What is the exchange rate for using your GTBank Naira Mastercard on Amazon?

When you use a GTBank Naira Mastercard to buy things on Amazon, one of the things you have to consider or might be worried about is the exchange rate used.

I was charged about N285 per US dollar after I purchased something on Amazon that was worth 12.82 and that deducted a total of 3653.70 from my bank account.

One thing about exchange rates is that they vary from time to time and the rate you'd get on a particular day may be different from what obtains the next day. Well, an easy way to find out what the exchange rate currently is would be by buying something on Amazon first in order to determine the rate you'll be charged and you can even buy something as little as a $1 Gift card reload for yourself. One benefit of buying an Amazon gift card with your Naira card is that it allows you to buy stuff later on Amazon at a fixed rate and without having to be charged multiple times for different items unlike if you were making payments directly for each of them with your Mastercard. An Amazon gift card lets international shoppers to buy things on Amazon at a predetermined rate and they never expire on Amazon.com. You can buy a lot of them when the exchange rate is low and then use them for shopping at a later time even when exchange rates have changed.

I recently purchased an item on Amazon and it was worth $12.82 and later I received an alert from GTBank informing me that a deduction has been made to my account for a foreign transaction with Amazon and the amount in US dollars were also provided. After a few hours, I also got a debit alert from my bank for the value of the item in Naira and after I did some mathematics, I discovered that it was N285.

Am I happy with the exchange rate? Well, yes, but it surprised me that while the official rate of the Nigerian Naira to the US dollar is about N200 and the black market price is about N320, GTBank is charging me something like an average price of N285. Wel, it's better than having to buy US dollars from Amazon but it's way too off from what the official exchange rate currently is.

Anyway, that is how to know what exchange rate you were charged if you used a GTBank Naira Mastercard for shopping on Amazon as you can get it by dividing the Naira amount by the dollar amount and I got N285 as at February 15th 2016.