Hi everyone, first-time poster here looking for a recommendation to buy AUD with Japanese YEN. A friend of mine is coming from Japan to study here in Brisbane. She is currently looking to exchange her YEN into AUD for her living expenses here in Australia for the coming years. Can anyone please recommend any place in Brisbane which offers a better rate and possibly no any hidden/commision fees? Any tips?
Thanks heaps!
Hi there thanks for your reply. Okay, I will ask her to check out the website. Yea there are a lot currency exchange shop around CBD and are they really 'no commission'? whats the catch…
Hi there thanks for your reply. Okay, I will ask her to check out the website. Yea there are a lot currency exchange shop around CBD and are they really 'no commission'? whats the catch…
It usually means there's no explicit commission, i.e. they won't outright tell you they're charging some %. Instead, it means the exchange rates (buy/sell prices) have been adjusted to include the commission, i.e. you pay exactly what the buy/sell rates are but they're worse than the middle rate.
Take an example: currently 1 AUD == 82.13 JPY, middle rate (Google, xe). But the current Travelex buy rate only gives you 77.7477 JPY per 1 AUD. That ~5% difference is effectively a hidden commission, but they can say "no commission".
yea I thought so… hopefully someone can recommend somewhere relatively better rate
Funnily enough I have a trip to Japan coming up next month and I'd love to do a local exchange, but I'm in Sydney sooo…
Maybe you want to come to explore the magical city here in Brisbane before going to Japan next month? no? ;D
Could your friend enquire from Japanese banks the best option for withdrawing her money in Australia? If she is studying in Australia, she might need to have maybe a large sum of money and bringing Japanese yen is not always the safest and best option. If they have similar options like Citibank plus debit card, where you can w/d cash from ATMs without fees and good exchange rates, then she will not have to bother about physical currency exchange.
ah that could be an option but she is already got all the money with her and onboard airplane. ;(
Hey there, cheapest option would be to go on a Japanese classified ad site like this and find someone who’s looking to sell their Aussie dollars. Obviously there are risks associated with this method and it’ll probably be a limited, one off exchange each time since they’re all individual sellers but usually they’re just Japanese people who are going back to Japan and looking to sell off their AUD for JPY at the rate Google/Yahoo provides (no fees or commission).
Otherwise she can check out the currency exchange shops around CBD — they all had similar rates and most had “no commission” iirc.