Foreign charges whilst using the card abroad

Monzo Chat Travelling with Monzo
1

Hello All,

Planning to use my card abroad can you help?

Would be interested in learning about your experiences using the card abroad and any related charges applied from on the account?

  • ATM fees

  • foreign exchange fees

Thanks

2

Hi Daniel, there’s no fees for either :tada:

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3

Monzo won’t charge you a fee, but the ATM’s bank might.

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4

Thanks Alex however just to be clear:

  • no atm fee charged by monzo but there could be an atm charge for use by the owner of the foreign atm?

  • fx rate is provided by mastercard - low but not trading margin free? (sorry to be pedantic)

Cheers
Daniel

5

You’re welcome :slight_smile:

Yes that’s correct.

Emphasis mine.

This means that Monzo don’t make any money or add any fees when they convert your payment to another currency. MasterCard sets the exchange rate & converts your payment using that exchange rate.

I’m not 100% sure what you mean by ‘trading margin’ I’m afraid. But hopefully that helps?

And in case you’re interested, there’s more detail on how this works in the background in this blog post -

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6

As you understood it Alexs. Trade price plus Mastercard’s margin/cut/percentage on the trade.

Understood. Any charges (handling or FX) abroad will only be from the owner of the foreign owned.

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7

Took my new card to NI and Eire on holiday. Absolutely thrilled with it, ease of use, ease (too easy !?) to top up. No problems at all. Except AIB ATM said it was charging 2.5% fee. We were a bit befuddled with the whole Q&A re which currency we wanted to transact in, so just went for it (valuable Guinness time was being wasted here). However checking statement back home I can’t see mention of a fee. Exchange rate was pretty poor (though this was immediately after the election) so wonder if the fee was reflected in the rate??
Was really pleased with the cards performance and intend to continue using at home as a means of managing my spending.

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8

Hmmm! :neutral_face:

@Pimms16 Do you remember what you selected when ATM asked for dynamic currency conversion? If you used it - that would explain bad exchange rate. Dynamic currency conversion uses ATM’s exchange rate which can be absolutely outrageous. As an outcome, transactions should show in the app as just GBP.

Overall, if you didn’t use dynamic, transactions should look like this:

You can see Monzo’s rate in the app, while DCC should just show how much GBP was taken, without any mention of foreign currency (I think! I never did that, so I can’t show a screenshot).

Depending on a country, some ATMs do not allow withdrawals without DCC (they make hefty profit on all transactions where they control currency rates!). Some ATMs ask like 3 times if you want DCC, but always, always, select an answer that will skip DCC, so you get Monzo’s rate!

If you’d like, post fragment of screenshot, we can figure it out! Please make sure you don’t reveal any personal details you wouldn’t like anyone to see. :slight_smile:

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9

I have tested Monzo in the Dominican Republic. It is not always working. Apparently you need to enable the stripe payment. On Atm all of them are charging a fee to withdraw whereby this does not happen with my other currency card. In Italy no charges at all and works well. Only issue is the 3k per year limit. If you travel I suggest you bring more than one currency card with you because they behave differently.

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10

Quote from a chat with a Malaysian bank: “Please be informed that you may using your UK ATM/Debit Card if the said ATM/Debit Card has Cirrus logo for Mastercard or Plus logo for Visa card”

Does this applies to Monzo?

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11

Cirrus is part of MasterCard so technically it should work, unless they explicitly disable anything but Cirrus for some reason.

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12

The Cirrus and Plus logos are different to the main Mastercard and Visa logos and often appear separately on the back of cards in addition to the main logo on the front, although this does seem to be dying out as a practice in the UK.

I have heard a few years ago of Visa cards not showing the Plus logo having problems in some US ATMs, but I have not heard of similar issues with non Cirrus branded Mastercards. Although that is not to say it hasn’t happened. Perhaps Monzo could speak to Mastercard to clarify their card acceptance in ATM on their Cirrus network?

Canadian, US, Venezuelan, Chilean and Saudi ATMs use the Cirrus network alongside their local networks, and many banks have adopted Cirrus as their international interbank network alongside either their domestic network, rival Visa’s ‘Plus’ ATM network, or both.

In countries such as India or Bangladesh, the Cirrus network also serves as the domestic interbank network as well as an international network.

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13

I tried to use the card in Thailand and it shows that I will be charged for about ‎£5 (200 baht)
(The cash machine has Cirrus/Visa/Mastercard logo)

14

That’s the ATM fee; it’s charged by the bank who owns the ATM. Monzo doesn’t make any money from the transaction. It’s pretty much impossible to avoid this charge when using a foreign card in Thailand.

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15

Yes, I’m pretty sure it was not from Monzo. Thanks, now I just seeing another thread quite helpful.

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