How much more than the interbank rate? (ATM question)

It will depend on the fees your bank charges for International Transactions........My bank passes in the institutional fees (a transaction fee and a conversion fee) that is a percent of the withdrawal, generally it amounts to 1%, in most cases, I barely notice it as they might get the "best" rate of the day and the published rate is a bit higher.......Your bank may tack on a per transaction fee plus a percentage, so ask.

The exchange rate you get will totally be determined by your own bank or credit card company at home. Your best chance at savings is to find the card with the lowest fees. European banks - unlike here - do not charge a fee for using their ATM's.

My bank charges a 1% conversion fee, plus $1 per withdrawal. So it's the interbank rate, plus those fees, plus any Italian bank fees? Does the Italian bank charge conversion fees? Sorry for being so dense! :)

No - the only conversion fee will be the one charged by your own bank.

Thank you so much! :)

Just to make this clear. The interbank rate is the starting point - more or less. For example use a 1.30 exchange rate. At you step up to the ATM in Europe, assuming a bank owned ATM and not a private ATM, you have to use a network Cirrus or Plus which are the most common and available to Am tourist, and they set the exchange rate. It will be 1% or less over the current interbank rate but it is hard to pin down the exact rate because the rate changes minute to minute. So that 1.30 rate may become 1.31xxxxx. There is no charge by the owner of the ATM that your are using so that 1.31xxx will show up on your statement as the starting point. From that point forward ALL CHARGES are solely determine by your card issuer. So call them and ask them. Any time you see a rate on xe.com or the newspaper it is only a snapshot of what the rate was at a particular moment in time or an average for the day. It will be very close and not the exact rate. But as they say, It will be close enough for government work.

Julia, This is from the Visa site: "How does Visa calculate its rate? Every day[INVALID]except weekends, Memorial Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Day[INVALID]Visa calculates the rate for the next day's transactions. The Visa rate is [INVALID]ed from a range of rates available in wholesale currency markets or the government-mandated rate in effect one day prior to the applicable central processing date. Visa makes this rate available to issuing banks, which may adjust the rate when billing cardholders by applying a foreign transaction fee." Today's rate set by Visa is 1.375 the interbank rate as of now has fluctuated between 1.375 and 1.368. As everyone has said your financial institution does all the add ons.

"Visa makes this rate available to issuing banks, which may adjust the rate when billing cardholders by applying a foreign transaction fee." What Visa didn't say is that something called the "Network" (Visa, themselves, MC, Cirrus, Plus, et al, charge you bank ½% for paying the European bank in Euro, and ½% for converting the currency from Euro to US$. So, if you use a small, local bank (like 1stBank in Denver) you get charged 1%. However, large banks (Wells Fargo, Chase, and USBank), which have a foreign currency operation, pay the Network in Euro, absorb the ½% transaction fee, but charge you another ~3% (depending on the bank) for currency converion, something the network would have done for you for ½%.

Here is a recent real-life example. One day last week, I took 200 Euro from a bank ATM in Europe. I used my Chase debit card. I was charged the official exchange rate (which I verified with online tools) of $1.35855 to 1 Euro ($271.71), plus a 3% transaction fee ($8.15), for an effective exchange rate of $1.3993. So about $0.04 more per euro than the official rate. In addition, Chase charges a $3.00 per ATM transfaction fee, regardless of the amount of withdrawal.

I see a RS article in today's Seattle Times about problems using US credit/ATM cards in Europe. Well worth the reading.