Australia Post currency exchange: Is it worth it?

If you’re heading abroad from Australia, whether for work or for pleasure, you might find yourself needing to exchange some money to a foreign currency. But watch out: not every currency exchange service provides decent value - it’s always a good idea to compare your options carefully.

Australia Post - frequently known as Auspost - is a popular option in Australia. Like many national postal services around the world, Auspost offers various services to do with international travel, including currency exchange. Here’s all the information you need to decide if Auspost is the right option for you.

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How does Australia Post money exchange work?

Auspost lets you buy travel money online, or order it at one of their branches around the country. They have over 3,000 branches that you can use to exchange money¹.

You can use their website to work out what it’ll cost. Simply key in the amount you want to convert, in Australian dollars, and select which currency you need. Once you’ve done that, the website will display a list of your different options. These might include a travel card, a cash passport and simply an amount of foreign cash, although not all of these are available in all currencies¹.

Auspost Travel card

Auspost’s Load&Go Travel card lets you keep up to 5 currencies on 1 card, and you can use it like a Visa card. It’s a handy option if you want to use a card abroad - although watch out for the fees, some of which are listed below. There’s an expiration date, too - use the money within 3 years.

Auspost cash passport

A more deluxe offering is the Cash Passport Platinum Mastercard. It’s a similar product to the Load&Go card, but up to 11 currencies are available, and various other perks are available like free wifi at certain international hotspots³.

Cash

Of course, you can also simply pick up some cash from Auspost. You can do this online or in store, and over 50 currencies are available. You might need to call back to collect the money - they quote 1-2 business days as the turnaround time if you go in store, or 2-3 if you order online⁴.

What are the fees for exchanging money with Australia Post?

There are different charges depending on which of these services you use: here’s a quick summary. It’s not a definitive list - make sure to check directly with Auspost for the complete picture, especially for the 2 cards.

As mentioned above, the 2 cards are subject to various other fees too, so do check carefully.

And all three have various maximum and minimum limits, restricting the amount of cash you can deal with at any one time. For cash, the minimum limit might come as a shock: you have to exchange at least AUD 200 if you go to a post office, and a sizeable AUD 500 if you do it online. The maximum limit in either case is AUD 5,000.

You’ll see in the table above that for cash exchange, Auspost charges 0% commission. That sounds like a great deal - but read on to find out why it’s not quite as great as it sounds.

Post office exchange rates Australia

Exchange rates between any two currencies fluctuate all the time, as the markets change. But there’s one more variable to consider: the rate set by the service you’re using. Banks and independent currency converters are able to set their own rates, and most choose to “mark up” the average exchange rate so that the transaction is more profitable for them.

So you should always compare the exchange rate you’re offered, against the mid-market rate, which is an average of all the exchange rates currently in use. You can do that easily using an online currency converter, like the ones offered by Google, XE or Wise.

What do Auspost do? Well, the first thing to note is that their 3 available products all offer different exchange rates. That’s right - you’ll get a different amount of money depending on whether you choose to get cash, or use one of their 2 cards. Auspost aren’t entirely clear about precisely how they calculate any of these rates, although they do note on their website that “Exchange rates may include a service charge.” Which means that, while they don’t charge “commission” on their conversion service, they may charge you all the same - they just conceal the fee within the exchange rate¹.

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Does it have to be like that? The short answer is, no it doesn’t. Wise, for instance, treats currency conversion a little differently. Whenever you make a transaction with Wise, it uses the real mid-market rate - the only rate that’s really fair to use. That means Wise is completely upfront about the fee it charges to its customers - you get the full picture, right from the start.

And with a borderless account from Wise, you can hold money in 40+ currencies and use virtual account details in AUD, USD, GBP and EUR, meaning you can pay and get paid like a local in any of those places. So if you’re often abroad or making international transactions, Wise could be the perfect solution. More and more transactions are being made virtually, after all - do you even need to get all that cash?

However you choose to exchange your currency, good luck - and watch out for the exchange rate.

Sources:

1. Auspost converter
2. Auspost Loadgo
3. Auspost Platinum Mastercard
4. Auspost foreign cash