Originally Posted by ajnaro
Data for June 19th, 2006
BRL 1,000 (one thousand Brazilian reais) withdrawn from a Citibank ATM in Rio de Janeiro using Citibank’s banking card with the MC logo.
Amount charged on my Citibank statement:
USD: 444.15
Foreign fee: 4.44
Total: 448.59
Exchange rates for 06/19/06: 444.21/445.70 (bid/ask) interbank rate on oanda.com
Total converted amount for BRL 1,000
according to oanda.com:
445.698 (interbank)
450.158 (interbank+1%, calculated by oanda.com)
According to xe.com:
447.50 (mid-market)
451.98 (mid-market+1%, calculated by me)
Moral: Citibank’s converted amount of USD 444.15 is better than either oanda.com’s interbank rate or xe.com’s mid-market rate. Citibank’s total of USD 448.59 represents a 0.649% markup over oanda.com’s interbank rate and a 0.244% markup over xe.com’s mid-market rate. So … this case seems to show that Citibank’s new foreign fee has not brought the total markup to the 2% level. It seems to be still 1%, or lower. Anyone know of a better deal?
I just did my monthly withdrawal and was surprised by the rate. Compared to my last six w/ds since the beginning of April (last one in mid-June) where I calculated around a 0.8% exchange on average built-in to the main transaction, this time I received nearly the xe.com mid-market rate. So something has indeed changed. I will withhold judgement till I try out another w/d before month end.
And
Boraxo, what I posted and edited on the wiki in late April/early May WAS 100% TRUE as I keep close track of this stuff. Just because I don't have a thousand plus posts doesn't mean I'm full of it. Jeesh, I live overseas and have the luxury of experimenting with stuff like this in real time. If Citibank as of this month finally fixed reality to their T&Cs, great...great for all of us Citibank users. If I find July was a fluke, you can count on me "correcting" the wiki again.
Added: Just checked your edit and take issue with the "0%" for the primary exchange. This is NOT true. According to ajnaro and my yesterday w/d, there is still a bundled exchange fee but apparently not as large as it was April-June. They just knocked a few ticks off in the customer's favor.