This might get long so I’m going to give you a breakdown of what I’ll be talking about: Today’s listed exchange rate, today’s Mastercard exchange rate, 2% currency conversion fee, adding this all up you’ll see my true conversion rate.

I know some people have been curious about the conversion rate when you withdrawal from an ATM using your Visa Debit Card or Mastercard Debit Card. MC and Visa are supposed to give you fair exchange rates from what I’ve heard. Today I used my Mastercard to withdrawl funds from my U.S. bank and here’s the breakdown of charges and rates.

Today’s USD to Yen rate from www.xe.com is
1 USD = 114. .735 JPY

The actual rate I received
1 USD = 114.23 JPY

Not bad! But then my bank charged me 1% to do the currency conversion and Mastercard (as well as Visa) charges a 1% fee. So if I withdrawal 11,000 Yen my account would reflect a $96.30 withdrawal amount, a bank fee of $0.96 and a Mastercard fee of $0.96. That means for 11,000 Yen I was actually hit for $98.22 and in reality if you include the 2% in fees my true exchange rate from the ATM resulted in 112Yen per $1 USD.

Is this a good deal? My true USD to Yen currency conversion comes to 112 Yen per dollar. The actual rate from xe.com is 114.735 Yen per 1 USD. This means I’m losing 2.735 per dollar I exchange. I would say that it’s a fair rate because at the banks and other places that do a far currency conversion charge between 1-3.5 Yen per dollar.

I’ve applied for a Capital One Money Market Account with an ATM card. Transferring funds electronically from my regular bank account to the Capital One account means there’s a delay in getting my money. However the issue you an ATM card with the PLUS logo which means you can use them at the ATM that takes that (usually the same as a Mastercard) BUT they take the 1% hit from Mastercard and they charge nothing. I’ll be saving 2%! This means a big savings! Only I’d be charged only 0.735 yen per dollar. Not bad! But I’ll write more on this later.

Today, November 3rd in Japan,$1 US Dollar will buy you:
Australia (dollar) 1.08
Canada (dollar) .93
China (yuan) 7.45
Europe (euro) 0.69
Great Britain (pound) 0.48
India (rupee) 39.32
Japan (yen) 114.70
Mexico (peso) 10.68
South Africa (rand) 6.55
Thailand (baht) 31.76

And of course don’t forget the Dollar Value Menu at McDonalds…. $1 plus tax. Doh!