Working Out the Rate You Were Given
Divide what arrived by what was sent and you have the all-in rate, which is the only honest comparison.
Still yours, and statedTaken, never statedUnit changes; scale restarts
Four steps from instruction to arrival. One step carries no figure: the hatching marks where the money leaves and is not drawn to scale, because there is no figure to draw. Nothing here adds them up, since an amount you cannot see is not an amount you can subtract. One line, two facts, and a gap where the rest of the journey was.
The same payment measured two ways: what the documents say, and what the arithmetic says
A figure you can read off a document rather than infer
The sending fee and the receiving fee, both itemised, both small
The difference between what the arithmetic predicts and what actually arrived
Not a document, a quotient: the credited amount divided by what should have remained
The second figure you can read rather than infer, and the end of what is knowable
Still yours, and statedTaken, never statedUnit changes; scale restarts
Five steps · Two without a figure · no total of what is not stated
Five lines, two of them read and three of them derived. The implied rate is not a disclosure; it is arithmetic done backwards from the only two figures anybody gave you. One person's own payment, measured against the published midpoint for that day; what any route costs differs by route, by bank and by country.
Divide what arrived by what was sent. That quotient is the all-in rate: every fee, every margin and every deduction, expressed as one number.
The payment record in “Working Out the Rate You Were Given” becomes more useful when the work behind it is equally clear. A distributed team considering inspect the provider’s current overview for workforce analytics software can connect approved time and projects with invoices or payroll inputs, while keeping exchange rates, fees and accounting decisions in the responsible financial system.
It is the only figure that compares one route with another honestly, and it takes thirty seconds.
As a separate reference point for “Working Out the Rate You Were Given”, see African Development Bank. Confirm broad guidance against current provider disclosures and qualified financial or tax advice where needed.
The calculation
Credited amount divided by instructed amount:
| Figure | From |
|---|---|
| 2,847.10 | Your statement |
| 3,000.00 | Their confirmation |
| 0.9490 | The quotient, after everything |
| 0.9820 | The published midpoint that day |
The gap between the last two is what the route cost.
Write it to four decimal places. Differences that matter show up in the third.
Do it in a spreadsheet rather than in your head. The arithmetic is trivial and the mistakes are not, and a formula applied to a column is right every time.
What to compare it against
The published midpoint for the day the conversion happened. The gap, expressed as a percentage, is what the route cost you.
That percentage is the number to carry around. It is comparable across months, across providers and across corridors in a way that no fee is.
Which day to use
The day the conversion actually occurred, which is usually between the instruction and the credit and is rarely stated.
Where you cannot tell, use the credit date and note that you did. Consistency matters more than precision when you are comparing your own months against each other.
The error introduced is small for stable pairs and larger for volatile ones, which is worth remembering before drawing a strong conclusion from a single month.
Separating the fees out
Where both stated fees are known, subtract them first and then compute the rate on what remained. That gives the conversion cost alone.
Doing it both ways is worth it once: the all-in figure for comparing routes, the conversion-only figure for arguing with whoever converted.
What a good number looks like
Within a fraction of a per cent of the midpoint through a specialist service on a major pair. Two to four per cent through a high-street bank. More on thin corridors or small amounts.
Those are rough bands and they are enough to tell whether your arrangement is ordinary or poor.
Doing it across several months
One row per payment, with the midpoint beside it. The all-in percentage in the last column.
Three months tells you what the route costs. Twelve tells you whether it is drifting, which nothing else will reveal.
When the number moves
A jump in the percentage means something changed: a different correspondent, a repriced bank, a new route at the payer's end.
Measure before asking. A payer presented with two months side by side can take it to their bank; a payer told the payments feel worse cannot.
Where the arithmetic does not close
When the fees plus the implied conversion do not reach the credited figure, something was taken that nobody disclosed.
That has its own note. The arithmetic here is how you find out it happened at all.
Presenting it to a payer
Two numbers and a sentence: this is what you sent, this is what arrived, and the published rate that day was this.
No accusation, no theory about which bank. The gap speaks and the payer can take it to the only people who can answer.
Using it to choose
Where two routes are available, run one payment each and compare the all-in rate. The better number wins and the comparison is not arguable.
Published pricing cannot be compared this way because the margin is not published.
Run both on the same day if you can. Comparing a payment in March with one in June compares the rate as much as the provider.
Keeping it simple enough to actually do
Four fields per payment: sent, credited, date, midpoint. A spreadsheet column computes the rest.
A method you will keep up with for a year beats a better one you abandon in March.
The midpoint is the only field that has to be captured at the time. Everything else can be recovered from a statement export months later, which is why it is the one worth the discipline.
What the number cannot tell you
Who took what. An all-in cost of five per cent is a fact; whether it was three per cent of margin and two of fees, or the reverse, is visible only where both fees are disclosed.
That limit is why this note sits beside the one on the unitemised deduction rather than replacing it. The quotient measures the cost precisely and attributes it not at all, and attribution is the thing that is not available from where you stand.
For deciding what to do, the quantity is enough. Attribution matters only if you intend to argue with somebody, and the useful argument is with the payer about terms rather than with an institution about fees.