Currency exchange

oliver1

Hello,
I'm travelling to Russia soon, I'm English and was wanting to exchange UK Pounds at a Russian bank. Are there any problems, or are Euros, USD better? Also, I'm arriving from China to Vladivostok, so could have yuan to exchange.
I've got a MIR card issued through YooMoney, but can't top it up from my UK bank card.

KO______

oliver1 You should consider USD/EUR for sure. You might get away with GBP/CNY but they prefer USD/EUR. Make sure they are pristine bills, absolutely no ink anywhere or tears. Vladivostok might be more CNY friendly but I'm not counting on it. Someone else might be able to add to this but I always take USD/EUR only.

Jabod

You should absolutely not bring GBP to exchange. This is not a liquid currency in Russia and Russian banks will only accept it by deducting an enormous commission (at Sberbank the spread is 30% and it is similar at other banks). You would be far better off bringing dollars or euros.

Perhaps optimal in your case would be Chinese yuan. This is now a liquid currency in the Russian banking system so you should get a decent exchange rate.

Jabod

According to Google’s AI, a Sberbank branch in Vladivostok would give you a slightly better rate for Yuan today compared to USD or EUR. GBP should be avoided at all costs!

USD: 79.60/87.80 9.8% spread
EUR: 94.10/102.80 8.84% spread
CNY: 12.11/13.07 7.63% spread
GBP: 91.90/122.7 28.7% spread

You should also look at which of the foreign currencies are the cheapest for you to buy with your GBP. My understanding is that if you buy Yuan with GBP in China, you would get a better rate (lower commission/spread) than buying euros or dollars with GBP in the UK. (You should wait till you get to China to buy Yuan as you will get a much better rate than in the UK).

In this case, buying roubles with Yuan would win hands down, giving you a better rate both when you buy the Yuan with GBP in China and also a better rate when you buy the roubles with Yuan in Russia.

oliver1

Thanks for replies,
I'll aim to take in Chinese Yuan, and try and make sure they're nice and new.

Bill

Beg them to give you a lot of smaller bills like 500s or 1000s. It's very difficult in russia to use a 5000 note and expect to get a lot of change back.