FX (foreign-transaction) fee

FX (foreign-transaction) fee — the markup a card issuer adds to every transaction billed in a foreign currency: the card network’s assessment (~1%) plus the issuer’s own margin. The PH market runs roughly 2–3.5%, and most issuers don’t publish their number — BPI’s ~1.85% is the lowest clearly disclosed. For anyone paying USD-billed ad platforms or SaaS, the FX fee silently taxes the largest spend line, so it can outweigh any earn-rate difference between cards: at six-figure monthly foreign spend, one percentage point of FX fee compounds faster than any miles tier. The course’s rule: never commit foreign spend to a card whose FX fee you haven’t confirmed in writing (the fees-and-charges PDF or BSP-mandated fees table, not a comparison site).

First used in: 3.2 · The PH credit machine