How to withdraw money from currency account without having to lose so much to currency conversion?
If I understand your question, you're misunderstanding the buy/sell spread, and at least in this instance seem to be in an unfortunate situation where the spread is quite large. The Polish Zloty - GBP ideal exchange rate is around 5.612:1.  Thus, when actually exchanging currency, you should expect to pay a bit more than 5.612 Zloty (Zloties?) to get one Pound sterling, and you should expect to get a bit less than 5.612 Zloty in exchange for one Pound sterling.  That's because you're giving the bank its cut, both for operations and so that it has a reason to hold onto some Zloty (that it can't lend out).  It sounds like Barclay's has a large spread - 5.211 Buy, 5.867 Sell.  I would guess British banks don't need all that many Zloty, so you have a higher spread than you would for USD or EUR. Other currency exchange companies or banks, particularly those who are in the primary business of converting money, may have a smaller spread and be more willing to do it inexpensively for you.  Also, it looks like the Polish banks are willing to do it at a better rate (certainly they're giving you more Zloty for one Pound sterling, so it seems likely the other way would be better as well, though since they're a Polish bank it's certainly easier for them to give you Zloty, so this may be less true).  Barclay's is certainly giving you a better deal on Pounds for a Zloty than they are Zloty for a Pound (in terms of how far off their spread is from the ideal). "In answer to the ""how I can perform withdrawal with the lower rate (having GBP)?"" part of your question, as Joe stated you need to use another bank or currency exchange company to convert the GBP to PLN.  Most of the UK banks charge similar amounts, and it's usually not possible to transfer the GBP to a foreign bank unless you have a GBP account with them. Some currency exchange firms are Transferwise, FairFX, CaxtonFX, a web search will show a fuller range. You could also use Paypal to do the transfer (if you have a paypal account) by transferring the GBP from Barclays to your paypal account and then from there to your PLN account." In your position I would use one of the existing Polish currency exchange platforms (you can find a list here: http://jakikantor.pl). A few of them have bank accounts in Britain so the exchange rate will be close to market price.
To start with, you are right, there shouldn't be any additional fees other than the currency exchange fee - I'm not sure of the exact fee for Natwest, but for Halifax this was around 2.5% for big currencies like the Euro. However, Germany doesn't actually use debit cards nearly as much as we do here in the UK, so you will almost certainly need cash. Rather than taking this from a currency exchange booth, what you should do in order to get the lowest fees is head straight to the ATM of any bank, and put your card in to make a cash withdrawal. It will almost certainly ask if you want to use their exchange rate, which it will show you, and you will almost certainly be better turning this down and allowing Natwest to do this for you. Dependent on the bank their currency exchange spread may be as high as 4.5%. I hope this helps, it certainly saved me a lot of money when I have been going abroad. Your bank will gladly help you convert your Indian savings accounts into NRO savings accounts. You cannot change these accounts into NRE accounts directly; NRE accounts are supposed to be funded via deposits made from foreign currency accounts. Under the liberalized schemes available now, you can transfer the money in your regular savings account into your account abroad, converting it into foreign currency, if you (and your CA) provide proof to your bank (and the Reserve Bank of India) that you have paid all applicable taxes on the money in your savings account. And then you can transfer it all back into your NRE account. Perhaps you can combine these two steps into a single one, thereby putting the money in your regular savings account into an NRE account in one step, but I am sure that there will be lots of fees involved (e.g. you might get whacked by commissions, as well as the exchange rate differential as if you converted Indian rupees to US dollars, say, and then converted the dollars back to rupees) just as if you did the two-step conversion. There are no taxes involved in moving your own money into different accounts but there can be lots of fees and service charges. Cheaper and faster are usually mutually exclusive. If you want faster, nothing is faster than cash.  I would recommend using an ATM to withdraw cash from your USD account as Florints and then use as appropriate. If you want cheaper, then the cheapest currency conversion commonly available is foreign exchange / transfer services like OFX / XE Trade / Transferwise.  Turn around time on these can be as little as a business day or two but more commonly takes a few business days, but they typically offer the best currency exchange rates at the lowest cost.  If you must make regular payments to 3rd parties, you can set these services up to send the converted currency to a 3rd party rather than back to your own account. I don't think this can be explained in too simple a manner, but I'll try to keep it simple, organized, and concise. We need to start with a basic understanding of inflation. Inflation is the devaluing of currency (in this context) over time. It is used to explain that a $1 today is worth more than a $1 tomorrow. Inflation is explained by straight forward Supply = Demand economics. The value of currency is set at the point where supply (M1 in currency speak) = demand (actual spending). Increasing the supply of currency without increasing the demand will create a surplus of currency and in turn weaken the currency as there is more than is needed (inflation). Now that we understand what inflation is we can understand how it is created. The US Central Bank has set a target of around 2% for inflation annually. Meaning they aim to introduce 2% of M1 into the economy per year. This is where the answer gets complicated. M1 (currency) has a far reaching effect on secondary M2+ (credit) currency that can increase or decrease inflation just as much as M1 can... For example, if you were given $100 (M1) in new money from the Fed you would then deposit that $100 in the bank. The bank would then store 10% (the reserve ratio) in the Fed and lend out $90 (M2) to me on via a personal loan. I would then take that loan and buy a new car. The car dealer will deposit the $90 from my car loan into the bank who would then deposit 10% with The Fed and his bank would lend out $81... And the cycle will repeat... Any change to the amount of liquid currency (be it M1 or M2+) can cause inflation to increase or decrease. So if a nation decides to reduce its US Dollar Reserves that can inject new currency into the market (although the currency has already been printed it wasn't in the market). The currency markets aim to profit on currency imbalances and in reality momentary inflation/deflation between currencies. There is (at least) one service that allows you to convert USD, GBP and EUR at the interbank spot rate, and make purchases using a prepaid MasterCard in many more currencies (also at the interbank rate). They currently don't charge any fees (as of September 2015). You could use your US prepaid card to fund your account with Revolut and then spend them in your local currency (HRK?) without fees (you can check the current USD/HRK rate with their currency calculator); you can also withdraw to non-EUR SEPA-enabled bank accounts, but then your bank would charge you for the necessary currency conversion (both by fees and their exchange rate). If you have a bank account in EUR, you could alternatively convert your USD balance to EUR and then withdraw that to your EUR bank account. If your US prepaid card has a corresponding bank account which can be used for ACH direct debit or domestic wire transfers (ask the issuer if you are unsure), TransferWise or a similar service might also be an option; they allow you to fund a transaction using one of those methods and then credit an account in Deutsche Bank states here (couldn't find it in english) that SEPA transfers (all transfers in EUR to EU states that have EUR) are free. So you could just transfer the money. Your custom daily transfer limit (by default 1000€ for online banking transfers) applies. You can change the limit online or by going to one of their branches. You would then transfer your money over the course of several days. You need the SWIFT and BIC code of your new account. The ruble was, is and will be very unstable because of unstable political situation in Russia and the economy strongly dependent of the export of raw resources. What you can do? I assume, you want to minimize risk. The best way to achieve that is to make your savings in some stable currency. Euro and Swiss Franc are currently very stable currencies, so storing your surpluses in them is a very good option if you want to keep your money safe. To prevent political risk, you should keep your money in countries with stable political regime, which are unlikely to 'nationalize' the savings of the citizens in predictable future. As for your existing savings in rubles, it's a hard deal. I assume, as the web developer, you have a plenty of money, which have lost a lot of value. If you convert them to euro or francs, you will preserver the current value (after the loss). You'll safe them agaist ruble falling down, but in case the ruble will return to previous value, you'll loose.  Keeping savings in instable currencies is, however, speculation, like investing in gold etc. So if you can mentally accept the loss and want to sleep good, convert them. You have also option to invest in properties, for example buy an extra appartment. It's a good way to deal with financial surplus in Europe in US, however you should be aware, in Russland it's connected with the political risk. The real estates can be confiscated in any moment by the state and you can't run away with it (the savings can also be confiscated, but there's a fair chance you'll manage to rescue them if you act quickly). You have to balance several concerns here. The primary problem is that if you go to the effort of saving your money you want to also be sure that your savings will not lose too much of its value to inflation. Ukraine had a terrible inflation spike in 2015 for obvious reasons. Even as inflation has settled down in 2016, it is stabilizing around 12% which is very high  Exchange rates are your next concern. If you lose a large percentage of the value of your money just in the process of exchanging it, that also eats away at the value of your money. If you accept the US Federal Reserve target of 2% inflation, then you should only exchange money that you will hold long enough that both exchange fees will outweigh the 10% inflation advantage. Even in cases where you have placed your money in a foreign currency, there's a chance that your government could freeze accounts denominated in foreign currencies, so there's always the political risk that you have to factor in. For that reason keeping foreign currency in cash also has some appeal because it cannot be confiscated as easily. You could still certainly be robbed, so keeping all of your savings in cash isn't a great solution either. All in all, you are diversifying your savings if you use the strategy of balancing all three methods. Splitting it evenly to 5% for each method isn't the most important. I would suggest taking advantage of good exchange rates (as they appear) to time when you buy foreign currency.