Here in Colombia, Dollar/Peso exchange is big business. Someone is always making money when exchanging from Dollar to Peso or Peso to Dollar. When getting Pesos from the ATM from Dollars in my USA bank, I always pay 1% of the transaction in USA and the ATM also gets a fee. :dubious:
Well, for instance, at Heathrow (British: 'eefrow), most of the stands will take major currencies. Change will be in pounds.
In many places where there are lots of tourists or passers-through (like international airports), the merchants will take major currencies and give back change in local currency. The cash registers are often currency-wise and will do the calculations: you buy something somewhere for 25 LCs (local currency) and give the clerk 5 pounds and the cash register will calculate 4.87 LCs change.
That way, the cash register only needs to keep the incoming currency, and doesn’t need to deal with change. Simple.
If there’s an area in Country A where there are frequently travelers from Country B, you might find that some shops will take Country B currency even if it’s not major.
However, it’s often up to the shopkeeper, and in areas not highly travelled by tourists, you’re going have to use local currency. My silliest example was when we had a few hours in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. We had an hour for shopping and we were only in Bulgaria for a day, so I didn’t have local currency but was advised the shops would take euros or dollars. I found a bookstore and wanted to buy a copy of ALICE (in Bulgarian) for my daughter. The bookseller spoke only Bulgarian, but would not accept a credit card, would not accept euros or dollars. The book cost about USD3, and I offered USD20, and she still refused. I shrugged and left without the book but with a story. The tour guide said that most shopkeepers are learning about capitalism and how to earn money, but some are stuck in the old ways and too stubborn to change.
There are some places here in Western New York which will take Canadian money and also give you change in Canadian…but only if they happen to have it in the register at the time. Once the exchange rate got close enough to 1:1 those places stopped worrying about the exchange, and will happily give you, say, a Canadian $5 and the rest in US.
In Montreal it used to be (and maybe still is) that you could pay in American dollars in most places. And you had a choice in many of getting your change back in American or Canadian currency. They’d do an exchange based on what kind of change you’re receiving.
If you were getting Canadian change back, they’d do an exchange where they figured out the Canadian equivalent of your American money, subtracted the price of your purchase from that equivalent amount, and gave you your Canadian change.
If you were getting American change back, they’d do an exchange where they figured out the American equivalent of the price of your purchase, subtracted that amount from your money, and gave you your American change.