If you pay by credit card outside the euro zone, the bank earns a lot.
Image: dpa
Credit cards are very useful, but also very expensive outside the euro zone. How expensive is determined by each bank itself. There are alternatives for vacationers, but they also have pitfalls.
EFinally vacation, when you want to treat yourself to something. After two years of the pandemic, the Germans’ desire to travel is greater than ever. And for the travel budget it is best to take one or two credit cards with you. This is practical, safer than cash, but unfortunately also very expensive – at least if the travel destination is not in the euro zone. And that is quickly abandoned: the holiday home holiday in Denmark, the Baltic Sea holiday in Poland or the city trip to Prague. Unlike in telecommunications, where you can use your mobile phone in any EU country as well as in Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein on the terms of the German tariff without any extra charge, the so-called foreign transaction fees for credit cards are still proliferating.
Sparda-Bank Hessen is modest. If the credit card is charged in a foreign currency, a fee of 1 percent of the transaction is incurred. Hamburger Sparkasse, the largest in Germany, charges private customers 1.25 percent of sales. The Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf, on the other hand, allows itself a much larger grip on the holiday budget: the currency conversion fee is 2 percent, twice as much as at the Sparda-Bank Hessen. The fee at ING Germany is at a similar level, namely 1.99 percent. Germany’s third largest bank by customer increased the fee by 1.75 percent last year. Deutsche Bank, which its boss Christian Sewing likes to call the global house bank, is not very global when it comes to fees. Germany’s largest bank charges its private customers an international transaction fee of 1.75 percent for most credit cards, and if the transaction is not made in euros, another 0.5 percent is added.