Exchange Rates At Atms

[keithet]

I was wondering, Is there a time at night or evening when exchange rates are set at a closing rate if you use a atm?

My bank is closed at 3:30 pm but I notice that exchange rates sometimes are better in the evening or night when I look online.

So if you look online and notice a better exchange rate in the evening or night, do you get close to that rate using a local atm at that time?

[AlexDorneles]

I noticed that taking money out on saturdays and sundays gets me a much lower exchange rate, now I only do withdraws during the week. As far as I know exchange rates trade 24 hours a day during week days so there is no closing rate during the week. I am also interested in knowing from someone who has more experience.

[JimGant]

So if you look online and notice a better exchange rate in the evening or night, do you get close to that rate using a local atm at that time?

Only by coincidence...

Except for the Bank of Ayudhya, which sets its own FX rate under DCC (or at least it used to), the rate you receive at the ATM in Thailand will be established by the network (Visa/Plus or MasterCard/Cirrus) that your ATM card is subscribed to. The Thai bank doesn't set this rate, which changes once daily, at least on weekdays. So, watching rates change on a bank's website doesn't reflect rates changing at their ATM machines.

Visa changes their rate at 11:01 AM Thai time (12:01 AM New York time). But MC doesn't change until about 10 hours later. So, if you hit the ATM machine at 10:00 AM Thai time on 3 April, your Visa Debit/ATM card would have realized 29.22 baht per US$; your MC, 29.09 baht (these are the rates you can find at Visa and MC on-line sites for 2 April). An hour later, your Visa would have gotten 29.26 baht -- the 3 April rate. If you have a MC, and waited until late 3 April Thai time, you 'd realize 29.19 baht -- but for most of the day and evening, you'd still get the 2 April rate of 29.09.

Of course, only if you have a pure Debit/ATM card like Schwab's would you realize this rate, since they don't pass on the network's 1% fee, nor add any themselves. Most others do have fees, which, of course, aren't a function of time.

Weekends are a little weird. Visa will project a Monday rate -- and back it into both Saturday and Sunday. MC doesn't publish any weekend rates -- and since I don't use MC anymore, I really don't know if they use Friday's rate, or some hybrid unpublished rate.........(I did take MC samples a few years back, but those were only on weekdays).

[AlexDorneles]

Very helpful, thanks for your post.

[AlexDorneles]

Do you have the address for the online rates for Visa? Thank you again.

[mccw]

The Amex & master card rates are about 3 bht worse than the Thai banks TT rates (based on purchases from a £ cards).

[JimGant]

The Amex & master card rates are about 3 bht worse than the Thai banks TT rates (based on purchases from a £ cards).

Sounds like a function of the issuing bank's fees. The size and clout of MC and Amex allow them to realize FX rates exceeding the TT rate (although the rate they afford you is somewhat less than what they realize, allowing them to pocket some spread). However, a 3 baht hit off the TT rate is nearly 7% -- certainly not a function of the realized -- or afforded -- FX rate by MC or Amex.

I don't know if Amex uses Dynamic Currency Conversion -- but that's certainly the culprit when one sees a 6-7% hit using a Visa or MC. Or, again, the issuing bank may be a crook.

[JimGant]

Do you have the address for the online rates for Visa? Thank you again.

For Visa:

http://usa.visa.com/personal/using_visa/consumer_ex_rates_us.jsp

Note: If using a Visa Europe card, use the link at the bottom of the page. (Also, Visa reports dollars per baht, so you'll need to divide that number into "one" to get the baht per dollar.)

For MasterCard:

https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/index.html

As earlier explained, the rate you'll get for an ATM transaction is dependent on when these networks roll in their new day's number. And ATM transactions are near real-time. But for a credit card transaction, the rate you'll realize is the rate when processed -- which is about 24 hours down the road. So hitting Central Plaza at 1:00 PM with your Visa credit card on 1 April will normally show 2 April's rate as the realized rate. But MC at the same time on 1 April will normally show 1 April's rate, since they're half a day or so behind Visa.

Getting the pure FX rate for your card -- by stripping out all network and issuing bank fees (and NOT agreeing to DCC) -- will usually be right on the money. No coincidence, ever since the class action suit in the States over hidden foreign transaction fees. Not only are such fees upfront these days (most banks reporting them as a separate line item on your statement), but MC and Visa are now showing both hands empty -- by divulging their daily FX rates as well.

[AlexDorneles]

Awesome Jim. Thanks!!

[mccw]

The Amex & master card rates are about 3 bht worse than the Thai banks TT rates (based on purchases from a £ cards).

Sounds like a function of the issuing bank's fees. The size and clout of MC and Amex allow them to realize FX rates exceeding the TT rate (although the rate they afford you is somewhat less than what they realize, allowing them to pocket some spread). However, a 3 baht hit off the TT rate is nearly 7% -- certainly not a function of the realized -- or afforded -- FX rate by MC or Amex.

I don't know if Amex uses Dynamic Currency Conversion -- but that's certainly the culprit when one sees a 6-7% hit using a Visa or MC. Or, again, the issuing bank may be a crook.

The bank charges 3% on top of that!

I guess they are pocketing / splitting the fx spread between them.