The smart traveller’s wallet: how UK professionals are ditching bank cards abroad

You’ve just landed in Frankfurt for a trade show. As you hop in a taxi from the airport, you hand over your company debit card.

The driver’s machine beeps and presents you with a choice: “Pay in Pounds or Euros?” Thinking it’s simpler to see the final cost in sterling, you choose Pounds.

In that seemingly harmless moment, you’ve fallen for a common travel trap that could be costing your business hundreds, if not thousands, a year.

As UK SMEs expand their horizons into global markets, international business travel is on the rise. In fact, a Global Business Travel Association report noted a significant recovery and growth in UK business travel spending, with SMEs driving much of this trend.

This return to the road, however, means confronting an old problem that’s costing companies more than ever: travel expenses.

The fees and poor exchange rates associated with traditional bank cards add up quickly, eroding the company’s bottom line.

The good news is, a new, smarter approach to managing international payments is making these hidden costs a thing of the past.

The three hidden costs on your bank card statement

Traditional UK bank cards, both debit and credit, come with a trio of charges that quietly eat away at your business’s travel budget. Most of these costs are easily overlooked until you’re back in the office, wading through a confusing bank statement filled with cryptic foreign transaction lines.

Non-Sterling Transaction Fees

This is the most common fee. Most major UK high-street banks charge a non-sterling transaction fee of around 2.75% to 2.99% on every single payment made abroad, according to analyses by financial consumer experts like MoneySavingExpert.com.

That means if you take a client out for a €100 dinner, your company is immediately charged an extra three pounds in hidden fees, before you’ve even factored in the exchange rate.

On a typical £2,000 business trip, this single fee could add up to nearly £60, enough to cover an entire lunch or a few taxi rides.

The “Tourist Rate” Trap (DCC)

Remember that choice the taxi driver offered? That’s called Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC).

This service allows you to pay for something in a foreign country in your home currency. It sounds convenient, but it’s a costly trap. The merchant or the local bank gets to set the exchange rate, and it’s almost always far worse than the one your own bank would use.

Financial regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), have warned consumers about this practice. The mark-up on DCC can be as high as 5-7% compared to paying in the local currency. That’s a significant amount of money that’s lost without any benefit.

The ATM Ambush

Carrying some local currency is often a necessity. However, withdrawing it from a foreign ATM is a double-whammy.

First, you’ll be charged a non-sterling transaction fee on the withdrawal amount, just like a purchase. Second, the local ATM operator will often add their own flat fee on top, which can be several pounds per transaction. This combination of fees makes cash withdrawals an expensive last resort.

The solution: a wallet that speaks the local language

The solution to these hidden costs is to move beyond the limitations of traditional banking and adopt a more intelligent approach to business payments. The most modern and efficient way to handle international spending is with a smart multi-currency account and its accompanying card.

You don’t have to convert pounds every time you pay! A multi-currency card allows you to hold foreign currencies in one central account. It’s like having a local bank account in every country you visit.

You don’t have to deal with the hassle of opening a new account each time. When you’re in New York, you pay in dollars from your dollar balance; in the Eurozone, you pay in euros. No conversion, no surprise fees at the point of sale.

This innovative approach is embodied by a multi-currency card. It automatically detects the local currency and pulls the funds from the correct currency “pot” within your account. This not only eliminates the non-sterling transaction fees.

It also ensures you get the real exchange rate, which is the fair mid-market rate that banks use to trade with each other.

This is the same rate that’s displayed on Reuters or Google—the one you thought you were getting all along.

The result is a travel wallet that works as globally as your business does, ensuring you keep more of your company’s money where it belongs: in your pocket.

The smart traveller’s advantage

By switching to a modern, multi-currency payment solution, you gain a significant advantage in managing your business travel expenses.

For a start, paying a €200 hotel bill with a traditional bank card can hit you with a non-sterling transaction fee of nearly six pounds. With a smart card, you simply pay directly from your euro balance, with no fee at all. You also have greater clarity over the exchange rate. Instead of a vague, marked-up rate set by your bank, a multi-currency solution lets you see and often lock in the real mid-market rate before you even travel.

Expense tracking becomes far simpler, too. Traditional bank statements mix your foreign spending with your UK transactions. This turns it a nightmare to sort and reconcile for your accounts.

Moreover, a multi-currency account separates all foreign spending by currency, making it easy to export and manage.

Let’s say you need you need cash! In that case, a smart card offers fee-free withdrawals up to a certain limit. This was you can avoid the double-whammy of fees from your bank and the local ATM.

Wrap up

In today’s global economy, business travel is about maximizing opportunities and building relationships—not leaking cash to hidden fees. For UK professionals and small business owners, the way you pay abroad is no longer a small detail.

It’s a strategic decision that can have a direct impact on your company’s financial health. You just have to adopt a smarter way to manage your international payments.

This way you can protect your budget and simplify your accounting. Moreover, it can help you to focus on what really matters: the business you are there to do.