Do VISA give their rates for a foreign currency conversion?
It's all very well for Nationwide to say they don't charge 1% commission on overseas VISA use but then my doesn't either. Or does it - and just wraps it up the conversion?
Visa's exchange rates can be found here.
I usually find that my Nationwide card offers pretty close to the posted rate that day. My Amex card (and previous cards) usually have a poorer exchange rate, so I'm guessing that the commission is buried in there somewhere.
On non-Nationwide cards (and one or others), you should see a statement something like "this includes a currency conversion fee of 2.75%" - think this is a pretty standard fee.
VISA and Mastercard are schemes that the banks (issuer's) use to process transactions. The schemes offer an exchange rate that is VERY close to the real exchange rate for that day. The issuer's (your credit card company) then usually charge up to 2.75% extra on that exchange rate when converting the foreign currency into sterling. Nationwide have a credit card that does not due this, so you actually get the same exchange rate that VISA gives - i.e. Nationwide makes no money on these transactions bar interchange (but I won't go into that one but you've probably read about it in the papers).
More likely to read it here than the papers. Try a google search in groups for Nationwide credit card.
Neb
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