The total cost you are charged by your foreign exchange provider consists of the margin from the mid-rate offered plus any fixed or percentage fees.
These margins and fees vary significantly for International Money Transfers and Travel Money transactions as shown below.
Whenever you are researching a particular exchange rate you are actually interested in two currencies as exchange rates are the ratio between two currencies.
So it follows that if you are determining the best time to transact, in this case the EUR vs BRL, you should pay attention to the forecasts and trends for both Euro and Brazilian Real:
Euro (EUR) outlook
Against the dollar and pound, the euro remains weak: rates between $1.11 and $1.12 haven’t been seen since June 2017, and a rate of £0.85 was only half a percent above a new 2-year low. The euro fared better against the Australian dollar, with EUR/AUD rates slightly above 2018’s average at A$1.595.
Euro weakness has been driven by Brexit uncertainties (a “flextension” means that Brexit has been pushed back until October) and has followed March’s meeting of the ECB, at which the central bank said it will not raise interest rates until 2020 as part of an effort to lift the eurozone economy out of this “period of continued [economic] weakness.”
2018 was a disappointing year for the Brazilian real: it lost 15 percent of its value against the US dollar and more than 10 percent against the euro.
The real started 2019 brightly: by early February, it held a year-to-date gain worth 7 percent against the dollar. Throughout February and into March, the real weakened somewhat, but then on March-22 (the day of this report), it plunged on news that former Brazilian president Michel Temer had been arrested on corruption charges — an arrest that might impede the pension reforms that analysts say are vital to Brazil’s economic recovery. A one-day fall of 3 percent following the arrest had the real down on the year, at R$3.9 per USD. A push back towards the R$4.0 handle, last seen in September, is now likely.
In March, Brazil’s central bank adopted a dovish tone and lowered its forecast for average interest rates, further burdening the real.
Despite these issues, one analyst said that he was putting capital into the real because of the “textbook” nature of the current environment, which favoured carry trades and the high-yielding currencies upon which these are based, like the real.
Why can't I just get the EUR/BRL market rate I see online or in the media?
The EUR/BRL mid-rate is the rate you will see quoted online or the news, nobody except the largest banks and businesses can get
exchange rates close to this mid-rate. It is actually just the theoretical half-way point (hence mid-rate) between
the last rate at which the EUR / BRL was traded (bought or sold) in the international markets.
Getting a good market rate is mainly about timing however the transaction margin
you end up being charged can be considerably reduced by around a few percent (of total amount being exchanged) for
travel money and possibly over 5% to 6% when sending money.
The exact potential savings depends on the currencies being exchanged and the amount you are transferring and if you are willing to shop around.
Brazil