My specific focus is on finding out about Foreign Transaction Processing fees - fees levied by bank when I use my card on a website which processed my card outside of my country (AU) but still takes AUD only as payment.
---
Context: I bought airline tickets recently and used Paypal as the card processor. My bank charged me hefty foreign transaction fees for it because as per the bank Paypal processed the card outside of AU. They are not interested in taking a complaint and keep hanging up me claiming I agreed to the Cards T&C's which puts a 3% fee on such transactions, and bank cant help because it costs fees and so they must pass it on to me.
The airlines denies they have anything to do with this as they only quotes and priced in AUD, had no one else complained about it, and directed me to PayPal. PayPal claims they processed it as they did before with my account. They are right as I never had such fees levied before when using PayPal + the same card.
I am planning to reaching out to ACCC [1] and AFCA [2] about this and want to make sure I read and understand this space as much as I can before that to ensure I am well advised and not waste anyone's time.
I could not find any material about it and if any are just marketing fluff by remittance services selling their products to avoid such fees.
If you working in the Payment space or have any experience, can you please help.
[1] https://www.accc.gov.au/ [2] https://www.afca.org.au/
Having said that, the overall cost could possibly be a combination of both the foreign exchange fee and a card processing fee.
If you used PayPal, you actually used two or more banking institutions for the one transaction: Paypal takes a commission, your bank charges you a card processing fee, and somewhere or other there's a foreign currency exchange fee.
All jokes aside, it may sometimes be cheaper to use a Travel Agent for foreign airlines. It pays to do your 'due diligence' whatever the transaction might be.
Another thing that you could take into account is which end of the transaction will be cheaper with Foreign Exchange commissions: Is it cheaper to buy (say) US dollars in Australia and send the overseas entity US Dollars, or is it cheaper to send Australian Dollars overseas and get the Currency Conversion done in the States? *
Be especially careful when prices are quoted in "dollars" that you find out which dollars are being talked about. Just a straight rough and ready calculation shows you that one US dollar is about $1.50 Australian, without taking into account any exchange fees, or bank handling fees.
I'll just say that one more time: It pays to do your 'due diligence' whatever the transaction might be.
===
* In cases like this you might find, for instance, that the Australian bank will charge you commission on the conversion and only charge a $6 transfer fee. Or you might send Aussie dollars overseas, the bank doesn't get any conversion commission from you, so charges you a $22 transfer fee. [True example!]