N26 “markup” fee

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carmel65

Registered User
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I have both a N26 and Revolut cards.

I have used both to pay foreign currency transactions.

I recently paid online (weekday) for a hotel in Norway with my N26 card. For the first time I see a ‘markup’ fee. I was very surprised as N26 specifically market themselves as having no currency fees. I am still waiting for an official reply, (I expect this will take some time).

There was no “markup” on a USD transaction in March. So far I have been told it is a variable % that is the difference between the ECB exchange rate and the MasterCard rate. The percentage on my transaction was 1.53178% , which I consider high.

The only mention of “markup” on the N26 website is

“Say goodbye to exchange rate markups N26 never marks up foreign exchange rates. This means we pass along the real exchange rates provided by Mastercard to you—no hidden fees or confusing small print to ruin your holiday.”​

Where can I find out what the markup on the “real exchange rate” is for MasterCard and Visa? Is there much of a difference between them? My N26 card is MasterCard, but my REVOLUT is Visa. Is it better to use one over the other ?
 
Are you absolutely certain your transaction wasn't converted to Eur by the hotel using MasterCards Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC)?
 
Any chance the Norway transaction was put through at the point of sale in Euros rather than Krone?

Edit: post crossed with @RedOnion's.
 
IMG_1893.jpeg
 
A quick google and this seems to be the mastercard fee.

Visa & Mastercard charge a fee in addition to your bank. Possibly the transaction was at a weekend and a blended rate was therefore not possible.

You can check calculations here -

Currency Converter | Foreign Exchange Rates Calculator | Mastercard

Find the foreign currency exchange rates used for cross border transactions for all major world currencies with Mastercard’s online currency converter tool.
www.mastercard.ie www.mastercard.ie

From Bonkers

Use N26 or Revolut​

Using N26 or Revolut is the simplest way to avoid foreign exchange fees and if you use either of these banks then you won’t need to take on board any of the other advice in this article.

Both N26 and Revolut have shaken up the banking sector since their launch a few years back. They both offer a host of novel services, which you can read about in more depth here. But a key benefit of these banks is their lack of foreign exchange fees.

As you can see from the tables above, all the traditional banks will charge you a 1.75% to 3% foreign exchange or ‘processing fee’ for purchases made with your debit card outside the Eurozone, which can really add up.

But N26 will charge you nothing while Revolut will charge you nothing on all major currencies up to a limit of €1,000 a month - after that there’s a small 0.5% fee.

What’s more, when converting your spend back into euro, N26 applies the Mastercard exchange rate at all times while Revolut applies the Interbank exchange rate with a 0.5% mark-up at weekends on major currencies and a 1% mark-up on less common currencies. Both these rates are likely to be better than the rate you’d get with one of the main banks.
 
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Definitely not a weekend , it went through yesterday,
had other transactions on N26 in USD in March no markup
 
0.8727 was the Mastercard rate last Friday with NOK official rate between 0.862 - 0.866 on Thursday and I suspect the mastercard rate is based on the previous day's rate.
 
This fee has always existed on N26, they just publish it now for transparency.

It's not a N26 fee but a Mastercard fee, they fix the exchange rate but it fluctuates during the day
 
Same story here... i was in Denmark and Sweden last week. all my transactions had a 'mark up' fee attached. some up to 1.22%. my stay was between Monday to Friday and most of the transactions were done in banking hours.
 
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