Stupid Australian $

[llamatron]

It would appear that rationality finally struck the Aussie dollar again. Let's see where it goes by the time we wake tmrw.

It's back up over 70c as I type this.

[Kyle]

It's back up over 70c as I type this.

Whew...

[griffin]

Not any more. It's back down to 67c.

The yen is even worse to the AU$, with us losing almost half the value of our currency to it (from about 110y 2 months ago to 66y now).

[griffin]

Looking at this website that archives exchange rates:
http://www.gocurrency.com/index.htm
exactly 3 months ago (July 10th) to now (Oct 10th)

US$ 0.96 - 0.67 (down 29 or 30.2%)
£ 0.48 - 0.39 (down 9 or 18.75%)
¥ 103 - 66 (down 37 or 35.9%)
EU€ 0.60 - 0.49 (down 11 or 18.3%)
NZ$ 1.27 - 1.12 (down 0.15 or 11.8%)

We're even weakening to the NZ$, how pathetic does that make the AU$ if a 'more troubled economy' like NZ is doing better than we are on the cross-rates.
Every currency I checked had the AU$ dropping by 10-30% in the last 3 months, suggesting that it was either overvalued before (July was the peak) or now just unwanted.
Hell, even Zimbabwe is probably doing better than us...

[Sky Shadow]

Hell, even Zimbabwe is probably doing better than us...

I laughed when I read that. But then again... in July an Australian Dollar would have bought you $27,947 Zimbabwe. And today $1 AU = $177 Zimbabwe.

So in three months we're at 76% of where we were compared to the US$. And Zimbabwe have had something like a 23,886% improvement.

Sigh.

[griffin]

Ah, but about a month ago, Zimbabwe re-pegged their currency by cutting off 2 or 3 zeros, which makes it look like a huge improvement, when infact it is still fairly flat.

[jaydisc]

Thanks for the tip will have to have a look at it next time I make a payment on paypal

However isn't there a fee that is paid for a non AUD transaction on a credit card?

Every bank charges for currency conversion. There are just different ways in which you see this charge. NAB used to separate it out on the statement. Bendigo just silently tacks on 2%. Not really silent, it's disclosed in the product disclosure statement, it's just not itemized on your bill.

When I had a NAB savings account and went to a USA ATM, they'd gouge me with a straight AUD 4 Overseas ATM usage fee. But I've not seen any flat fee like that for an overseas/foreign currency credit card transaction.

I find this fee is easy to factor in to the conversions you get from RK or somewhere else. Just add 2%. The converter I use as an option to do that (in the pulldown called interbank rate + 2%) which is why I use it. Of course, it's easy to multiple by 1.02 anyway.

Never do your estimate based on a straight conversion rate you see at xe.com or elsewhere. You have to factor in the bank's cut.

[Sky Shadow]

Ah, but about a month ago, Zimbabwe re-pegged their currency by cutting off 2 or 3 zeros, which makes it look like a huge improvement, when infact it is still fairly flat.

Okay, that makes more sense. It looks like they cut off about ten zeroes... the former Zimbabwean $10 billion seems to now be worth ZW$1.