As a follow up to my previous post comparing effective ATM exchange rates for withdrawing Philippine pesos from US dollar accounts from Charles Schwab and Transferwise, I now compare Charles Schwab and Capital One 360.
To recap, I opened a Schwab One International account from the Philippines. With this account I availed myself of a Schwab ATM/debit card as well as a Schwab checkbook. Note that you don’t need to open a Schwab Bank High Yield Investor Checking Account to get the ATM card and checkbook. That Schwab checking account is only available to US residents. My ATM card and checkbook can be used to access the free, uninvested cash available in my brokerage account. Schwab promises advertises that “unlimited ATM fee rebates apply to cash withdrawals”. It also does not have any foreign transaction fee.
The ATM/debit card from Capital One 360 is another popular card for world travelers as it offers no foreign transaction fee withdrawals. It does not refund ATM fees.
For this comparison, I again used an ATM from HSBC. HSBC ATMs may be the only ATMs in the Philippines which do not charge any fee.
I withdrew PHP 25,000 in both instances. The USD-PHP exchange rates posted by Google, XE, and TransferWise at that time were 50.56, 50.6024, and 50.58 respectively.
| Account | PHP Withdrawn | USD Deducted | Exchange Rate |
| Capital One 360 (Mastercard) | 25,000 | 495.11 | 50.49 |
| Charles Schwab (Visa) | 25,000 | 494.46 | 50.56 |
The winner: Charles Schwab
Update (11/24/2019)
I did a second comparison, two weeks later. This time around, the quoted rates were: 50.93 (TransferWise), 50.9479 (xe.com), 50.84 (Google)
| Account | PHP Withdrawn | USD Deducted | Exchange Rate |
| Capital One 360 (Mastercard) | 25,000 | 492.47 | 50.76 |
| Charles Schwab (Visa) | 25,000 | 491.21 | 50.89 |
The winner: Charles Schwab
Update (12/15/2019)
Another comparison. Quoted exchange rates were: 50.61 (TransferWise), 50.6251 (xe.com), 50.52 (Google).
| Account | PHP Withdrawn | USD Deducted | Exchange Rate |
| Capital One 360 (Mastercard) | 10,000 | 197.85 | 50.54 |
| Charles Schwab (Visa) | 10,000 | 197.59 | 50.61 |
The winner: Charles Schwab
Update (12/15/2019)
Another comparison. Quoted exchange rates were: 50.77 (TransferWise), 50.7865 (xe.com), 50.77 (Google).
| Account | PHP Withdrawn | USD Deducted | Exchange Rate |
| Capital One 360 (Mastercard) | 25,000 | 493.66 | 50.64 |
| Charles Schwab (Visa) | 25,000 | 492.85 | 50.725 |
The winner: Charles Schwab
I used to get rates closer to what you’re getting from CapitalOne 360 (with the bank’s exchange rate only 0.2% higher than the quoted rate). In the last two years CapitalOne 360’s rates have gotten worse, about 1.8% higher than the quoted rate. Perhaps it varies from country to country, but I’m thinking about switching to Charles Schwab.
This article looked at the EXACT analysis I was trying to figure out on my own. I would be VERY INTERESTED if you could make another update to see how to two cards compare now, 10/2020.