Compare Commonwealth Bank AUD Exchange Rates

CBA FX at a glance

CBA, or Commonwealth Bank of Australia, is one of the largest and most well-known banks in Australia, offering a wide range of financial products and services to individuals, businesses, and institutions. The bank provides a range of personal banking services, including savings and transaction accounts, credit cards, personal loans, and mortgages. The bank also offers investment and retirement planning services, insurance, and wealth management services.

CBA Exchange Rates – Are you getting a good deal?

If you are a CBA customer and looking to send money overseas through an International Money Transfer (IMT) or get some travel money, you might be curious as to how the exchange rates you receive from CBA compare to other FX specialist providers.

With BER, you can easily view the exchange rate margins or markups provided by CBA for a range of different currencies. The exchange rate margin is the difference between the rate at which CBA buys and sells a particular currency. For example, at the time of writing, CBA exchange rate margins range from 4% to 8% for the different currencies.

So sending or receiving international transfers to or from your CBA account will cost an extra amount (between 4% to 8%) – this is much higher than most money transfer broker rates (which are normally 0.5 to 1.5%).

Commonwealth Bank does allow you to request a real-time FX rate request, prior to scheduling an international wire. So you can check the rate and compare to the best rates from our BER partner brokers to check for a better deal.

Comparing CBA exchange rates

Overall these are the main points to consider when comparing CBA exchange rates:

• CBA provides extensive foreign exchange services, FX Specialists provide more additional services and generally speaking a higher level of expertise;
• CBA products are available both in-branch and online via their online banking platform NetBank. FX Specialists for foreign transfers are on-line but you can speak to them on the phone, and in some cases you will have an account manager;
• Commonwealth Bank exchange rates for foreign transfers are generally poor compared to using an FX specialist.
• Commonwealth Bank exchange rates for travel money are comparable to those of the other Australian banks but you will, more likely than not, get less for your dollar than if you ordered your foreign currency and travel money online through providers such as Travelex.
• Average to poor exchange rates need to be weighed up against convenience of using a familiar internet banking platform.