Where do you do currency exchanges?

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alexb

alexb

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Dec 6, 2007
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I ordered 100,000 yen from my bank today. They told me that there was no fee on top of the small service charge, and that I would get the exact conversion rate.

They lied. XE.com reports ~95 yen to the dollar, and the bank got me 87. Very pissed at the moment. Where do you guys get your foreign monies?
 


I just remembered as well when i was in Tokyo in Feb, for some reason alot of foreigners had trouble pulling money out of ATM's, and could only use Citibank ATM'S, which were not common. I think the japanese ATM's use a different system or something which is not always compatible.

Maybe someone else can verify this, but my bank card worked in 7-11.
 
thuxen said:
I just remembered as well when i was in Tokyo in Feb, for some reason alot of foreigners had trouble pulling money out of ATM's, and could only use Citibank ATM'S, which were not common. I think the japanese ATM's use a different system or something which is not always compatible.

Maybe someone else can verify this, but my bank card worked in 7-11.
Click to expand...

Yeah, my friend in Japan told me to just use the local ATMs, but considering ATMs shut down at night (wtf) and no guarantee that they'd work at all, I wanted to have a decent amount on hand when I stepped foot in the country.
 
Usually the airport currency exchanges are the best rates. The big ones... Can't remember the name but you can transfer back within 90 days for no fees usually. The biggest one, yellow sign.

Have to keep your receipt and do it at the same country/place.

Banks and currency places in towns have the worst rates as they know you are desperate and need some cash for hotels, food, etc.
 
Usually the bigger the exchange, the closer you'll get to the posted rate. A bank will never go through the hassle of ordering you in Japanese Yen and give it to you for nothing (they'll cut you a break on huge volume or if you're a VIP client or something like that). They have to make money somehow.
 
I've done a lot of currency exchanges and the currency booths at the airport are usually the absolute worst option. They charge anywhere from 10-20%!

Banks are #2 on the crappiest exchange rates list. 5-10% take.

XE.com/CustomHouse will get you very close to mid-market rates. 1-1.5% take.

The best place for exchanging money is with your Bank's trading floor. If you work with a larger bank, ask them to get you in touch with the traders direct. You should do at least $100K/year to get access to them though.

As for Japan's bank machines, don't count on using them at all. The vast majority of them won't work with North American cards. Some vending machines will be compatible, but they'll charge you high fees and give crappy exchange rates.

And yes, the machines are usually closed after 8pm and on weekends. It's like they have a machine union or something. If you do find a machine that's open after hours, you get charged double the fees.
 
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