Bankwest emailed and just updated my debit card to platinum for free. Assume it applies to all.
Pair it with the Bankwest Zero and your debit and credit cards will essentially be fee free for international use.
No need to go with two different banks. Time to ditch Citibank.
Up is honestly better. The MasterCard rate is typically better than Wise's
I'd be very nervous to put my actual card number for online international transaction, or use the actual card offline while abroad.
Last time used the ANZ card online and few days later there's transaction from Amsterdam.
Maybe Apple/Google pay or use paypal/revolut.
HSBC visa debit card has have zero transaction and foreign currency conversion fees on all international ATM'S. I also noticed that I wasn't being charged an ATM withdrawal fee from ATM'S in Indonesia. Huge savings! Im not sure if that has anything to do with HSBC's affiliations to the banks that I withdrew from? I'm interested to test in other countries.
Which bank in Indonesia?
HSBC itself doesn't charge ATM fees but the ATM provider may. The safest ATM to use without any fees of all types would be the HSBC ATM itself. In Malaysia, I found out Maybank ATM also doesn't charge ATM fee and neither did HSBC.
How's this compare with the HSBC Everyday Global debit card? heading OS soon and was planning on using that.
HSBC is a weird one where the FX rates are actually not the Visa/Mastercard rates and rather a bank rate with a huge margin.
Good to know, thanks. So overall, the best international card is Bankwest or Macquarie ?
I'd go with multiple, but use UP as a main one - just works perfectly.
This. I looked at HSBC and they have a 2% spread on all FX. So if you are withdrawing $1000 from an ATM, it would be about a $20 fee. You'd be better off in most cases with this Bankwest Card or a Macquarie Bank
I think bankwest Qantas debit card is better value
If you do alot of foreign currency purchasing, go for a Wise card/account which consistently gives you great exchange rates. The card is a VISA debit. I haven't checked the BankWest exchange rates, but as this is a "no fee" card, their margin / profit will probably be included in the exchange rate.
PS: You can also add the Wise card to Apple/Google wallets, just like other cards.
All cards use the visa/MC spot rate, the ones that do charge a fee of 2.5% or whatever will usually do it as a separate line item like 'international transaction fee'.
So TLDR, this card will give you very close to the exact spot rate and be automatically 2.5% better than the average card.
I was travelling with a friend who had Wise and he had major problems trying to use it anywhere, he had to get me to pay for stuff and withdraw cash for him with my ING card. YMMV.
Was the problem just trying to withdraw cash? Or actually using the card to pay?
This was in Thailand, when trying to pay with card terminals. We were in modern food court shops in the big high rise shopping malls and they'd be struggling away with the machine, but i could immediately tap my bankwest or ING (cant remember which).
Personally I'm temporarily trapped with a CBA card due to my mortage and the fees are just silly, so i would really just take $1-2k cash for a similar trip - saves at least about $24 in ATM fees (assuming 3 withdrawals) as long as its not any country where muggings are likely.
The Wise card works differently. You open "jars" (or something like that) for the currencies you want to spend in. (US $, GBP, Yen etc), then when you purchase, the transaction goes through via the Wise card in the native currency, which is converted by Wise at a rate very close to the inter-bank rate (no visa/MC intermediary rate). If you don't have enough/any money in the "jar" for the currency you are purchasing in, they automatically convert it from another currency/jar.
This is particularly useful for purchases from the likes of Amazon in the USA, where they would normally try and convert from US$ to AUD$ for you (with a fee of course). When using the Wise card you keep the currency as US$ and it takes care of the rest.
Might not suit everyone, but I've used this card in the US, UK, EU and Japan without any issues (online and in person), so not sure what happened to your friend.
I found the Wise rates aren't always better especially when you factor in the conversion fees
Visa/MC conversion as of today: AU$159.97 = US$100 ($0.6251 AUD/USD)
Wise conversion as of today: AU$159.48 = US$100 ($0.627 AUD/USD) + AU$0.64 fee = AU$160.12
Am I missing something?
Not to mention the decreased flexibility vs an actual bank like having to pay fees to send your own money to another AU bank account.
The visa / MC rate is always very great.
Its seperate fees that 99% of banks add that are normally the killer. I.e. the quoted rate then +2.5%
I've struggled to use this in SEA, even at bank ATMs in Singapore. No issues in the US. They seem extremely risk averse.
No issues with a NAB card that was migrated from Citibank (which was also super reliable, RIP).
Hmm.. I was in Singapore a few weeks ago and managed to withdraw without issue. I converted AUD to SGD via the app and withdraw from a local ATM.
A BankWest card? Pretty sure they don’t have currency conversion like you’re talking about.
Ugh… my bad - sorry.
I was associating your reply with the Wise card comments directly above yours. As such, I interpreted your reply that you had trouble using WISE while in SEA.
I just used this over Xmas in Malaysia. ATMs and paywave. Zero issues. Transactions showed up instantly on the the app.
My friend had about a 50% success rate in Thailand. Eventually i just had to withdraw money from ING for him when we got away from all the modern card readers in Bangkok.
Question regarding Wise, doesn't the card has a monthly cash withdrawal limit, and beyond that there is a fee payable? Is that still a better deal after paying the additional fee?
Wise is overrated as a travel card if you are just doing spot conversions as you buy. It's got a bunch of restrictions as you said and even the based cost is rarely going to save you money compared to a debit card with no fees.
A debit card like this, Macquarie or ING have essentially similar FX rates. The benefit of wise is more if you want people to send you money in international currency or if you want to prebuy currency.
I generally recommend Macquarie as the best travel debit card. Similar to this card but technically a little better as they refund local ATM fees and unlike ING they have no hurdles to hit. The app is pretty nice too.
Yeah even though its marketed as some sort of travel card, this honestly seems like the worst use for it unless you only need to withdraw $400 once in a third world country.
So is this better than ING/Macquarie? I don't think either one of them refunds ATM fees, does this one do it?
Macquarie refunds ATM fees from within Australia
https://www.macquarie.com.au/help/personal/cards-balances-an…).
thanks, I meant internationally
I don't believe any AU card refunds international ATM operator fees any more :(
I like Up Bank.