BIC hasn’t been required for several years as they can work it out from the IBAN.
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Does the cashback show after a few days or only once the month rolls over?
Does anyone else have their iFast notifications on iPhone come in quietly? No vibration like the rest of the apps, and it is not being blocked by focus mode. iOS
iFast exchange rate is not great, at least based on GBP to USD conversion (sell GBP for USD) that I checked this morning, between 9-9:05am
Mid market (Bloomberg) around 1.3308-09
Zing 1.3305 for small amount no fee, 1.328 with fee - still the best rate all around but obviously no more Zing in 1 month
T212 1.3286
Wise 1.327
Revolut standard no fee 1.3266 (/ 1.3355 if sell USD for GBP)
iFast 1.3234
HSBC GM 1.3209
So iFast exchange rate is worse than all the usual e-money suspects.
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This has been my experience for Euros, but the difference between Revolut and iFast for me was even bigger (in favour of Revolut). iFast’s 2% cashback will compensate with money to spare, but once cashback ends i Fast won’t be able to compete for foreign transactions. Even Starling with their 0.4% seems to beat it.
For the currencies I use (Not EUR/USD), iFast only beats Wise up to around £320-350 equivalent, beyond that, Wise beats it.
Do iFast not use the Visa wholesale rate?
For some reason I though they did..
What is it with iFast Visa Debit Card, which makes it appear as a foreign card in UK, and not a bona-fide UK-issued card ? HSBC ATM warned me that “your issuer might charge a fee for cash withdrawal” when I used iFast card, something I’ve never seen with UK-issued bank card. And Lufthansa wanted to charge me an extra £13 for using a “foreign card”, while an UK Amex didn’t incur any extra charge (when paying in £). I suppose the card must still be seen either as Singapore- or Bahrain- issued.
Is that even legal in the UK?
We aren’t part of the EU so yes 
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No this is the Lufthansa UK website (there’s even a link to it from TCB). You can choose to pay in GBP or EUR, the fx rate applied is almost perfectly mid market so there is no arbitrage. I paid with UK Amex with no extra charge, I assume this is the case with any UK DC or CC (except iFast’s)
Pretty sure it’s dependent on whether the cashpoint sees it as a UK card or an international card.
Regardless what the website says, something isn’t set right if it’s charging fees as such.
I have used three BIN checkers and they all list it as a credit card.
Could that be the reason?
What is the BIN?
- General Ban: The Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012 ban businesses from charging extra fees for using credit or debit cards for most retail transactions.
- Exceptions: The ban does not apply to commercial debit or credit cards.
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The only one that seems to be reliable is: https://www.binbase.com/search.html
What does it say?
That would explain HSBC warning about a possible charge if it thinks its a credit card.
Not the Lufthansa issue though, unless their database is out of date.
Actually, it might do, What are the next two digits of the bin?