When you use our multi-currency processing service, you can accept payments in various foreign currencies (e.g., USD, EUR, GBP), which are then automatically settled into your bank account in South African Rand (ZAR).
This guide explains how the exchange rate for this conversion is determined.
The "Buy Rate": The Rate Used for Your Transactions
Your multi-currency transactions are converted from the foreign currency into ZAR using the "buy rate".
This is the official rate at which our acquiring bank partner, Absa, "buys" the foreign currency from you in order to exchange it into South African Rand for your settlement. For example, if your customer pays in USD, the bank exchanges those USD back into ZAR for you at the prevailing buy rate.
Why is This Different From the Rate I See on Google?
This is a common and important question. When you search for an exchange rate online, you are typically seeing the "spot rate," also known as the "interbank rate."1
The easiest way to understand the difference is to think of it like wholesale vs. retail pricing.
Spot Rate (Wholesale Price): This is the rate banks and large financial institutions use when they trade enormous amounts of currency with each other. It is not a rate available to the public or for individual commercial transactions.
Buy Rate (Retail Price): This is the rate applied to convert smaller, individual transaction amounts for businesses and consumers. Just like a retail price, it includes the costs and margins associated with providing the conversion service for a single transaction.
Therefore, the rate applied to your transaction will be different from the spot rate you see online, just as the price of a single item in a store is different from its bulk wholesale price.
How to Find the Rate Used for a Specific Transaction
For full transparency, the exact exchange rate used for each individual transaction is provided to you in the API response from Peach Payments.
You can find this value in the <ExchangeRate> field within the transaction response payload.