Debit card with no ATM/FX fees?

[TrueTroop]

Hey guys, do any of you have or know of any banks (can be anywhere in the world really) that offer debit cards with no additional fees for withdrawing cash in a different currency, or with no additional fee for using an ATM internationally? Most banks for example charge a fixed fee per international ATM transaction PLUS 2-3% currency conversion fee. I know some don't (listed below) but I am interested in learning about others

Cards with no such fees;

-TD bank USA (premier personal Visa debit card, no FX or foreign ATM fees)
-Mercury bank USA (business Visa debit card, no foreign ATM fees, and low 1% currency conversion fee)
-HSBC bank USA (premier personal Visa debit card, no FX or foreign ATM fees)
-Nuri bank Germany (personal Mastercard, no FX or foreign ATM fees)

I would open the account with that bank, even if it has a higher minimum (like some of the above to get those perks), and request that card to be associated with the account. As long as I can withdrawal cash largely without fees around the world....

 

[TrueTroop]

Nobody knows of any other such cards?

Any European or Asian cards offer anything similiar? No foreign ATM fees at least

 

[BlueMist]

There are many of such cards, but on top of my head:

- Standard Chartered Singapore Bonus$aver Multi-Currency account, you can hold many currencies under 1 account and overseas ATM withdrawals are free as long as your currency matches the withdrawing currency. I am not sure about the daily withdrawal limits though.
- Citibank Poland - their debit card can be linked to EUR currency account. Any transactions using this card in other than USD, GBP, PLN currency will go directly via Mastercard FX rates (EUR -> FCY). Normal limits PLN 5,000 daily or Citigold PLN 10,000 daily (€2200 equivalent in EUR). Now keep in mind for EUR balance there is a fee depending on the amount and your status.

There is no true 0% FX fee card in the world. MC / Visa always take its cut. MC takes 1% admin fee. So to make any 0% FX card true 0% FX it would be have to be -1% FX card

 

[Sols]

Revolut and Wise if you want prepaid/debit cards.

Swissquote if you want a credit card.

It's not 0% on all currencies but it's 0% on a lot of them.

There is no true 0% FX fee card in the world. MC / Visa always take its cut. MC takes 1% admin fee. So to make any 0% FX card true 0% FX it would be have to be -1% FX card

When I've compared Mastercard's rate with the mid-market rate, their markup is usually well under 1%.

Mastercard Currency Converter | Currency Exchange Rate Calculator

Mastercard currency converter tool calculates foreign exchange rates for all the major currencies worldwide to enable cross-border purchases and ATM transactions.

www.mastercard.com

For example, if you bought something for 10,000 JPY yesterday and your base currency is EUR, Mastercard would convert 10,000 JPY to 76.83 EUR. 1 JPY = 0.0076831 EUR. That's the rate you would get with for example Swissquote's credit cards.

As of writing, the reference rate from ECB is 1 JPY = 0.007666 EUR. That puts Mastercard's markup at around 0.263%.

 

[BlueMist]

When I've compared Mastercard's rate with the mid-market rate, their markup is usually well under 1%.

For example, if you bought something for 10,000 JPY yesterday and your base currency is EUR, Mastercard would convert 10,000 JPY to 76.83 EUR. 1 JPY = 0.0076831 EUR. That's the rate you would get with for example Swissquote's credit cards.

As of writing, the reference rate from ECB is 1 JPY = 0.007666 EUR. That puts Mastercard's markup at around 0.263%.

Maybe it depends on the currency? For example I have ADCB Traveller Mastercard which has 0% FX fees. Now if someone would have a true 0% FX fees having AED to USD pegged at 3.6736 this would be expected rate (as per Mastercard) on USD transactions. However the rate settled is always 3.71, meaning full 1% admin fee was taken by MC.

Also things may work differently for both EUR / USD as settlement currencies, as this 2 currencies are exclusively used worldwide by MC / Visa. So naturally having EUR card with 0% FX fees should normally (based on my experience) offer the best rates if the card issuer is settling via EUR by default. There are banks even in Europe for which Mastercard is using USD as the main settlement currency. So such JPY payment from EUR card could still result in double conversion as it would be JPY -> USD -> EUR.

 

[Fred]

Look into Citibank Global Wallet.

Depending on the Citibank Country you choose - you can pay in up to 12 different currencies without any FX.

So all first world country currencies inlcuding CHF and some asians HKD/SGD/TBH are covered.

You can either choose which account you want to have the card link or you activate the Global Wallet for Smart Spend so that the Debit Card automatically charges your EUR balance when purchasing the EUR area.

For everything else - as mentioned previously - even with Traveller Cards or 0% FX cards (means 0% from the bank side) you always end up with 1-1.5% VISA or MasterCard itself charges for the FX.

 

[TrueTroop]

1) I have looked into using Revolut/Wise, but the withdrawal limits are too low, like 200-300 euro monthly, or additional fees past 1 free withdrawal monthly which is not enough.

2) Yes that is right, FX fee is NOT 0% but as long as Mastercard or Visa is during the currency conversion and NOT the bank itself, the commission (probably because of the volumne the card networks do) is very very low, I've see always less than 1% commission even, those are the cards I am looking for (the banks for these cards always state the FX fee is only the rate mastercard/visa have for that day and often link to the mastercard/visa page with their latest currency rates for that day).

3) Not looking for a credit card, because when you withdrawal cash from them, it is considered a money advance and the interest rate can be 20+ %. But a few new debit cards were named, thanks for that guys, will look into how easy/difficult they are to get

4) I have an EU visa card, issued by an EU bank, and for currency conversions it does actually use USD as a reference haha, always found that strange...However, I don't get charged a double commission or something like that, I always calculated and it always uses the full market rate so I am not sure why it doesn't just use the local currency as a reference instead.

The biggest problem now is actually finding a bank WITHOUT negative interest rates on EUR savings....Anyone got any leads on that? The rate is not too negative, but it does make it more annoying to save in EUR when I do want to diversify some savings into other currencies....

 

[daxbr]

There are banks in eastern Europe that issue debit cards linked to sub accounts in different currencies and charges deducted respectively.

 

[BlueMist]

The biggest problem now is actually finding a bank WITHOUT negative interest rates on EUR savings....Anyone got any leads on that? The rate is not too negative, but it does make it more annoying to save in EUR when I do want to diversify some savings into other currencies....

Standard Chartered Singapore as recommended above.