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Comment by t0mas88 | Hacker News Reader

Interesting, in the Netherlands almost all ATMs work in the same way as Germany, take the card first before it gives you the money.

However the other part about paying a lot in cash seems strange to me? And a fee on card payments while cash withdrawal is free if the exact opposite of my Dutch card. Paying in shops is free, cash withdrawal within the country is also free (not sure if all banks do this), but taking cash from an ATM abroad costs a small transaction fee.

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We (my girlfriend, who is the author, and I) are with the German DKB bank, which offers a free checking account, EC card and credit card. You basically have two accounts with them, one connected to the EC card and one to the credit card. The credit card can be used for free cash withdrawals worldwide and POS payments in Germany, but if you use it to pay outside Germany, they charge a 1.75% fee. The EC card can also be used for POS payments in Germany and is useful since many more shops accept EC card payments compared to credit card payments in Germany...

The debit card of Berliner Sparkasse works that way (paying in shops and domestic, Sparkasse-owned ATM is free, taking out money abroad isn’t). However, you can’t pay too much with that debit card outside Germany, so they have this “travel pack credit card” – taking out money with it abroad is free (if the ATM allows it), but using it otherwise still incurs a transaction fee.

Don't forget the fee they take if your account and the money you withdraw are different currencies. ;)

Usually such German cards use the Visa/Mastercard foreign exchange rate for ATM transactions (no extra fee) and POS transactions (plus currency conversion fee, but no additional fee for using abroad).

In Sweden (and possible in other countries) the ATMs let you choose whether you want to let the ATM (or bank that the ATM belongs to) do the conversion from Euro to Swedish Kronor or your own bank. If you pick the latter option, your bank might charge you for the conversion, I never had the case that the Swedish bank charged for it.

This is known as "dynamic currency conversion" and gives you a much worse deal than letting them charge you in a foreign currency (even when your bank has high fees). The way they do it is by offering a really bad exchange rate. In fact, the Swedish bank charges you for that, it's just hidden in the exchange rate.

Oh really? I never bothered to check the exchange rate. Good to know, I'll let my German bank do the conversion from now on!

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