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Banks will stop charging people to withdraw foreign currency on debit cards in the UK.
The Office of Fair Trading has forced five banks to drop the charge, which is currently 1.5-2% of the amount withdrawn.
These extra charges raised £1billion in 2010, along with other stealth charges applied to debit and credit cards to use foreign currency.
Customers can pay up to £4.50 for a transaction that costs banks just 9p according to official consumer body Customer Focus.
After taking a percentage of the total, banks also add a service charge, meaning someone withdrawing £200 will pay almost £10 in charges.
Banks have also pledged to show other charges more clearly, such as charges for using cards abroad. Some of our airport parking customers told us they have been hit multiple times as they did not know about the charges until they got home from their holiday.
OFT chief executive John Fingleton was “very pleased” with the ruling and said that customers should be less confused in the future.
He said: “Companies should be earning profits from competing to provide the best-value products and services.
“They should not be doing it through charges that are hard for customers to identify or interpret.”
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