I have read many threads about currency exchange, but I have one nagging question:

Does anyone ever carry USD with them and walk inside a European bank, speak to a teller and purchase euro? (I am surmising you must show your U.S. passport to complete the transaction.)

Of course - people do this all the time. At one point it was the simplest/best way to get cash - before they invented ATMs.

Now it;'s the equivalent of using snail maill vs email. Very slow, tiresome, inconvenient and expensive (you'll pay an exchange rate fee of 8 to 10% vs 2 to 3% with an ATM.) Plus - you're stuck with banking hours - which in some counries - and towns are very brief.

You will be charged for that transaction and the cost is higher than taking money out of ATM using your debit card.

That's true, it will cost you more than an ATM. No, I don't do it because there is no need for it. That's what bureaux de change are for (cambios, etc.). Many banks will not do business with people off the street who aren't customers. Many will not do tourist exchange services. Now some will, and they may have a separate line for that and a window marked -- they often have large markups and have decided to make money from that. Most banks have better things to do with their time. Believe me, they are not going to do it at cost for tourists for no profit, why would they.

Why do you want a bank so much? they have stricter hours than most exchange bureaux. Contrary to popular opinion, they do not often have better rates, either, and sometimes a lot worse. You did not have to do this before ATMs, there have been bureaux de change around doing this a long long time.

Why would you have to show identification?

Money laundering laws now require identification for relatively large exchange transactions. But, at least in countries where the citizenry stops nosey governments from interfering, it's no more anyone's damn business who you are if you're buying €100 than if you're buying a bottle of beer.

Incidentally, not all banks are set up to accept foreign currency. In some countries, though, most post offices are.

Christina,

You asked "why do you want a bank so much?" I did not write that...I'm just curious.

There's a lovely thread over on slowtalk.com, in which the process of changing money in a bank is described. Count 20-25 minutes per transaction, as new security rules require that the bank enter all kinds of information into a database. The rules, incidentally, apply for both visitors and Italians.

A question along the same line:

If I wasn't getting the amount of money I would like from an ATM, would it be okay to walk into a bank to get a larger amount of dollars from a teller ($1000.00)?

Would it cost any more than at an ATM?

I was thinking that I would like to increase the amount of my transaction at times, over what an ATM will allow.

VS

VS,

It would be much faster and simpler just to go to the next ATM across the street or up the block and withdraw more money there, if it's within the daily limit set by your own bank.

Besides, I doubt very much that you can just ask a teller in a bank for money. Unlike the ATM, his computer probably cannot access the Cirrus or Plus network and, through them, your bank.

Thanks Eloise.

VS

Many banks in Euroland don't even change money anymore. In France last December my French relatives said that in Orleans, a largish city of well over 100,000 and a regional town there are no banks that change money except for at the post office - i confirmed this in my walk around the town center and the postes bank offered rather dismal rates. Even the Banque de France, the national bank of France, which at one time had the best exchange rates in town is out of the business. So if planning to just walk into a bank and change money is getting to be more and more problematic - due to Euro i guess when their major money changing business, that of from one European currency to the other dried up.

I've not tried to buy euro at a european bank as I have read that it costs more than using an ATM. I'm wondering if many banks still do this service.

In my city, some of the larger banks did foreign currency exchange when I was young, but when I checked about 10 years ago, no bank in town was offering such services, they just referred you to American Express.

I would think that a bank offering exchange services would demand information from the stranger seeking such services, simply because it is unlikely the bank employee doing such exchanges would not have sufficient familiarity with all currencies to have confidence that the foreign currency proferred was valid. If they have obtained enough information about you, they are in a better position to recover if you turn out to have passed some created currency.

I think the comparison to buying a bottle of beer is not well thought out. If you came into a bar in my town and tried to buy a beer with a pound, a euro, or a Hong Kong dollar, you would have little prospect of success. I think if I went into a European establishment and tried to pay for my drink with dollars, I would expect like treatment.

Before we had the free trade agreement with Canada, I might have driven up to Niagara Falls each summer to outfit my kids for the hockey season. At that time, virtually every establishment in that town would take US dollars, but at a far worse exchange rate than the banks. My kids are grown now and are no longer playing, so I haven't been recently, but I would anticipate that with the coming of credit cards and ATMs, it is probably much harder to find a place that will take US dollars.

On my recent trip to Canada I did not have any Canadian dollars so I decided to make sure I would have something upon arrival I used an exchange booth at the airport in the US and bought 100 CDN. The commissiion was about $6.00 and I ended up paying about $100 US for this.

I should have taken the chance that I would easily find an ATM at the Toronto airport before needing any money and I did and got another 100 CDN...that cost me about $87.00 US so you can see there is a major difference when you use an exchange booth..either you get a big commission charge and a fairly decent exchange rate or a low commission charge and a bad exchange rate.

I wouldn't waste the time doing a direct money exhange inside a bank or anywhere else vs using an ATM.

I've found that a lot of banks in France no longer even do that kind of transaction. I used to do that sometimes, but it was a time-consuming, expensive proposition. And then there was the year that no French banks would take American $20 bills because of some fraud problem.

And for the record, anytime I ever did such a transaction or watched anyone else do it, the passport was required, and the passport number noted on bank paperwork and the receipt.