USD->EUR exchange rate

Payments from AdSense

[elfred]

Ok: I finally could see the exchange rate applied to my check. It appeared on my account earlier today. The exchange rate applied from USD to EUR was 0.8200. I carefully monitor exchange rates every 20 minutes and the lowest value was 0,8221. The payment date, online, is October, 26th and on the payment history it's dated the 24th. On the 26th, the lowest exchange rate was 0.8242, while on the 24th it was 0.8327. The official ECB exchange rate for the 26th was 0.8293 and for the 24th it was 0.8372. It means that the difference (based on a 1000 USD payment) ranges from 4.2 EUR up to 17.2 EUR. For a 10000 USD payment, this means 42 -> 172 EUR. Don't you think this is slightly too much?

[ashii]

They are several type of exchange rates involved.

the rates we usually see on XE.com and ecb.com are purchase rates.
in this senerion you are actually selling USD to purchase EURO so you get selling rates which are always lower than normal.

correct me if I am wrong.

[OptiRex]

The rate you see on xe.com is the mid-market rate which is between the commercial buying and selling exchange rate, you would normally get considerably less by going to the bank for a rate.

The tourist rate spread is much wider.

Adsense, in general, offer an excellent rate of exchange, in my case far better than going to my bank and not having to wait either.

[elfred]

Using my standard bank account, when the exchange rate was, say, 0.8221, I would get 0.8211 when changing from USD to EUR. Whatever the exchange rate you start from (within a certain range, of course) the difference I wrote would be exactly the same. Basically, there is a spread of about 0.010 from the average and the bid and ask quotations. While you take into account this difference, please consider that I presented the WORST quotations for the days and you need to be really unlucky to get it out of the 24 hours. So, I assume the 0.010 difference can be safely ignored when I use the worst value instead of the actual one. For example: on the 24th, the best rate was 0.8363, but I used the worst one: 0.8327.

[OptiRex]

I don't know which European country you are in however I can categorically assure you that for US Dollar to UK Sterling exchange rates we cannot better those that we get from Adsense unless one has a "friend" who can arrange something for you.

Not only would the exchange rate be different to the mid-market rate we also have to pay for the priviledge of converting it and, usually, a wait of several weeks before it is officially cleared.

[elfred]

I'm from Italy, and I'm using a well known online bank account. I can easily ask online (via a web page) to change some money from USD to EUR (and viceversa). I get the bid and ask and a suggested exchange rate. I can confirm it within 15 seconds. That's all. No additional cost. Having done that several times, I can tell you the average difference between the average exchange rate shown on popular websites and the rate I get is about 0.010. Anyway: I can see you don't mind too much about exchange rates and I see no problem in this. I was just trying to know which was the feeling about this topic :-)
Who knows... If nobody blames about exchange rates from Google, Google might decide to cut even more. After all... 172 EUR out of 10000 USD means 172000 EUR out of 10000000 USD. I would be happy to change the money in Google's behalf for much less each month :-)

[OptiRex]

Only two things I want to know!

Sticky me the url, please:-)) I need an account like that!

Secondly...Where are you in Italy? I get to Garda and Massa-Carrara area nearly every month on business/pleasure...

[elfred]

My family lives in Tuscany, but I'm able to get there only on Xmas and little more :-)
You have a sticky mail!