Westpac Earth - currency conversion fee now incorporated into Australian rate ??

[Natt]

Does anyone have an opinion on this change (I am pretty sure it is).

My husband accidently used an Earth Card for a transaction in US dollars.

In the past that would attract a fee, listed separately. And then there would be another transaction so that you could see the exchange rate at the time (usually pretty ordinary).

Looking through this transaction though the charge changed from this two part listing to one charge.

I thought perhaps that they might have abolished the 2% conversion fee (I was hoping anyhow lol).

But instead I find this change in the fee terms on their website:

"A fee of 2.0% of the value of any purchase or Cash Advance/withdrawal transaction made in a foreign currency, following conversion into Australian dollars by the applicable Credit Card scheme, is payable. This fee will be incorporated into the Australian currency equivalent of the transaction shown on your statement. "

Surely this is a little dodgy, as you have no idea of the fee that you actually paid!

Does anyone have an opinion, and does this actually breech any consumer laws?

I guess if you asked they might break down the amounts, but it seems a bit off to me.

 

[anat0l]

Surely this is a little dodgy, as you have no idea of the fee that you actually paid!

Does anyone have an opinion, and does this actually breech any consumer laws?

I don't know if it breaks any laws, but I guess one should check.

Detailed bank statements (i.e. the "paper" statements) usually show a breakdown of the fee, at least in my experience.

You should be able to back calculate the fee, i.e. a little algebra means that if you divide the total charged amount by 1.02 (i.e. 2%), you would obtain the base charge (i.e. simply converting the currencies). The difference between the actual charge and the base charge gives you the fee. Of course, you could then go one step further and calculate the exchange rate used to produce the base charge from the foreign amount, which you could judge as to whether the bank used a "fair" rate (compared to the market).

 

[tm.smile]

Does anyone have an opinion on this change (I am pretty sure it is).

Looking through this transaction though the charge changed from this two part listing to one charge.

On internet banking and on your statement, it will have the description next to the charge amount in australian dollars. In the line immediately following it will show the amount in the foreign currency with the description INC FEE AUD$xx_. The charge for the second line will show a credit of $0.00

I actually much prefer how it is currently set out as it saves confusion with multiple amounts of money and debits.