Option to disable GBP transactions to block dynamic currency conversion

Ideas & Feedback
406

In Switzerland it’s more of an agreement between local issuer and aqcuirer to set the limit to CHF 40. This is then used for all cards. Also for Revolut ones.

Out of experience, the same Swiss cards have different limits in other countries. If I remember correctly, Germany was €25.

But as written in another thread, some issuer/acquirer combination in the EU handle this differently. In France I got a reject of a transaction initiated contactless of about €70, it only worked with chip and pin. In Switzerland this situation would be resolved by simply asking for the pin without first aborting the transaction.

407

I was thinking of the card issuer.

408

by the country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactless_payment

409

I’ve been using GPay backed by a Revolut MC with UK bin now since it’s live in Switzerland regularly and never had a DCC prompt till this morning. I was paying CHF42 at a hairdresser’s and was asked if I want to pay in GBP or CHF. Obviously it was contactless, using GPay on my watch and did not have to enter a PIN.

It’s very frustrating to see so many different implementations. I could not see which acquirer the terminal was from, would be very interesting to know. In the big supermarket chains, all backed by SIX, that prompt never appeared with GPay up till now.

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410

DCC should not happen anymore with the Mastercard mandat valid from last april as @NFH already linked earlier in this thread.
I don’t know how this should behave with GPay though.

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411

I’m not sure if this already has been implemented. Last time I checked, 3 weeks ago, it still showed DCC if the card was used with Chip & Pin. I’ll try again.

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412

Merchants and acquirers have been breaching DCC rules for years. Therefore I had little optimism that MasterCard’s new rules would make any difference. This doesn’t surprise me.

413

Merchants have never been meant to offer DCC with contactless!

I’ve read the acquirer rules and it states that DCC defeats the point of contactless being quick and ez

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414

Merchants and acquirers will always pay little attention to contractual obligations. They will pay attention only to statutory obligations. Therefore we need a new EU regulation to state:

“A trader shall not, when processing a card-based payment, determine or vary the transaction currency according to the location of the payment account, the place of establishment of the payment service provider or the place of issue of the payment instrument within the Union.”

The practice of using the BIN to determine the transaction currency, or to offer to vary the transaction currency, needs to be outlawed.

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415

Eh, I would prefer like an option where you’d register your card with MasterCard or Visa (like the number and your bank name) and then they’d continue to keep your new cards on that list

This’d then outlaw anyone from offering you DCC within the Union, while giving those who would prefer to have it the option.

416

My wording above doesn’t prevent a variation of the transaction currency at the card holder’s request. But it prevents the merchant from automatically determining the transaction currency based on the country of issue of the card.

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418

@henry.iv, thanks for your post. Please complain to Revolut support. If errant dynamic currency conversion causes Revolut to incur additional admin, then the above proposal is more likely to be implemented.

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419

“Which?”, the UK consumer magazine, has published an article today about Ryanair’s particularly underhand implementation of dynamic currency conversion. The article is written in a very UK-centric way, incorrectly assuming that all UK-issued cards are denominated in GBP, which overlooks the existence of Revolut and other UK-issued multi-currency and non-GBP cards. Nevertheless the article is rightly critical of Ryanair.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2019/06/ryanair-customers-paying-extra-with-rip-off-exchange-rates/

This quote from Ryanair is particularly irritating:

‘Customers have the option of paying in the currency of their payment card which gives absolute certainty of the final payment amount.’

I understand that it’s impossible for a merchant to identify the currency of a payment card and that a merchant can identify only the country of issue (based on the BIN). Disingenuous merchants such as Ryanair then make a very flawed assumption that the card is denominated in the national currency of the country of issue.

I question whether Ryanair is breaching Article 5(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/302, which states:

A trader shall not, within the range of means of payment accepted by the trader, apply, for reasons related to a customer’s nationality, place of residence or place of establishment, the location of the payment account, the place of establishment of the payment service provider or the place of issue of the payment instrument within the Union, different conditions for a payment transaction

Ryanair would probably argue that it is not applying “different conditions”, because a customer can opt out of DCC, but I would argue that Ryanair, by coercing customers into DCC by default and making the opt-out so difficult to find, Ryanair is in fact applying “different conditions”.

“Which?” goes on to say:

We have raised our concerns with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) because of the manner in which Ryanair presents the rate to customers. It could be misleading and in breach of consumer protection legislation.

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420

This happened to me yesterday, I was booking a flight in pounds, and while I have a GBP sub-account, I was charged in Euros (the base currency) instead and the amount was exchanged by the airline at 7% overhead cost. Very annoying… However, they prompted me to accept their conversion rate (1.1 instead of 1.17) and I did, stupidly enough.

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421

7%? That sounds like Ryanair, which has a particularly disingenuous method of coercing its customers into dynamic currency conversion.

422

True it was indeed Ryanair… and it was really annoying!

I am not sure if I could do anything about it… I could easily pay in pounds, why it asked me to pay in Euro despite being in the UK, departing from the UK and having a GBP sub-account with Revolut is something I am still trying to get my mind around.

Is this a problem with Revolut not referring to my virtual one-time card as a GBP one? or is it Ryanair’s wont? not sure what to do next time…

423

No, this is not Revolut’s fault at all. it’s because Ryanair sees that your Revolut card is issued in the Eurozone (using the first 6 digits of the card number known as the BIN), and it then assumes incorrectly that all cards issued in the Eurozone are only EUR-denominated. Ryanair then disingenuously coerces you into using its unfavourable EUR/GBP rate, resulting in a needless double currency conversion. You can complain to Ryanair citing the legislation that I quoted a few posts above. You could also complain to Revolut, saying that the most prominent amount that you authorised was the GBP amount, not the EUR amount, and ask it to dispute the transaction with Ryanair. However, you might want to do this after your flight, as you risk Ryanair cancelling your booking.

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