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ATM exchange rates


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The exchange rate is assigned when the transaction passes from the bank that drives the ATM sending it to either Cirrus or Plus. Cirrus or Plus sends the transaction to the appropriate switch based on the ISO on the card (1st 6 digits). When your bank at home receives the request, the peso amount requested has already been converted to dollars. The Mexican bank just sends a request to withdraw x pesos. It doesn't know where the authorizing bank is. 

A non-pin based purchase using a debit card passes through the Visa network to your bank. The exchange rate could differ from the ATM switches.

Bottom line is that it really doesn't matter what ATM you use to withdraw cash unless your bank does not waive surcharge fees. The owner bank can tack on a surcharge to the amount you requested. The sum of the 2 is converted to the home bank currency. This can affect what you see as the effective exchange rate. Bancomer adds about 90 pesos per transaction while CI Banco only 15.

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Can you imagine every bank in the world, no matter how small, that has ATM cards adjusting the exchange rate for 100 countries daily?

The exchange rate is not determined by your bank, nor the ATM where you collect you funds. It is determined by the card company shown on your ATM card.

 Both Mastercard and Visa have the rates posted online daily and they have apps available as well. 

What is determined by your bank are any fees in addition to the exchange rate. (ie 1% is normal on international transactions for many banks, although it costs them nothing) and that again is administered by MC or Visa. What is determined by the ATM is the fee for use. 

 

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I use a Capital One card and the ATM at CI Banco in the Laguna Mall (and there is a guard there, too, who will actually come to your aid in case of attempted robbery.  (He chased down a guy in the parking lot who had taken a woman's money as she was going to her car several months ago). 

The cambio at CIBanco is not as good as a year or so ago, but in the past 4 mos, I've gotten within 12 cents of what was posted on XE.com, and the worst has been a 22 cent difference.. Ooops one at 30 cents. Once I got 14 cents better than what XE showed and once 2 cents better.

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10 hours ago, barbara habacht said:

I used to get a competitive usd to mxp exchange rate at Santander bank Atms and sometimes a decent rate at Bancomer....now not so much.

Our usual go to ATM on the by-pass couldn't be reached yesterday........what are some other decent exchange rate locations?

Thanks

Fred Habacht

 

I also have noticed a big change at santander ATMs. The swing has been on average an extra 500 pesos in Santander favor in my transactions the last month. Thats quite a bit for me to swallow. I am also looking for somewhere else. 

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Another change that I have noticed with santander. There is a new pause screen that tells you the exchange rate and it prompts you to agree to it. The last two times I have used it I checked my banks rate (They use Visa Card current rate) Santander has been 1.5 to 2 pesos less. So when I say pull $300 US they are giving me $450 to $600 pesos less than what my bank is stating the rate is. It use to not be this way. Thats quite a bit per transaction. I use to look at the charge for the transaction. 25 to 50 pesos. But that is nothing compared to what they are now getting with this exchange rate change. I mean it seems high to me.

Now I am looking at using my card more instead of cash and using stores like soriana and walmart. I get a much better deal On the rate. I have pulled from an ATM and immediately also shopped at soriana and the rate is not the same. Being they are only a few minutes apart. This is Not good for the smaller stores and businesses that do not accept cards.

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54 minutes ago, chicamysterious said:

Another change that I have noticed with santander. There is a new pause screen that tells you the exchange rate and it prompts you to agree to it. The last two times I have used it I checked my banks rate (They use Visa Card current rate) Santander has been 1.5 to 2 pesos less. So when I say pull $300 US they are giving me $450 to $600 pesos less than what my bank is stating the rate is. It use to not be this way. Thats quite a bit per transaction. I use to look at the charge for the transaction. 25 to 50 pesos. But that is nothing compared to what they are now getting with this exchange rate change. I mean it seems high to me.

Now I am looking at using my card more instead of cash and using stores like soriana and walmart. I get a much better deal On the rate. I have pulled from an ATM and immediately also shopped at soriana and the rate is not the same. Being they are only a few minutes apart. This is Not good for the smaller stores and businesses that do not accept cards.

HSBC used to do the same thing, ask  you to agree to a bad rate but if you did not agree, the rate would be improved.  They seem to have stopped this practice but increased their ATM fee by about 50% - the banks are going to make it one way or another!

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re:HSBC     The first time this happened to me (last year) I ‘foolishly’ said ‘yes’ as I assumed that if I said ‘no’ they would just cancel the transaction. Later on these Boards I read that one could say no. From then on I have declined and gotten a better rate. Haven’t used them lately so am glad to hear they have quit that.  My hometown bank refunds the ATM charges so I don’t really have to shop around.

 

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Hello,

    First post here.  We arrived in Guadalajara yesterday and used our USAA Debit card this AM to withdraw 2000 pesos from Santander bank.   I was charged $108.75 by USAA for this transaction which seemed to be about .0395 (~4%) or 79 pesos on top of what the currenncy app I was using indicated ($104.62USD).  Now I do realize this is not the Visa rate as indicated earlier, but that still seemed pretty reasonable to me. 

~Dubhead

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5 hours ago, tomgates said:

XE's rates are irrelevant. Go to the link I posted for Visa.

I tried to use your link, but I don't know how.  Is there a way to know what the bank percentage is?  

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4 hours ago, Dubhead said:

Hello,

    First post here.  We arrived in Guadalajara yesterday and used our USAA Debit card this AM to withdraw 2000 pesos from Santander bank.   I was charged $108.75 by USAA for this transaction which seemed to be about .0395 (~4%) or 79 pesos on top of what the currenncy app I was using indicated ($104.62USD).  Now I do realize this is not the Visa rate as indicated earlier, but that still seemed pretty reasonable to me. 

~Dubhead

Isn't USAA supposed to refund all ATM/foreign transaction fees?  I thought that was the big advantage of having that card.

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More Liana

just fill out the fields. Put 100 in the amount, card in your currency, transaction in Mex Pesos, 0 for fee. You get a result of 5 something, divide that result into 100. 5 even would be 20 pesos to the dollar.

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On 10/4/2018 at 5:48 PM, RickS said:

re:HSBC     The first time this happened to me (last year) I ‘foolishly’ said ‘yes’ as I assumed that if I said ‘no’ they would just cancel the transaction. Later on these Boards I read that one could say no. From then on I have declined and gotten a better rate. Haven’t used them lately so am glad to hear they have quit that.  My hometown bank refunds the ATM charges so I don’t really have to shop around.

 

Its not the Atm fee. If they are making $500 pesos on the rate who cares about the $50 peso ATM fee.

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On ‎10‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 5:42 PM, bournemouth said:

HSBC used to do the same thing, ask  you to agree to a bad rate but if you did not agree, the rate would be improved.  They seem to have stopped this practice but increased their ATM fee by about 50% - the banks are going to make it one way or another!

HSBC still does that for me.

My HSBC bank in Canada does not charge me a fee an ATM withdrawal but Mexican HSBC has started charging me 33 pesos per withdrawal.

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9 hours ago, chicamysterious said:

Its not the Atm fee. If they are making $500 pesos on the rate who cares about the $50 peso ATM fee.

Are you suggesting that, even if one declines their ‘bad’rate offer, that they will still not give the “Visa rate” of the day on your withdrawal but rather a rate that still gives them a $500 peso profit?

I usually check the Visa rate when I get home and I don’t believe that I have seen this happen to me. 

 

 

 

 

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If I accept the rate the HSBC ATM suggests it  costs me about $30 dollars more to get 12,000 pesos. So I always decline the suggested rate and save about $30. I've checked this many times.

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36 minutes ago, RickS said:

Are you suggesting that, even if one declines their ‘bad’rate offer, that they will still not give the “Visa rate” of the day on your withdrawal but rather a rate that still gives them a $500 peso profit?

I usually check the Visa rate when I get home and I don’t believe that I have seen this happen to me. 

 

 

 

 

I dont know if Santander does what they HSBC does yet. I assumed it was obligatory until someone here said that HSBC did the same thing and they answered no and got the VISA rate. But I will see and post here. Unless someone else here has done this at Santander.

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  • 2 weeks later...

MY SANTANDER UPDATE.

I finally got around to going to the ATM and sure enough it stated the exchange rate of 17.3 pesos. I did as the Gentleman stated he did at HSBC I said NO. I then waited what seemed like an eternity and it spit my Card out. I was not happy My heart sank. I angrily jerked my card out. I turned and several Gringos were waiting their turn. They looked at me surely seeing the anger on my face and the look i saw on them was of disappointment. I am sure they were thinking the machine was out of order. It happened that the banorte ATM next to me did have a large white poster board stating in Spanish it was out if order. BUT I heard it whirling around the cash slot. I rapidly moved my eyes to the screen and WHAM!!!! it said it was calculating the cash.....

IT WORKED !!!  I got the current rate and not the crappy one. One has to see. Why they would even have that unless it's sole purpose was to game the gringos. I am sure nobody could say that it would ever be a BETTER rate than what is given for VISA card.

What a sneaky thing to do. I AM SO TICKED OFF AT THE THOUSANDS OF PESOS I have just handed over. And how many have done the same thing. Somebody at Santander made their boss happy when they came up with that. And probably they didn't come up with it. They probably were at the Mexican Bankers Banquet and the guy from HSBC was bragging to everyone about how just adding a stop and new question screen had generated millions of pesos and how he and his wife were given a trip to Bora Bora by an elated boss 

Ok ok ok

So again I thank you out there in chapala webboard land for the great information.

And The 3 Gentlemen waiting? Yes I stood there and explained to them and each one (very surprised) said NO and got the better rate. ALL OF US congratulating each other.

They too shall pass along this wisdom to all......

 

Now I turn to Telmex Online payment by Card where it asks "would you like to pay in the Cards currency at this ??? Rate or would you like to pay in MXN.

Haha haha

All the trickery hahahaha

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I used CI Banco and HSBC and got the exact same exchange rate, which is the posted VISA rate for that day. CI Banco has an alien fee of $17.40 vs HSBC's $63.80. That rate was 18.77 on Tuesday.

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