From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias!

by mosesk , Ojai, CA, USA, Tuesday, September 20, 2022, 19:27 (375 days ago) @ mosesk

I guess we are bad people.

We have been here 5 years. We still haven't found the need to have a bank account here, and bank with Capital One in the US. They charge us nothing for our transactions.

We do our withdrawals from INBURSA, across the street from Los Braceros, with a charge of 17.4 pesos per up to 5,000 pesos each time, up to our US daily limit. There is never a line.

We did a very major construction project 20 months ago and just went to INBURSA every day for our 20,000 pesos. Easy Peasy. Minimal cost, no problems with exchange rates, got the high international rate each time.

We don't know yet, please educate us, why we should change.

Bad people? Because you found a system that works for you? That's a rather harsh self assessment, doncha' think?

My question is, "What exactly is the exchange rate you are getting from Capital One?" Do you check? I initially thought that Schwab would offer the high international exchange rate that you spoke of but I was mistaken.

I will check out the Schwab exchange rate at INBURSA tomorrow. Maybe it will be different but I doubt it.

By the way, I have seen some banks offer really horrible exchange rates. HSBC immediately comes to mind. As others have noted, the credit card companies Visa and MasterCard do offer excellent exchange rates but also as mentioned, the merchants get hit with those pesky fees so I do my best to pay with cash when I am here in Mexico.

Here is my VERY GENERALIZED understanding:
ATMs offer an exchange rate that is determined by the network they belong to- in most cases Visa or Mastercard or Allpoint and a host of others.
Wise uses what is refereed to as the 'mid-market' rate.
<https://wise.com/us/mid-market-rate>.
Padrino- In the past I have also done the Schwab vs Wise comparison.
And the result was similar to yours.
But it is really only noticeable when you do a minimum of say $1000USD exchange.

Talley Ho- the main thing I would say to you is to have a backup or alternative way to get funds.
The machine might eat your card, it may be out of pesos, or the network might be down.

Disregard my explanation of ATM exchange rates.
Upon further reflection it's probably wrong.

And my experiment a few years ago of directly wiring the same amount of money (several thousand dollars) from a Schwab bank account compared to a Wise transfer to my Intercam account favored the Wise transfer by a small amount.
Sorry for the confusion

Post reply

901 views

Complete thread:

RSS Feed of thread

From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Padrino, 2022-09-19, 16:13
- From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Keytime, 2022-09-19, 18:07
- From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Talley Ho, 2022-09-19, 19:10
  - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Padrino, 2022-09-19, 20:41
    - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - mosesk, 2022-09-19, 21:07
      - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - mosesk, 2022-09-20, 19:27
      - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - jaui, 2022-09-25, 12:07
  - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Keytime, 2022-09-20, 08:52
    - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Talley Ho, 2022-09-20, 09:45
  - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - mexicoman, 2022-09-20, 09:25
  - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Little Guy, 2022-09-20, 09:56
    - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Talley Ho, 2022-09-20, 10:02
    - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - mexicoman, 2022-09-20, 10:20
- From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - jakewills, 2022-09-20, 07:44
- From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Padrino, 2022-09-20, 20:19
  - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - mosesk, 2022-09-20, 21:10
    - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - jakewills, 2022-09-21, 05:24
      - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Padrino, 2022-09-21, 08:25
        From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Rsimms, 2022-09-24, 09:10
        From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Padrino, 2022-09-24, 15:27
        From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Rsimms, 2022-09-24, 19:31
        From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Padrino, 2022-09-25, 07:38
  - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Padrino, 2022-09-30, 21:09
    - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - mosesk, 2022-09-30, 21:55
      - From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Padrino, 2022-10-01, 08:04
        From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - mosesk, 2022-10-01, 09:07
        
        From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Talley Ho, 2022-10-01, 10:19
        From the "Teach an old dog new tricks" Department, Gracias! - Billg, 2022-10-02, 11:57