Finance, Forex and Investments

What is a good exchange rate from Pounds to Chinese Yuan Renminbi?

Going on holiday to China later on this year, what is considered a good exchange rate for the Chinese Yuan Renminbi? Is it basically the higher the Yuan the better? It's currently £1 = 10 Yuan, I assume that's good? I have no idea LOL! Hope someone can help!

Public Comments

1. Considering £1 = 10 Yuan, whether the higher is the better depends on if you need to exchange Pound Sterling into Chinese yuan or the other way round. If you're converting £ to Yuan you want £1 = more than 10 yuan and the higher the better; if you're converting Yuan to £, you want £1 = less than 10 and the lower the better so that you can use less Yuan to exchange for £1. Since foreign exchange rates fluctuate every minute, banks and dealers adjust their rate accordingly. At the same time they always quote 2 rates, one for buying and another for selling. When you go to convert Pound Sterling into Yuan, if the official rate is say £1 = 10 Yuan, in reality you should be getting something like 0.97 yuan or less, and when you convert Yuan back to Sterling you should be asked to pay around 10.3 yuan for every £1. To decide if it's a good rate on the spot, simply look at the difference between the buy and sell rates, the bigger the gap the less favourable it is, dealers could easily quote something like 9 yuan and 11 yuan. Otherwise watch for any financial news that could affect the exchange rate between these 2 currencies.
2. In China such thing as exchange rates is not essential. All banks has almost equal rates that are stable for a months. I've been in China twice in December 2009 and August 2010. Exchange rates were the same about 6.7RMB for $1. Don't remember anything about pounds but I'm sure that its rate is also stable