Payments while overseas

Its so simple. Go to nearest ATM when travel and draw cash. It always work out cheaper if in Europe, Asia
 
Your best bet is capitec. You get the official MasterCard exchange rate of the day, and no conversion fee. Swipe as much as you can and only draw cash at a atm once or twice. Think the fee for atm withdrawal is R55
 
Corelli said:
Its so simple. Go to nearest ATM when travel and draw cash. It always work out cheaper if in Europe, Asia
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No it doesn’t.

It has ATM fees on top of the normal conversion rate for swipes.

It’s never cheaper. Just put it’s never cheaper domestically.
 
SauRoNZA said:
No it doesn’t.

It has ATM fees on top of the normal conversion rate for swipes.

It’s never cheaper. Just put it’s never cheaper domestically.
Click to expand...

I had no (additional) ATM fees.

Went to Italy with my Capitec debit card -- watch out for the euronet ATMs everywhere, they charge an additional fee. Mostly blue and yellow, google for images.

I went to a Unicredit Bank atm(bancomat).... witdraw money and the Fee was R60 ... and Spot Rate no additional fees. I was quite shocked.
Second withdrawal if I recall/not sure of the bank?? at Poste Italiane bancomat ... same story, spot rate, the R60 fees add up though. (Mastercard logo says it will be compatible). This is far cheaper than going to any bank and buying Forex in SA.

I used my capitec Credit card to pay everywhere... It was accepted most places. Except where they insisted on Cash for small amounts.

Biggest drawback of my capitec card was that does not allow the tap-to-pay... so I had to insert my pin everywhere, bit of a security risk and annoying to pay for a Metro ticket of 1.5Eur. We used flixbus to travel, capitec wants to send you an SMS for 2FA, they cannot switch to mail and I had no roaming... So I used my FNB card for those transactions since they send to mail.
 
znh said:
I had no (additional) ATM fees.

Went to Italy with my Capitec debit card -- watch out for the euronet ATMs everywhere, they charge an additional fee. Mostly blue and yellow, google for images.

I went to a Unicredit Bank atm(bancomat).... witdraw money and the Fee was R60 ... and Spot Rate no additional fees. I was quite shocked.
Second withdrawal if I recall/not sure of the bank?? at Poste Italiane bancomat ... same story, spot rate, the R60 fees add up though. (Mastercard logo says it will be compatible). This is far cheaper than going to any bank and buying Forex in SA.

I used my capitec Credit card to pay everywhere... It was accepted most places. Except where they insisted on Cash for small amounts.

Biggest drawback of my capitec card was that does not allow the tap-to-pay... so I had to insert my pin everywhere, bit of a security risk and annoying to pay for a Metro ticket of 1.5Eur. We used flixbus to travel, capitec wants to send you an SMS for 2FA, they cannot switch to mail and I had no roaming... So I used my FNB card for those transactions since they send to mail.
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Yes yes, we’ve learnt that Capitec has some voodoo that nobody else does.

Even so swiping should always be cheaper.

But interesting you mention 2FA. It’s a non-issue since FNB send it to the app.
 
Just use a Capitec card if there's no other perks. I don't know why people keep pondering over this.

bwana said:
I mean the forex rate they use to do the conversion.
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The standard buy rate when the transaction is posted, not when it's done.
 
im going to India in a few weeks and am intending to use my Capitec Debit card to swipe & to withdraw cash .
with regard to swiping i have found out its free- YAY!
but apparently i will be asked if i want to pay in local currency or Rands & i have to select Rands- is that correct?

when it comes to withdrawals, im not clear about the rate i will get when im withdrawing Indian Rupees.
Xe Currency Converter shows that R1=Rs5.0373
is that the rate that i will receive with Captec?-if i was in India right now and i withdrew cash.

i understand theres a R60 per transaction fee but apart from that i would like some clarity on the rate i will receive.
can anyone here tell me for sure?
 
Don't think you can elect to have the transaction in Rands as standard POS services lack that functionality. As for the rate it will be the standard forex rate plus the 0.2% Mastercard fee.
 
Swa said:
Don't think you can elect to have the transaction in Rands as standard POS services lack that functionality. As for the rate it will be the standard forex rate plus the 0.2% Mastercard fee.
Click to expand...
In swedan at the airport I could select rands or krona, but that was only place I saw it before.
 
msmoorad said:
im going to India in a few weeks and am intending to use my Capitec Debit card to swipe & to withdraw cash .
with regard to swiping i have found out its free- YAY!
but apparently i will be asked if i want to pay in local currency or Rands & i have to select Rands- is that correct?

when it comes to withdrawals, im not clear about the rate i will get when im withdrawing Indian Rupees.
Xe Currency Converter shows that R1=Rs5.0373
is that the rate that i will receive with Captec?-if i was in India right now and i withdrew cash.

i understand theres a R60 per transaction fee but apart from that i would like some clarity on the rate i will receive.
can anyone here tell me for sure?
Click to expand...

India is very much a cash based transactional economy.. they are however changing to QR code based payment system (not MasterPass compliant) which is taking off but sadly it’s not hooked up to card associations (cost) and more for local banks (closed loops cards).

Apparently they want to introduce something for tourists but costs are prohibitive and in India telecoms and banking costs are what gov has been targeting to improve their gini coefficient along with improving tax compliance and use of smaller bills to reduce fraud and force banking.

Regardless of card system you take, not all POS/PED systems will handle transaction due to spotty service outside of maybe hotel and ATMs at a bank. The popular place do support MC/Visa though so taking case is handy when it doesn’t work.

I found that taking out +/- R2.5k worth of their currency for a solo week long business trip was enough in a little town mainly for cab/bike and when buying small value items or stores where POS/PED wasn’t working.

Note: India, like north of our borders have smaller portion sizes so hungry hippos factor this in.

Get currency in SA or at airport atm in India.

Cellular networks take 1 week to activate for most networks.. Jio works well for most places and instantly activates (take your passport & cash.. this is agency banking/telecoms like found in Africa so no POS/PED) but not sold at airport (usually reliance store has agent to do activations).

Data is cheap.. I ended up buying a crap load of data haha. India is a **very** conservative country so internet is restricted.. find a VPN service with a trial you can use. For Showmax & DSTV it won’t work so setup a VPN at home.
 
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Swa said:
Don't think you can elect to have the transaction in Rands as standard POS services lack that functionality. As for the rate it will be the standard forex rate plus the 0.2% Mastercard fee.
Click to expand...
Keep in mind the rate isn't the one you'll find on the net, you probably need to add about 2% for the bank's spread.
 
msmoorad said:
im going to India in a few weeks and am intending to use my Capitec Debit card to swipe & to withdraw cash .
with regard to swiping i have found out its free- YAY!
but apparently i will be asked if i want to pay in local currency or Rands & i have to select Rands- is that correct?

when it comes to withdrawals, im not clear about the rate i will get when im withdrawing Indian Rupees.
Xe Currency Converter shows that R1=Rs5.0373
is that the rate that i will receive with Captec?-if i was in India right now and i withdrew cash.

i understand theres a R60 per transaction fee but apart from that i would like some clarity on the rate i will receive.
can anyone here tell me for sure?
Click to expand...


It’s called DCC, dynamic currency conversion and it moves the rate from the card issuer to the acquirer and generally costs more if you not paying conversion fees so I would choose the local option and not rands!
 
Speedster said:
I highly doubt this. If true, they're close to the only bank in the world who doesn't charge a spread on currency conversion
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Think what you mean is a margin. Spread is the difference between the buy and sell rates and is usually a fraction of a percent. Margin is an extra percentage banks add as a fee so the spread becomes like 2% between buy and sell. And yeah Capitec is the only bank in SA I know of that doesn't charge any fee except the 0.2% Mastercard charges.
 
Swa said:
Think what you mean is a margin. Spread is the difference between the buy and sell rates and is usually a fraction of a percent. Margin is an extra percentage banks add as a fee so the spread becomes like 2% between buy and sell. And yeah Capitec is the only bank in SA I know of that doesn't charge any fee except the 0.2% Mastercard charges.
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Spread and margin, in the way you have described them, are the same thing. The difference between the buy and sell rates is because the banks add their commission. In SA this is usually around 1.5% for major currencies (USD, EUR, GBP) and 2.5% for other currencies.

If true about Capitec selling at the mid-market rate, that is really cool.
 
Speedster said:
Spread and margin, in the way you have described them, are the same thing. The difference between the buy and sell rates is because the banks add their commission. In SA this is usually around 1.5% for major currencies (USD, EUR, GBP) and 2.5% for other currencies.

If true about Capitec selling at the mid-market rate, that is really cool.
Click to expand...
It is not the same thing. Spread is the natural difference between buy/sell prices. Margin is a fee the bank adds on top. Capitec has no margin and from what I've been able to gather charges the buy rate at the time of posting of the transaction plus the 0.2% Mastercard fee.

Keep in mind other banks you'll pay the Mastercard/Visa fee, the margin and in some cases a conversion fee.
 
I have just used Capitec extensively in Japan, mainly to draw cash which I then deposited into a Japanese Suica card, for general use (it's a type of cash card that they use for everything).

No problems, and the rates seemed to be pretty good.

Can definitely recommend.

I got nailed by Standard Bank and FNB on credit card purchases, it was actually better to just use Capitec..

Note that it wasn't a Capitec credit card, just the normal debit card on a savings account.
 
Swa said:
It is not the same thing. Spread is the natural difference between buy/sell prices. Margin is a fee the bank adds on top. Capitec has no margin and from what I've been able to gather charges the buy rate at the time of posting of the transaction plus the 0.2% Mastercard fee.

Keep in mind other banks you'll pay the Mastercard/Visa fee, the margin and in some cases a conversion fee.
Click to expand...
There is no natural difference between buy and sell prices. If you buy my car for R100k your buying price is exactly equal to my selling price. If we use an agent the agent will take commission which will create a spread between the buy and sell prices
 
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