FX fees are unfortunately not well known. Yet a lot of all traditional Canadian credit and debit cards charge you up to 2.5 % in unwanted foreign exchange fees on all amounts when you pay abroad, as well as a fee when you withdraw cash at foreign ATMs while travelling abroad.
Here’s a tip to avoid this.
What are FX fees?
Basically, when a transaction is in a currency other than the Canadian dollar, many cards add up to 2.5% in fees that does absolutely nothing for you and offsets any rewards you earn (or even worse, makes you lose even more money if you were using a non-rewards debit or credit card).
They’re called FX fees or foreign currency transaction fees. If you like to optimize and maximize your money, you need to pay attention to this travel expense too! You can read our guide to foreign transaction fees for more details.
While 2.5% may seem small, it can quickly add up – that’s about 75 CAD lost just in foreign transaction fee for a 3000 CAD lost to just FX fees on a $3,000 trip just for using your regular credit or debit card.
FX fees often don’t appear separately on the statement, so unfortunately, many people don’t even know they’re paying them!
If you’re ready to drop these add-on fees for good, here’s a card that makes it easy to avoid the added FX fees and foreign ATM withdrawal fees charged by your bank, all without any annual or monthly fee
Free tip to avoid added FX fees
The EQ Bank Card is a prepaid reloadable Mastercard and one of the few cards in Québec that doesn’t charge any added FX fees! You can easily load funds into the card from your EQ Bank account, and it’s accepted in more than 150 countries, making it ideal for travel.
It’s extremely useful for those who don’t want the hassle of worrying about foreign exchange fees every time they tap or withdraw cash abroad. They simply want a seamless, stress-free way to pay—confident they’re getting great value without the unpleasant surprise of their trip costing up to 2.5% more than expected.
It’s top features for travellers:
- No added FX fees from EQ Bank1
- No ATM withdrawal fees from EQ Bank2
- No annual or monthly fees
- Makes keeping track of your budget easy
By using the EQ Bank Card, you won’t pay any unnecessary fees when you pay for a meal in a restaurant, visit an attraction, buy a souvenir in a shop, purchase a transport ticket, and so on.
You simply pay the local amount converted directly into Canadian dollars at the Mastercard exchange rate, without any surcharges that take away from maximizing your trip experience.
(Don’t forget that you should always avoid one of the most basic travel scams: the DCC, or dynamic currency conversion. Always pay in local currency and not in your own currency when this is offered by payment terminals and ATMs).
The EQ Bank Card, with zero added FX fees from the bank, also works for online purchases in a currency other than the Canadian dollar, whether for travel or not!
No ATM fees from EQ Bank
Ideally, of course, you should avoid paying in cash in order to benefit from rewards such as cashback. But in many countries, it’s practical to carry a little cash.
Not only do most Canadian debit and credit cards charge around 2.5% FX fee at ATMs (on ALL amounts), but they also charge ATM withdrawal fees!
There is no added ATM withdrawal fee charged by EQ Bank when you use the card anywhere internationally!
This is a great advantage that I love about my EQ Bank Card!
As you know if you’ve ever withdrawn money, ATMs can obviously charge fees themselves, regardless of the card you use. But other Canadian cards may often charge you their own fees on top of that! Not the EQ Bank card.
Note that in Quebec and the rest of Canada, you can even withdraw cash at any ATM, and EQ Bank will reimburse the fees the ATM charges!
In most countries, if you do an online search for ‘no fee ATM in (name of country)’ you can find a local bank whose branches have no fees, or much lower fees at least. Otherwise, at the very least, give priority to ATMs in a bank, and not independent ATMs, which almost always have higher charges (especially those in airports, where everything is more expensive).
No annual or monthly fee
If you’re one of those people who don’t want to pay any fees at all (and who don’t want to manage multiple credit or debit cards), you’ll love the EQ Bank Card: there are no annual or monthly fees.
What’s more, you’ll also earn 0.5%3 in simple cash back (on everything).
Makes keeping track of your budget easy
With a credit card, it’s often easy to overspend and return from a vacation to a bigger statement than you expected.
The EQ Bank Card is a prepaid reloadable Mastercard, which means you can load exactly how much you want to spend.
You can load funds from your EQ Bank Personal Account to the prepaid card easily online or on the app in just a few clicks, which means you can choose the exact amount you want to have available.
So it’s easier to stay in control and stick to your travel budget.
You can find out more on the EQ Bank website.
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Featured image: Taormina, Italy (photo credit: Sophie Gerasimenko)
1 Foreign currency transactions will be subject to the Mastercard Currency Conversion rate. EQ Bank does not charge any additional FX fee or markup.
2 You may incur third party ATM fees, but we’ll reimburse fees charged by ATM providers in Canada.
3 This percentage can be subject to changes. Cash back will be paid monthly. See the EQ Bank Card Agreement for details on earning cash back and other terms and conditions that apply to the EQ Bank Card
