Bank charges abroad cost £1.8bn
Updated on 25 November 2007
Britons are having to fork out as much as £1.8 billion a year in cash machine and credit-card charges incurred abroad.
Britons take more than 44 million trips overseas each year, spending around £31 billion.
Of this, about £1.8 billion is going in charges imposed when withdrawing money from foreign cash machines or for using credit or debit cards, a survey for pre-paid currency card provider FairFX said.
The survey showed that 56% of the 2,177 adults polled thought these charges were unfair and 11% found them confusing.
The survey also showed that cash is the preferred payment method for 74% of Britons abroad, with Visa being the most-popular card used.
FairFX chief executive Stephen Heath said: "Travellers get hit every way they turn when spending abroad.
"Either they have to rely on carrying unwieldy and unsecured amounts of cash, suffer punitive charges for withdrawing cash from ATMs (automatic teller machines) or use a debit or credit card which not only inflicts more hefty charges but also subjects them to a growing risk of fraud."
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