ATM withdraw fees/best exchange rates

I got a wise card and used it at ATMs. My experience is primarily with Bradesco and there was quite a difference between the fees taken when I withdrew funds from my US banks debit card and when I used the wise card. The wise card was much cheaper to use on the Brazilian end. And like .85 cents on the US end (although I understand that that isn't a real issue for you). The only limitation was I could withdraw R$2000 or R$2500 max with my US debit card per day and R$1200 per day with my wise card. However, the wise card worked in every POS I used it from open markets to grocery stores in São Paulo. The other thing was I didn't want to be carrying around my US debit card. I reserved it for back up. If I was mugged, they could have the wise card, the daily max withdraw was half of my US debit card and I still had my debit card as a back up.

One thing to watch, at least at Bradesco according to a friend of mine who lives in Rio, is to watch the exchange rate.  They'll initially offer a pretty poor exchange rate but you can decline the "Bradesco" rate and then they'll give you closer to official rate.

@madrac Totally. They create a range and give you the low end. It is on the ATM receipt. Same machine with the Wise card, you get the rate at that time. No range estimate.

For any of you not aware of this ....

There has been a severe brouhaha in the USA financial narrative about Paypal, the owner of Zoom, last week.

They sent out a change to their terms of service which included a statement that they may withhold without notice up to $2,500 of any user's account per incident of the user publishing any comment anywhere on the internet which they judge to be misinformation or hate.

The story about the new change went viral and many, many individuals are closing their accounts with them.

They subsequently withdrew the statement and are attempting to deny it.

Today Paypal stock has fallen 6%, so far.

Without trying to judge their politics I would strongly suggest that you read up on the conversation before ever using them again.

Thanks for the info. I don’t have PayPal but for sure l would cancel it over something like that.

@Inubia It seems crazy unless people are using their exact names on any social media platform which is also crazy due to cloning. I always move my birthday either way by one or more months and one year and then use a different name, this is far safer and impossible to clone.

@KenAquarius I love paypal, no fees on transactions at the moment but I will never say never.

@ltoby955 They still know who you are.....you have no idea how sophisticated they are becoming.....they know more about you than you know about yourself....

@Inubia I am banking on they don't, I never use exact dates or names for anything, I guess at least it lessons the risk, many of my friends use their exact details which is madness.

Hi everyone,

I'm visiting Brazil next month, and have an Australian Citibank Plus card, which is said to guarantee fee-free withdrawals on ATMs around the world.

It worked on my trip to Europe, but only at certain banks.

Does anyone know if there are any banks in Brazil that allow this? Or will I always pay a fee regardless?

Thanks

@madrac Totally. They create a range and give you the low end. It is on the ATM receipt. Same machine with the Wise card, you get the rate at that time. No range estimate.
-@duzzimenino

Are you sure that’s how it works? When I use my card abroad (ATM or in a business), I get to choose to be billed either in the local currency (Reais) or in the currency where the card was issued (Swiss francs in my case). If I choose Swiss Francs, the amount gets converted in Brazil at quite a bad (for me) rate , before it gets billed to my card provider, so the wise choice is always to select local currency and let the card provider do the conversion, they usually use a correct conversion rate, way better than what you get otherwise.

Hi everyone,
I'm visiting Brazil next month, and have an Australian Citibank Plus card, which is said to guarantee fee-free withdrawals on ATMs around the world.
It worked on my trip to Europe, but only at certain banks.

Does anyone know if there are any banks in Brazil that allow this? Or will I always pay a fee regardless?

Thanks
-@poisongodmachineBR

When I arrived I used Bradesco and Santander to withdraw my R$ 300 every 24 hours. And my card did not charge me,

@Texanbrazil Awesome, thanks! I googled it and read that only Bradesco and Banco do Brasil allowed withdrawing with foreign cards. Good to know that Santander does too.

@duzzimenino where would I get a wise card?

@duzzimenino Where would I get the wise card?

I had to withdraw at an atm in the mall. Basically I was charged $15 in fees to withdraw 500 Reais. My bank reimbursed me $5. So I basically lost $10 in fees for withdraw of $100 dollars.

basically I bet you paid a lot more than that.

If you go to the XE forex quote site

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=BRL

they will tell you the exact current median between the current bid price and the current ask price.

But anytime you do a transfer, what the transfer agent will quote you is the bid price, which is typically 5% lower than the median.

In fact Transferwise and Western Union commonly quote as much as 25% under the median rate.......

And then they will tack on more taxes and fees.

And after that they will charge their $15 ATM fee.

I am telling you this because its true that for small exchanges there is nothing you can do about all these dozen or so hands each taking a cut, but when you are doing large transfers you need to know this because you deserve better rates and you can get them if you are persistent enough about it.

@Inubia Good information.

I'm going to copy/paste a snippet of mine from another post and provide further context. I did this test in Brazil with ATM withdrawals via USAA and Charles Schwab checkings accounts. For comparison, I also did a bank transfer using Wise and Remitly to my Nubank account in Brazil.

"Cost USD" below indicates what was withdrawn from my US bank account.

One major variable is that my ATM withdrawals were via Bradesco which charged an automatic and ridiculous 8% foreign transaction fee which is not reimbursed by US banks

ATM Withdrawal / Transfer in Brazil (Bradesco location in RDJ) - Withdrew R$300

USAA:

Cost USD: $63.73 -- R$4.71 rate received // R$5.16 actual market rate

Rate Without Bradesco Fee: R$5.12

Schwab:

Cost USD: $63.10 -- R$4.75 rate received // R$5.16 actual market rate

Rate Without Bradesco Fee: R$5.16

Wise Transfer:

Cost USD: $60.16 -- R$4.99 rate received // R$5.16 actual market rate

Remitly Transfer:

Cost USD: $60.47 -- R$4.96 rate received // R$5.16 actual market rate

From an over all value, transferring via Wise (formerly TransferWise) was the cheapest path but you would need to have access to a Brazilian bank account. Transfers hit the account usually within the same day. I will have to re-run this test with other banks to get a better idea. Paying 8% to Bradesco is absurd.

ATM Withdrawal in Greece - Withdrew €100

USAA:

Cost USD: $101.31 -- €1.01 rate received // €1.00 actual market rate

Schwab:

Cost USD: $100.31 -- €1.00 rate received // €1.00 actual market rate

Wise Card:

Cost USD: $102.00 -- €1.02 rate received // €1.00 actual market rate

USAA reimburses up to $15 per month for ATM fees. Schwab does not have a limit on ATM fee reimbursements per month and does not charge an exchange fee as most (if not all other) traditional US banks do.One thing that I was both surprised and annoyed by with the Wise card was that they charge a $2 ATM fee for any use of ATM's. This is on top of paying $9 to have them create the card itself.

All-in-all if I have to take only one debit card with me, I'm bringing my Schwab card. I use USAA for all primary banking needs in the US and their customer service is remarkable. Schwab is an investment bank first, so their support closely follows market (read: trading) hours. If you need real support on a Saturday, you may have to wait until Monday.

What I do is I siphon 5-10% of my paychecks to Schwab and I use that for transferring or withdrawing money in BRL. If someone steals my Schwab card information, they won't have access to all my funds.

@okcummings do you know if any other bank charges a lower foreign transaction fee than Bradesco? Maybe Banco do Brasil or Santander?

24 hours dont,bradesco ok,Santander better,this was in early 22

Which banks in Brazil are good to withdraw cash from via the Schwab card?

last time i was in Rio I used both Itau and Bradesco.  My debit account does not incur fees for international withdrawals.  I don't remember the specifics but Itau seemed to charge a lot less for the withdrawals but Bradesco allowed me to withdraw a lot more at one time.  So on a fee basis, I think Itau is better but your mileage may vary.

@ltoby955 Me Too, they were the only ones i could rely on when i could no longer use a bank account

Roddie in Retirement

I use my debit card to withdraw funds using the ATM at the supermarket   There's a R$500 limit, but I  typically run it through twice to get R$1000 at a time a couple of times a month.  My US bank reimburses me for ATM fees (usually around $5.65 each). I learned after several (too many) months that I didn't have to accept the exchange rate that the screen asked me to accept. If I just said "No", I still got my withdrawal and at a rate much closer to the official exchange rate.

I was an expert on this subject,I now use pix via a very trusted friend, bradesco was the best game in town,then they got greedy

In case there are other Canadians here: I use the app "remilty" to easily transfer money straight from my bank account to Pix. Exchange rate is very good, a bit less than 1% cost for slow transfers (a week), 2% for fast transfers (about 2 hours).

20$ when using my code... https://remit.ly/2xnsqqr0

@KenAquarius

I canceled mine after the news.