Is this on the Monzo radar? I couldn’t see it on the roadmap.
I know travel reports is a thing, but I do agree it would be cool to be able to see the Mastercard exchange rate for any currency requested, at any time, rather than just on arrival to a country. The MC rate isn’t always the same as the interbank rate.
Revolut offer instant exchange rates for the currencies the user has accounts in. Monzo could go one better by letting the user get choose the currency they want info for.
Reason? Well, if I’m aboard, Monzo is just one of a suite of cards I use. I also have a couple of others. It would be nice to always use the card which gives the best rate at that exact moment and that won’t always by my revolut card, nor will it always be my Monzo. #transparency
Something like this (from xe.com) would maybe be overkill but along these lines would be good:
Meanwhile MasterCard have a tool for customers to calculate their conversions here so clearly the rate data could be made available.
There is, but it shows the mid-market/interbank rate, and that’s not what you’d get when using Monzo. You’d get the Mastercard rate. Should be broadly the same, sometimes it’s better, sometimes it’s worse. I think it’d be cool and befitting of the Monzo values if the app could indicate what you’re actually going to get charged, rather than have the customer do the spade-/guess-work.
I do not use the app so was not sure what it looked like. You had mentioned xe.com so I assumed it was a picture of their website, hence mentioning they had an app in an effort to be helpful. Had you mentioned the app instead of the website I clearly would not have bothered.
I think we are going in circles here, but just in case you weren’t aware: This just isn’t possible, as what you will actually be charged depends on what the rate is when the transaction actually settles, which is usually 2-3 days later, but can take even longer.
That had occurred to me, so a fair point well presented. As for “going in circles” I didn’t see anywhere else on thread where that was pointed out though, apologies if I missed it during my read through.
Whilst we’re not going to know the final cost of a transaction, I still think there’s merit in having the exchange rate available within the app at any moment, as originally accepted by @RichardR but not yet on the roadmap. Maybe horses for courses, but surely that’s what the Ideas tag is for.
Definitely +1 for this that would be a nice added feature to have especially as they use location based tracking for security… Monzo can tie that in to provide this information
Anarchist
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This is something I tend to use Google for. It might not be exactly the same rate, but by the time any transactions are settled there is sometimes a few pennies difference anyway.
What I would find useful, though is to tap your balance to see what it is in the local currency.
Well, it would never be 100% accurate (which is why @hugo has argued against it in the past) as the precise exchange rate you get on settlement can’t be predicted. But the idea is that you have an approximate foreign currency balance displayed alongside your accurate GBP balance to give you an idea of how much you have in local currency. Or maybe you tap on your balance and it shows an approximate local currency balance. Would be a quick way to check what you have in terms of local currency.
However, now we’re well away from the days of a prepaid card, I’m not sure how useful that would be, as knowing my full current account balance in a foreign currency is of limited use. But maybe having the option of seeing a travel pot balance in the local currency. Or tapping on your balance when in a foreign country brings up a quick cheat sheet using the current Mastercard exchange rates (e.g. £1 = €x; £10=€x; £50=€x; £100=€x).