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How can you check the markup charged when exchanging money?
Every time you travel outside the eurozone, you exchange your euros for whichever currency you need. In this process, you always lose some money — the person buying your euros keeps a portion (a commission) and gives you less value in foreign currency. How can you check the markup being charged on these transactions? The process is simple.
First, you need to know the rate in the global currency market, which you can always check for free at eur.fxrate.io. For example, suppose you want to exchange euros for US dollars and the market rate is 1.07 dollars per euro.
In the past, your money would be converted at the market rate and you would be charged a separate, fixed commission for the transaction (for example, €5). More recently, money-exchange companies advertise that they charge no commission — but in reality they charge an even larger commission through the rate at which they agree to exchange your money. They do this by converting your money at rates different from the market rate: for example, instead of exchanging 1 euro at 1.07 dollars, they would agree to exchange it at 1.02 dollars per euro, keeping the difference as a hidden commission.
Exchange offices typically keep between 3% and 5% of your money as commission. Once you know the market rate, calculate prices within ±5% of that rate. For our example: 1.07 + 5% = 1.1235 and 1.07 - 5% = 1.0165.
Keep these figures as an indication of the maximum commission on your transaction, and try to stay within those bounds when negotiating. The closer you get to the global market rate, the smaller the markup the exchange office earns.
In our example, the market rate is 1.07 dollars per euro and, with a 5% commission/margin, the rate is 1.0165 dollars per euro. Under these conditions, we would never accept exchanging euros for less than 1.0165 dollars per euro.