Originally Posted by
pstm91
I work for a Wall St. Broker/Dealer and am able to follow current rates. I wish I had a recent specific example for you, but my experiences were from several months ago. I just remember looking at my Schwab statement a few days after I made a withdrawal as I was curious and noticing it was substantially off (in Schwab's favor) from what the rate at the time was (at that time I was in Romania). I just happened to see this thread the other day and it reminded me of that time, so I wanted to see if others had experienced the same thing. While it's great they will reimburse the fees, I feel like they are just making up for it with their rates.
I used to have the Morgan Stanley Premier Wealth Management debit card, which also reimbursed fees globally, and I never had any issues with the exchange rates.
I can't speak to the debit card but I think as we're end-users here we're not going to get WS bank rates.
Originally Posted by
ft101
If you're using ATMs, the rate is set by the payment processor (usually Visa or Mastercard IME). Schwab have no effect on it.
that's correct, it seems.
Originally Posted by
pstm91
Interesting, I didn't realize that. I've never really put much thought into it, but I just assumed it was the opposite and that the banks set the rate and then Visa/MC took a cut. Thanks!
I have text alerts set up for my Schwab when making non-US withdrawals; the texts inform me of the amount I have withdrawn in USD. I then go to Visa's exchange rate calculator and enter the foreign amount I have withdrawn and it ties to the USD amount I received in the text. Visa's official FX rate calculator can be found here and they mark-up the FX based off of European Central Bank's rate (as it will be noted when using the calculator):
https://usa.visa.com/support/consume...alculator.html
I do wish Schwab had a MC debit card so I can compare rates. Here is MC's calculator:
https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/pers...-currency.html
When I use credit cards internationally (e.g., Chase, Citi [the ones without FX fees]) their rates don't seem to match the Visa and MC calculator. It's slightly worse than the Schwab debit card...
There's no longer a calculator for AMEX but the few times I've used it the rates were worse than the other two.