Whenever my wife goes home to Taiwan, she brings brand new uncirculated $100 bills that she orders from our bank here in California. These bills bring a significant premium on the local Black Market.
I don’t know about always, but generally yes.
Think of it like any other good, where supply and demand dictate the price. There’s lots of $US in the USA, and lots of other countries currency in those countries, and lots of people who want them. Moneychangers have no trouble getting the currency, there are plenty of competitors to keep the prices down, and they’ll generally do a brisk business, so they can afford to take a relatively small profit on each transaction.
If you wanted to, say, buy Indonesian Rupiah in Venezuela, well… there probably aren’t many people who have it at all, so the few who do can charge extra since there’s little competition. And they probably don’t do much business in it, so they have to charge a higher markup to make it worth their while to even keep the stuff on hand.
“Black market” sounds a lot like why jezzaOZ is able to secure good rates without commission at certain money changing places. If the reason for it is that Malaysian currency restrictions are circumvented, then the transactions are most likely illegal. Maybe tolerated by the authorities, but still illegal.
As far as I can tell there is no currency black market in Malaysia. Foreign currency (cash) can enter and leave with no restrictions so long as it’s declared. There are however restrictions on Ringitt cash entering and leavings - around USD 300 equivalent.
My guess is clean uncirculated foreign currency attracts a small premium for social/aesthetic reasons. I haven’t tried with old tired bills but I expect I’d get a not so good rate.
Actually, there aren’t many corner money changers in Thailand. Not much of a black market at all. Everyone just uses banks. But I have used private money changers in Malaysia.
So what are the “government restrictions” then that you were referring to, and that the money changers want to circumvent?
I wonder what the premium is, if it is really for aesthetic reasons. I doubt it can be very large. Hardly anybody will get a $100 note and then frame it and just look at it (you might do that with smaller denominations); you’d want to use and spend it, but then the crispness will wear off quickly, so there’s not much aesthetic pleasure to enjoy that would carry a big premium.
I don’t know about premiums on good-condition banknotes, but I do know some countries’ banks and changers – Cambodia springs immediately to mind, Nepal and China too as I recall – will not accept any bills that have the slightest flaw. A tiny hole, just a little tear, anything, and you’re stuck with it. No one will take it. They’re more lax about that here in Thailand, but even here I have seen it happen but only with bills in really bad shape.
If you come to Europe, you will get the best deal from ATMs. It will, of course, depend on what your card issuer charges, but I believe that some make no charge for foreign transactions. At any rate, the actual exchange rate will be better than any high street shop.
Oh! - and always insist that CC purchases are in local currency. Let your CC issuer make the exchange as that is always better.
I’ve found that to be true in general. However, if I’m going to a foreign country, I like to have a little of that country’s cash with me already when I arrive, and I can change more later. In Thailand, actual banks are preferred for changing from US dollars or euros and such into the local currency, the baht, but if I’m going someplace like Japan or Singapore, we often use a local chain called Super Rich for yen or Singapore dollars. They’re pretty popular. You can get baht there too but at about the same rate as banks, so there’s no need to hunt up a Super Rich just for that. But they do tend to give better rates for baht into other foreign currencies than banks will give, although I’ve found them about the same as banks when it comes to buying US dollars.
“Super Rich” is a great name for a financial institution, BTW.
I’ve mentioned Charles Schwab Bank in numerous other threads similar to this. If you use your Charles Schwab ATM card in another country and withdraw foreign currency, Schwab will do it for free. You get the current interbank exchange rate, and Schwab will even pay the foreign ATM’s fees. It’s really great.
This is super annoying if you’re not ready for it. Because anyone who has damaged bills will try to give them to you as change, so then you have to start being ultra picky about things, and there’s this subgame in every transaction where you try to pass off bills with minor flaws and hope the other person doesn’t notice/complain.
Well, of course your milage may vary, but the reason AUS inforces cash reporting requirements on financial institutions is because the USA requires them to do so. So I will be surprised if your cash reporting requirements are significantly less pervasive than ours.
And no, I wouldn’t use banknotes to buy a car from my next door neighbour. I’d use a bank cheque. Having large amounts of cash around the house is not something I’d like to advertise to my neigbours.
WTH is this “cash reporting requirement” you keep on about? IIRC the only time it comes up for the average person is if traveling abroad with more than 10K, and then it’s on the customs sheet. Nothing to have to go out of the way to do.
Otherwise why would I have to report a private transaction using any amount of cash? A financial institute might report it if one dumps more than 10K into an account, but if it’s not from anything illegal there’s nothing to worry about. And the person themselves doesn’t have to report anything. I can’t imagine any law that says I can’t trade (and that’s all it is, “trading”) foreign currency for an equal amount of my own countries money with someone else. Where’s the crime?
The IRS wants businesses to report transactions over $10K. Technically, I don’t see anything that requires an individual not associated with a business to do so, but this is such a large amount that I’d be cautious.
It’s not that making large cash transactions is illegal, it’s that many people who are engaged in illegal transactions do so with large amounts of cash, so it will catch someone’s eye.
But Melbournes posts seems to infer that it does.
If I take 10K out of my bank account and give it to my neighbor for payment of a used car and give him cash instead of a bank check, I’m not real worried about what the IRS thinks about it. The money was mine, legally earned, and income tax was paid on it when I earned it. My neighbor get’s 10 grand for his car whether I give him cash or a check.
If instead I trade him 10K for 9314 Euros because he just came back from Paris and had money left over and I’m going there soon and need local currency, I’m also not going to hide under my bed worrying that Jack Booted thugs are going to bust down my door over it. HTH would anyone else even know about it? It’s not that big of deal.
That’s actually pretty common in Thailand, using cash banknotes to buy a car. Checks are rare. I’ve seen only two or three in all my decades here.
And let it be said for the hundred thousandth time on this board: if you have a large amount of cash to deposit to a bank, there is nothing at all illegal about depositing $10 grand, $50 grand, whatever. Theoretically someone may eventually ask how you got so much cash, but there simply isn’t anything illegal about making a deposit.
However, taking a large amount of cash and depositing it little by little in an attempt to avoid the bank filing a transaction report is a felony, no matter how the cash was obtained. This is known as “structuring” and yes, people do get arrested and prosecuted for it.
If you have a lot of cash, just deposit it. It will be fine if you aren’t a criminal.
Your going to scare Melbourne.
There wouldn’t be much reason to attempt to avoid the transaction report if the cash was obtained legally, would there be?
I have a small business on the side and I’ve routinely deposited small amounts of cash into a bank account, usually on a weekly basis. Been doing it for just shy of 30 years. I also occasionally desposit large chunks of cash into it as well. Nobody has ever bothered me, and I’ve never been audited. I file my tax return (about the size of a small bible) and everything is clean.
BTW, the business is buying/selling guns. :eek:
Run! Hide! 
Since we’re exchanging anecdotes now, I’m chipping in my bit. My native Germany is a country that’s still more cash-based than many others, as evidenced by the fact that it was Germany which lobbied for the introduction of a 500 euro banknote when the single currency was set up. I remember some time in the late 1990s, when my mother bought a used car with cash. She withdrew 16,000 deutschmarks (above $10k at the time) from the bank in the form of sixteen 1,000 marks notes, put them in an envelope, and handed it to the car salesman. A transaction which was neither illegal nor in any way unusual or suspicious.