January EUR/USD exchange rate?

Last payment unfavorable

[johnnie]

According to adsense, last payment was made at an exchange rate of €0.774/1$ (~1.30). Why is this? The current EURUSD is 1.266!

[alephh]

And EUR/USD has not been over 1.28 in weeks. Did they do a mistake or run out of money or invented a favourable conversion rate?

[brotherhood of LAN]

The figure you quoted is the spot price. Google and any other institution dealing in currency have to buy/sell with an added margin from the price spread.

I think the rate is more favourable for those dealing in bigger volumes, but the basic point is that you don't get the spot price when exchanging currency.

[alephh]

I stand corrected: Google rate differs from official rate +/- 0.025 in different months (sometimes you "lose", sometimes you "win") :-)

[HuhuFruFru]

Why is the rate 1,2919 although it was never that high in february?

[edited by: HuhuFruFru at 3:41 pm (utc) on Mar. 1, 2009]

[swa66]

If you think your bank gives you a better exchange rate, ask for a check next time, they are cut in US dollars.
But in my experience banks charge significant costs out here in EURO zone to cash foreign checks and in the end it's not going to be a good deal at your bank.

An option if you get enough US dollars incoming would be to put them on a dollar account, and only exchange it at a moment of more favorable exchange rates, or alternatively use to hedge against exchange rate fluctuations.

[johnnie]

Google should really start paying out in euros, using daily exchange rates to calculate your income. They also charge advertisers in euros, so I don't see how that could be a problem.

[koan]

Google should really start paying out in euros

Were you saying that when the US dollar was worth more than the Euro?

[johnnie]

Were you saying that when the US dollar was worth more than the Euro?

I wasn't in the business back then. Note that I'm not advocating a one-to-one conversion. I'm simply advocating the idea of displaying your earned total in euros and fixing your earnings per day, on the basis of that specific day's exchange rate. Since advertisers are paying in euros, it would be fair deal for the poublishers to have some kind of hedge against the wild economy.

[koan]

I imagine it would be complicated to have an auction system with different currencies, and that it is just simpler to convert everything to US dollars before it gets in the system.

[johnnie]

I imagine it would be complicated to have an auction system with different currencies, and that it is just simpler to convert everything to US dollars before it gets in the system.

The action system can be left untouched. All G will have to do is store a publisher's income in USD. Google charges advertisers in euros, so they're basically either creaming off the top (if the USD is tanking in the meantime) or taking the hit (when the USD is gaining relative to the euro, as is now). Given adwords policy, it would be fair to place this burden on the publisher.