Up until early this year, everytime I went overseas for work or holiday, I have to trudge up to a money changer, get ripped off on forex rates, change a ton of cash (especially if it’s a long trip), and then stealthily try to hide the manila envelope full of cash while I dart home, all the time praying I wouldn’t be robbed.
That’s just pre-trip. Post trip, I’ll find myself ladled with foreign currency coins that I’ll have trouble changing back to SGD because moneychangers won’t take coins.
Thanks to my new job (disclaimer time, I work at Citibank), I have access to Citi Global Wallet, tied to my Mastercard debit card, that allows me to store and transact up to 9 currencies. Once you have a Citibank savings account and its associated debit card, it’s easy to activate global wallet from your app.
What is Citi Global Wallet?
Citi Global Wallet is a multi-currency product from Citibank linked to your debit card, that allows you to make purchases at point of sale, or online, without incurring additional forex conversion and admin fees.
You can also use the debit card to withdraw money in the foreign currency at Citibank ATMS without incurring any fees if you have funds in that currency.
So, how’d it go?
Brilliantly. To be honest we still exchanged for some cash at the moneychanger, just in case we ran into some cash only stores, but Perth and Margaret River (and basically all of Australia I’d say) were amazing at being cashless, so we could technically pay with the debit card everywhere.
The only times I used cash was when the price came up to a nice round figure, so I wouldn’t get coins for change.
Topping up Citi Global Wallet when abroad
One of the things I was super impressed with was how instant the process of transferring money from your savings account to your foreign currency wallet was.
Toward the back half of the trip, I realised my AUD was running out, and so I logged into the Citibank app, and transferred more money over to the AUD account, and the transfer was easy, instant and promptly usable.
All in, I loved the ease of use, and the option to not carry around so much cash while i’m abroad. Although I’m not sure the savings in fees by using the debit card is going to be more than rewards from points chalked from credit card usage.
Has anyone done that analysis?
Oh, speaking about vacation, here are some photos from the trip! Enjoy!
You will probably get a poor fx rate, unless you bulk convert your foreign currency via a money changer before hand and deposit/wire in your Citi accounts.
I tried to use it but it only allowed me to open a CHF account. When I REALLY needed it to work and I tried to open a EUR account it told me that it could not and I need to contact an RM in Singapore? But I am in Europe! The RM only works Singapore office hours, the help desk work 8-8 Singapore time. So when I really wanted to buy food OR withdraw money from the ATM the global wallet did NOT revert back to SGD, and it would not allow me to open a Eur account.
So Just when you REALLY need it to work, it didn’t. The bottom line is that it’s not worth the trouble.