This article is a collaboration with the really useful money changer app eForex.
It normally happens rather suddenly. Like when a friend asks me if I can meet up the coming weekend and I think to remember that “Oh yeah I’m going to Hong Kong next week”.
This is how my thought process would go.
Oh yeah I haven’t packed yet for Hong Kong —-> Yeah need to arrange for transport to the airport —–> OH YEAH I NEED TO CHANGE MONEY!
Changing money is normally the most painful of all pre-trip tasks. Why? Because packing, and arranging for a cab to take you to the airport that morning can be done really quickly and from the comfort of your own home. Going to a money changer to change money though isn’t. Here’s the process:
- You have to figure out which money changer to go to. The most convenient one would be the one at the nearest mall but we all know the ones at malls don’t necessarily have the best rates.
- But there is the money changers at MidValley that have decent rates but the queue is normally so long you’d feel like you’re in North Korea lining up for food rations.
- So you go for the other money changers with the best rates but those normally tend to be located at odd places where parking is as hard to find as a pink unicorn with diamond studded boots.
- Once you’ve decided which money changer to go to, you also need to find the nearest ATM and withdraw cash to bring to the money changer.
- You almost always have to line up. Sometimes the queue is short but just before you get to the front of the queue, the guy in front of you brings out a brick of Ringgit Malaysia from his sling bag to change.
- At first you marvel at the amount of money on the counter wondering if that brick alone would be responsible for having the RM depreciate vs the USD by the end of the day. You wait.. for a long time for them to count the bills.
- When you get to the front of the money changer it’s time to negotiate. You Google the spot rate on your phone and use that as some sort of a reference even though you know you’ll never get the spot rate.
- Yes you take pride in your negotiation skills honed by the stalls of Chatuchak but you know you’ll never be able to out-negotiate a money changer. He deals with chumps like you 10 times a day.
- You are not fully happy with the rate you’re quoted. You threaten to walk away but the money changer at the counter looks at you like he’s seen it many times before. You’re not going to walk away because you can’t be bothered to go line up at another money changer.
- You take the deal. You don’t really know how much more you could have saved by getting it somewhere else but you try not to think about it.
- You go get your car, pay parking and go home.
That’s what changing money feels like to me.
I’ve always wondered when technology would catch up to this. Isn’t there an app for everything?
That app is called eForex. With this app, you can
- View LIVE rates of over 20 preferred currencies you want to buy.
- Pay for it through your online banking account.
- Then all you have to do is choose which of the many points you want to pick it up from (including the airport). Kinda like the Uber for money changers.
Plus even if you’re not changing money, eForex is useful as a currency converter and a more accurate one too. Most currency converters out there use the spot rate which isn’t the rate you’ll necessarily be able to get from any money changer. The rate in eForex is the rate you can get directly from them so it’s more accurate if you want to calculate how much RM you spent on your holiday in Thailand.
The app is backed by Merchantrade, the largest money exchange network in Malaysia so its a pretty credible app.
You can download eForex on the App Store or Google Play.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space