International Transaction Fee Disclosure for VISA, Debit Card and ATM Transactions
As disclosed with February VISA statements, prior to April 2, 2005, when a purchase was made with your Credit Union VISA credit card in a foreign country, the transaction was converted to U.S. dollars, and adjusted by a 1% currency conversion fee. When the transaction posted to your account, the total amount (purchase amount plus conversion fee) appeared as a single transaction on your billing statement.
Effective April 2, 2005, VISA discontinued the currency conversion fee. However, they now charge a 1% International Transaction Fee. Therefore, anytime our members make a purchase with their Credit Union Visa card outside the United States, the 1% International Transaction Fee will be assessed to their credit card account. This fee will show as a separate line item on their VISA statement.
In other words….our members will still incur a 1% fee for international transactions, as they always have. However, it is now called an Internal Transaction Fee. The only change you will notice is the fee will be listed as a separate transaction item on your credit card statement instead of being included in the single transaction amount as described in the first paragraph.
Effective April 2, 2005, the exchange rate for transactions in a foreign currency will be a rate selected by
VISA from the range of rates available in wholesale currency markets for the applicable processing date, which rate may vary from the rate VISA itself receives, or the government mandated rate in effect for the applicable central processing date, plus 1%.
The following information applies to members who have a Credit Union Debit or ATM card;
Transactions made with your Credit Union ATM or Debit card for a transaction in a currency other than U.S. dollars will be converted by MasterCard International to U.S. dollars using their currency conversion procedure, which is to multiply the transaction amount in the non-U.S. dollar currency by the currency conversion rate.
The currency conversion rate that MasterCard typically uses is either a government-mandate rate, or a wholesale rate provided to MasterCard increased by 1%. The currency conversion rate that MasterCard uses for a particular transaction is the rate for the applicable currency when MasterCard processes the transaction, not the date when the transaction occurred or posted to the account.
Members who use either our Debit or ATM card will see no change on their on their statements because the currency conversion rate is included in the transaction amount and will NOT show as a separate transaction item.
Please note these are changes mandated by VISA and MasterCard, not your Credit Union. We are required to disclose this information to our credit, debit and ATM cardholders.