Should you withdraw ATM cash with conversion?

“I love paying for more than I have to” said no one ever!

Travelling through different countries that have different currencies can be costly in terms of ATM withdrawal fees for using your debit or credit card, whether that’s in commission mark up, transaction fees, or lowered conversion rates that favour the local bank and not you.

The conversion refers to converting your home bank’s currency to the local currency in the foreign country you are currently in.

There is often an option to proceed the withdrawal of cash with or without conversion at an ATM.

Should you withdrawal local foreign cash with our without conversion?

Simplest answer:

No!
I will explain why it costs less for you to withdraw foreign cash from an ATM without accepting the conversion option using an example from a Croatian bank ATM.

Withdrawing ATM money with conversion

From the image above of the ATM screen, you can see that the ATM withdrawal charge WITH conversion from my home currency is £13.57 for wanting to withdraw the local 100 Croatian Kuna.

What if I said “No thanks, Sir. I shall keep calm and carry on WITHOUT conversion”?

Withdrawing ATM money WITHOUT conversion

Selecting “Accept without conversion” at the ATM using my debit card saw the foreign withdrawal cost of £12.11 for 100 Croatian Kuna.

Doing the maths, had I accepted the cash withdrawal with conversion, I would have been charged £13.57. But since I proceeded without conversion, I was charged £12.11.

I avoided being charged £1.46 extra in foreign money conversion costs by not accepting the local bank’s conversion rate. Local foreign banks will frequently give you a much worse foreign conversion rate than your regular bank.

The conversion cost avoided may not seem like a lot but over time, such avoidable ATM foreign money conversion costs do add up over time!

Do note however that there are some banks that do not offer the choice of accepting or not accepting the conversion rate – they just give you whatever the current market rate is (whether or not the rate is fair is another story).

Avoid using Euronet ATMs!

If you’re in Europe, do not use Euronet branded independent ATMs.

They give you awful exchange rates, along with charging you high commission fees, often depending on how much you withdraw!

Summary

Always select accept foreign ATM cash withdraws “WITHOUT conversion” so your withdrawal costs are less than if you have had accepted “with conversion”.

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