What is the hidden cost, banks charge in currency transactions?
In addition to banks’ conversion fee, which may be 0.2% of transaction amount, and which you can save when served by Currenge, in currency transactions, the “big money” is hidden as a hidden cost within exchange rate.
First, we would explain which rate should NOT be used, when checking if a big hidden cost is hidden within a currency rate offered to you? The cost hidden within exchange rate is not calculated based on the Bank of Israel published official currency rate, which is a figure that the Bank of Israel publishes based on currency trade conducted between 13:15 to 15:15 PM on weekdays and 10:15 to 12:15 on Friday, as seen on Reuters monitors, and is calculated as an average of currency rates from few sampled conversion transactions. This rate is published soon after those time slots.
So how could you find the cost hidden in exchange rate offered to you?
You could look at the website of a bank where you hold an account, in real time, and check for both the Bid and Ask currency pair rates. This way, you would look at the two Buy and Ask rates, that your bank actually offers to you. For example, The bank’s buying rate for the US Dollar against the Israeli Shekel, as well as at the selling rate of the same currency pair at the same moment in time.
Then, calculate the average of these two buying and selling rates, and calculate the percentage that the difference between the buying and average rates constitute out of the average amount. What you likely would see, for a customer who does not enjoy currency rate beneficial terms at its bank, is that there is a hidden cost of about 0.8‑0.9% of the transaction, which is hidden with the offered rate. This is a cost which is relative to the average of a Bid‑Ask rates, in real time. Adding this cost to a conversion fee of about 0.2%, brings the cost of a foreign currency transaction, executed for you by a bank, to be of about 1% of your transaction money.