Foreign Currency

but there isnā€™t a charge

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But yes, as Jpiz points out, there are no fees or charges when you use Monzo abroad -

youā€™d only need this feature if you wanted a way to receive transfers in foreign currency / store foreign currency etc.

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I understand there are no fees for using your card abroad. But does that include the ā€˜non Stirlingā€™ transaction fee?

Yes, thatā€™s a fee that your bank is kindly adding onto your transaction for you :grimacing: Monzo doesnā€™t charge you that fee.

If you spend money in a foreign currency using your Monzo card abroad, you are not charged any fees at all.

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I love this bank even more now. Thank you :heart:ļø

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And the legacy banks wonder why people are fed up with their poor service and extra hidden charges for spending your own money!!?!

Monzo to the rescue!

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I think the only reason someone would want to do this is to secure a certain exchange rate. If a currency is very volatile then it might be good to buy a load when it peaks.

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if you could buy at that rate and transfer it from your main GBĀ£ account to a ā‚¬UR pot you would need a ā‚¬UR denominated card linked to that pot or if you later have to use your GBĀ£ card to spend the money it will be converted at that time and it best to use a card where no conversion needed

Thats my situationā€¦

I make money in euros / gbp and less frequently USDā€¦ Would love to put my EUR into a EUR pot (and spend there) and my GBP into a GBP pot.

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Currency pots like this arenā€™t arenā€™t in our immediate plans. Itā€™s a nice idea, and something I imagine our users may explore further using the API in the future, as Tom mentioned here

There is also the Revolut paradigm where with a single card the following happens:

  • if transaction-currency pot has enough funds > it is used.

  • else > gbp pot is used using MasterCard conversion rate.

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Paul, Iā€™ve been thinking of a similar thing for a while now. To build on the suggestions by Christos, PhatPheddy and others, what about the following suggestion for Monzo:

  1. Account: A Monzo account can have multiple currency ā€œwalletsā€ in the account (GBP, EUR, USD, others)
  2. Currency transfer:
    a) You could have those currencies transferred to your Monzo account from another account
    b) You could deposit different currencies into the account
    c) You could purchase currencies at an agreed spot rate with Monzo, and have that deposited in the different currency wallets
  3. Spending abroad:
    a) When you travel, Monzo can ask you which ā€œwalletā€ you want to use to pay for the transaction (so if you want to buy something worth $10 you can pay from your dollar wallet or the equivalent from your GBP wallet at the prevalent spot rate (letā€™s say Ā£6.67); or
    b) When you travel, you pay for everything from the predominant account currency (letā€™s say GBP), and then in the background Monzo works out which conversion would be cheapest for the user by comparing the amount that would be deducted from the predominant account at the prevalent spot rate versus the amount that would be deducted from the currency wallet, and then deducting the amount from that wallet
    (For example, you want to make a purchase costing $10. Monzo calculates that the purchase would deduct Ā£6.67 from your predominant account at the prevalent spot rate of Ā£1:$1.5. However, when you transferred dollars to your dollar wallet you locked in a rate of Ā£1:$2, and so $10 then only cost you Ā£5 - therefore it would be cheaper for you to pay for the $10 purchase in dollars).

Just a few thoughts :slight_smile:

Revolut is a really good example of how to do this

Hi!
Can a European user set up Monzo in ā‚¬?
My brother lives in Spain & would love to join us.
Thanks

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Hi :slight_smile:

Iā€™ve moved your post here, as thereā€™s some info on this earlier in the thread (TL;DR not yet, unfortunately).

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Thanks Alex. Weā€™ll wait 4 it

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Just an idea:
Iā€™m currently travelling in Belgium and decided to monzo the money for the shopping across to my friend. Would there be any scope to do a contacts transfer and select the ā‚¬ currency instead of Ā£?

Sorry if itā€™s already been stated.

Monzo currency is in GBP. If you want ā‚¬ you can withdraw it from an ATM.

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Thanks for the reply. Iā€™m aware of the setup, but the example Iā€™m trying to get across is:
Myself and a mate have just bought shopping at a supermarket and obviously paid in ā‚¬ā€¦rather than calculate an exchange rate (yes Iā€™m lazy) I would like to see that I can monzo pay in euros.
So it basically calculates for you.

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That sounds like it would build upon the ideas discussed in this topic quite nicely :slight_smile: