Ukraine’s interbank foreign exchange market is the market where licensed banks trade non-cash foreign currency with one another. Companies and individuals do not normally trade there directly; they submit currency orders through their banks. Banks use professional trading and information systems to place and accept buy and sell orders during the trading day.
Why can my bank execute my currency order at a worse rate than the interbank quote shown here?
The interbank is a market for banks. Contrary to popular belief, bank clients' orders to buy / sell currency never reach the interbank. Banks fill the orders themselves against the orders of their other clients. For example, 100 clients of a bank wanted to buy 10,000 US dollars and only 80 clients wanted to sell currency worth 8,000 dollars. In that case the bank goes to the interbank market and buys the missing 2,000 dollars from another bank. So the rates at which banks fill their clients' orders have nothing to do with the interbank; they are set purely by the "appetite" of the specific bank, and the bigger that "appetite", the further the rate is from the real interbank one.
Step 1. If your bank sells or buys currency from you at a poor rate, do not submit orders in advance as the bank asks; submit them after 10 a.m. and state the rate that suits you in the electronic order. For that you need paid access, where real interbank quotes arrive without delay; otherwise the order may go unfilled simply because the rate has already moved.
Step 2. If step 1 did not help and your orders keep going unfilled, change your bank. Which one? Join the discussion on our forum in the thread “Which banks do not profit at the expense of exporters and importers”.
Licensed banks can trade a range of currencies on the interbank market. Many transactions are routed through the US dollar: a bank buys or sells dollars first and then converts them into the required currency at the relevant cross rate.
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