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Comment by vertex-four | Hacker News Reader

My bank will charge £1.50 plus a variable commission for paying in anything but GBP.

Who's that? Halifax? They're great for everything else but non-GBP debit card transactions, and why I moved to HSBC and Co-Operative Bank.

CaxtonFX are also really good for foreign currency cards (2% markup, which is lower than I get with any of my British banks) and have really good customer service too.

Ouch. Seems credit cards out of the US are nowhere near as good, common there to have no foreign transaction fees (apart from probably some margin on the exchange rate).

If you shop around in the UK for a credit card, you will get one with zero fees and an excellent exchange rate on foreign currency transactions.

I use the Halifax Clarity card and I believe The Nationwide and the Post Office do a good card too.

I'd never use a Debit Card for foreign currency transactions though, they always seem to have fees involved.

> I'd never use a Debit Card for foreign currency transactions though, they always seem to have fees involved.

Nationwide used to have commission-free cash withdrawals on their debit cards abroad, but I think it was abused by people who had second homes in other countries so withdrawn a year or two ago. I believe they still offer a commission-free credit card though.

My impression was that the banks made a lot more money from the spread than they did from the commission, so I kind of find that surprising. In Canada it's easy to find commission-free cards. The spread is a hidden fee though, so the banks have hiked that up several times.

The commission-free withdrawals abroad were offered at the wholesale VISA rate. Nationwide didn't take any vig.

Their "Select credit card" still offers EUR and USD purchases with no surcharge and no vig.

I'm pretty sure the Halifax card I mentioned gives the Visa wholesale rate too. I generally get same rate as quoted on FX sites anytime I've checked it.

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