How to buy currency at the Central Bank rate?
Each of us at least once in our life had to exchange currency in the bank: rubles for dollars or euros. And we are always unpleasantly surprised when the price on the scoreboard with the rates is 50-80 kopecks different from what we saw on TV in the morning during breakfast. Therefore, the question arises: a how to buy currency at the Central Bank rate? Is it possible for Russians not to pay commissions to the bank?
Buy currency at the Central Bank rate
Suppose you have 120,000 rubles. You want to use it to buy euro and transfer it to my favorite bank account. What do you need to do?
Step 1. We open an account with any broker that gives access to the foreign exchange market (IT Invest, BCS, KIT Finance, Otkrytie, Rikom-trust, Solid, Finam, Zerich Capital Management). The account opening is free of charge.
Step 2. Transfer money to this account from your bank or deposit cash through the broker's cash desk. The first is usually more convenient, but your bank will withhold a commission, which can range from 10 rubles per transaction up to 0.3% of the transferred amount or more. There is no fee for depositing cash.
Step 3. Download the program from the broker's website - trading terminal. Sit down and set it up, learn how to use it, guided by the reference material.
Step 4. Making an exchange deal - buying an instrument EURRUB_TOD. In this case, TOD is short for today. It means that the settlement of the transaction takes place immediately on the day of buying or selling currency at 15:00. If you can't make it in time, you can wait until tomorrow or buy EURRUB_TOMwhere TOM means tomorrow - the next day's settlement.
Bidding takes place in lots of 1,000 euros. At the moment the rate is 39.66 rubles. For our amount we can buy three lots, that is, 3,000 euros. That would take 118,980 rubles. Another 1,020 rubles would remain on the brokerage account. Part of it will be spent on commissions, and the rest can be left on the account until future transactions in currency.
At the time of the transaction the broker will withhold a commission from you as a percentage of turnover. Let us assume that this is 0.005%. That is, 6 rubles.
At the time of settlement of the transaction the broker will withhold a commission for the delivery of the currency. Let's say 0.05%. That is 60 rubles.
Exchange Commission will be 0.0015% of the transaction volume. That is 1.8 rubles.
Step 5. We give an electronic order to withdraw euros from the brokerage account to an account at your favorite bank. The commission for this operation will be, let us say, 25 euros. The account will receive 2,975 euros. Or you can withdraw cash at the bank affiliated to your broker. But the withdrawal fee must be paid anyway. That is, in fact, all.
Is it profitable to buy currency through the Moscow Exchange?
To understand whether it is easier to convert rubles into currency inside the bank or to withdraw cash and run to the nearest exchanger, let's calculate our costs:
120 rubles + 6 rubles + 60 rubles + 1.8 rubles + (25 euro * 39.66 rubles) = 1179.3 rubles.
If we add this figure to the amount that was spent on the purchase of the euro, then we can understand what the real euro rate was for us - taking into account all the expenses incurred:
(118,980 rubles + 1,179.3 rubles) / 3,000 euros = 40.05 rubles.
Is this a lot or a little? At the same time, the average selling rate of the euro in Moscow exchange offices was 39.91 rubles. Thus, the game was not worth the candle. But there is a rule of thumb here: the larger the transaction amount, the lower the commission as a percentage. And the more favorable the real exchange rate is. If we had bought 10,000 euros at the same conditions, the real exchange rate would have been 39.79. The transaction would have saved us 2,600 rubles.