UK airports are giving less than one euro to the pound.
T
he average rate worked out at 99 euro cents to the pound due to the fall in the pound’s value. and the worst rate was at Moneycorp at Southampton Airport, which was were giving 88 euro cents, reported BBC News. Glasgow Prestwick had the best rate of €1.06, the report said, and stated that since Brexit in June the pound had fallen, and the US dollar rate is down at airports to $1.08 (97 euro cents).
FairFX carried out the survey on airport bureau de change exchange rates this week, and CEO Ian Strafford-Taylor said that “many travellers would be shocked by the poor rates on offer”. He also noted: “Currency firms operating in airports are known to offer the worst exchange rates down to taking big profit margins and today are shockingly offering holidaymakers below one euro to the pound.
“Unfortunately, if the pound falls even further, rates as poor as this could be seen at airport providers up and down the country – taking advantage of their captive audience of holidaymakers and business travellers.”
The most quoted rate was one euro to the pound, which is below the “wholesale rate of €1.11 to the pound” that banks are applying when “buying and selling the currencies between each other. In turn, the US dollar rates “on offer at the 17 [UK] airports vary from just $0.97 to the pound from ForExchange at Cardiff Airport; to $1.13 from ICE at Heathrow’s Terminal 3”, where as the current “wholesale market rate is just under $1.24 to the pound”.
The report also said that “bureaux de change at airports are notorious for their low rates”, stating that
“in the past, the firms operating them have explained that they have high running costs – for instance, because of their very long opening hours”. In general “travellers rates are […] much more favourable” when using “specialist foreign exchange firms, or even if ordered in advance from the bureau operators themselves”.