And that conversion is expensive. If I could have back the currency conversion margins PayPal has charged my businesses throughout my life, I'd easily be able to live for a year on that money.
Well, 50 weeks, if it were sent to my PayPal account in US dollars :)
There are no savings given the volatility. Since it can take days to convert to usable currency, you'd have to bake in 3-20% padding to cover volatility.
If conversion is easy and fast, then I wouldn't care what my employer pays me with. The onus is on me to figure out which currency is used by the smartest and most productive people on the planet because that's the one I want to hold onto in the long term.
I myself have never bought anything with Euros online in my life. It seems from other people's comments that my bank would simple convert via the exchange rate, but I didn't know that before and would have left the site if dollar was not an option.
Well, the bank in question holds GBPs, converting to/from Euros to GBPs seems incredibly inconvenient and has no real benefits. Most people get their wage in a single currency and use a single currency in their every day lives.
I have a family member who gets their pension in Canadian dollars but lives in the US. Since he lives in the US he has no need for Canadian dollars. He says that his money loses a quarter of its value converting from Canadian dollars to US dollars. I don't know if that's true, its what he told me.
How often do you need $50k without being able to wait a business day?
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