5 to 3% loading on the exchange rate. If you're only paying a 1.2% exchange rate loading as a fee then that's pretty good for a high street bank.
Revolut say that they change the rates in their favour at weekends or with uncommon currencies. Otherwise I've always gotten pretty much the interbank rate, especially for CHF/EUR. Their loading for cash after you've gone over the threshold is something like 4% so you then might be better off using a domestic card.
I use a legacy UK credit card with interbank rate and no annual fee. Gotta love the UK!
Yes it does. I checked against XE and it matched exactly. They don't use the mid rate during the weekends... but they make that very clear in their T&Cs.
We've done a comparison. And sorry, but we can only confirm FMF's post.
We tried to buy something with Revolut and with another fee-free credit card at the same time. The exchange rate was significantly worse with Revolut and nowhere near the official rate. Naturally we made the purchase with the other credit card.
The exchange rate with Revolut may have been very good once, but it no longer is. But yes it will still be a little better than most other banks etc.
FWIW I just checked again EUR CHF and Revolut is something like 0.0001 to 0.0002 away from mid price reported real time.
Realistically it doesn't get much better than this.
I would guess that it is a refresh issue, so if you see different prices at different providers, check how often they refresh. If the rate moves 5 pips for example and different providers refresh prices at different times, that would explain most of the difference.
I can't remember how we compared, but the difference was fairly significant, possibly 1 franc on a transaction of less than 200 francs. It may have been at the weekend.
So if you're getting that sort of a difference on every transaction, it soon bumps up your monthly spending.
The rate was definitely way off. And yes we were surprised as we previously thought they offered better rates.
What time, what day was it? Was it during the weekend? What does "significant" means? How much percentage load?
Well, at this moment in time (10:14:20 CEST) Revolut gives me 1.0889 CHF per euro and Oanda live rates bid/ask shows 1.086/1.089. Can you compare with your card's rate is at this time?
Same here, if I compare the rates to my FX trading tool I get similar amount of pips.
With Revolut there is a 1% load on exchange rates at the weekend. This most likely explains your difference (1% of less then 200 is about 1 franc or so ). And I wouldn't call 1% way off - particularly if you compare with the typical 3-4% load on regular credit cards (4-5% on swiss cards if you add the foreign transaction fee).
Don't have the specifics to hand at this moment in time, just recall the difference and surprise, but have asked partner how we saw the difference exactly, so hopefully get back to you.
Yap the old adage - there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. All evangelists of these types of business ignore the fact the these businesses would not survive very long without an income. Free financial services play with the exchange rate, the interest rate or the transaction routes, or higher fees on other services - there aren’t many other things they can do.
We were able to make the comparison the following way:
The price to pay/transaction was in CHF. We checked how much we needed to load onto the card in Euro to pay the exact amount in CHF with Revolut.
Thinking that Revolut was the best option the loading of the money onto Revolut in Euro was our first choice.
However Revolut at that moment (no surprise) had a technical glitch and the reload could not be performed. We noted down the amount in Euro however which was needed to pay the amount in CHF.
Because the reload would not go through, we used a Euro credit card (which has no foreign transaction fee) and paid the amount directly on the website in CHF.
When the amount appeared on the CC statement, we could see that it was lower than the amount in Euro that Revolut had required to pay the CHF transaction.
So thanks to Revolut's technical glitch, we paid using another card and to our surprise saved money.
We have not used Revolut since.
https://www.ubs.com/ch/en/private/ac...onal-fees.html
UBS charges 1.75% for any CHF transaction processed abroad.