ICICI publishes its dynamic currency conversion charges, and on most of its cards the number is 3.50%

Last week we read HDFC's own August paperwork and found a 1.75% dynamic currency conversion charge that almost nobody covered when it landed. The obvious next question was whether HDFC was unusual. It is not. ICICI Bank publishes its own version on a page called "Upcoming changes to Credit Card features and charges", it has been live since 15 January 2026, and on most ICICI cards the number is exactly double HDFC's.

What dynamic currency conversion actually is

You are at a shop counter in Dubai, or on a foreign checkout page, and you are offered a choice: pay in dirhams, or pay in rupees. Paying in rupees feels safer because you can see the number you will owe. That is dynamic currency conversion, and it is the expensive option twice over. The merchant's payment processor sets its own exchange rate, and then your bank adds a charge on top for the privilege.

ICICI's definition covers the case most people never consider. The charge applies to transactions carried out in Indian currency at international locations, and to transactions in Indian currency with merchants who are located in India but registered in a foreign nation. That second clause matters far more than the first. Plenty of subscriptions and services billed to Indian customers in rupees sit behind a foreign merchant registration, and nothing on the receipt tells you which side of the line you are on.

The tiers, as the bank states them

Effective 15 January 2026. The bank's page and Angel One's write-up give the identical table.

Note the shape of it. This is not a premium-card benefit ladder, because the cheapest tier sits on a co-branded travel card and the most expensive tier is the default that catches everything else. If your ICICI card is not named in the first four rows, your rate is 3.50%, and that is the majority of the portfolio.

The rest of the same page

The dynamic currency conversion tiers arrived alongside several other charges on the same date, all of them from the bank's own notice:

The ₹3,500 add-on card charge is worth pausing on, because it is the same figure HDFC charges to re-issue a metal card. Two large issuers independently landing on ₹3,500 for a piece of metal suggests the number is being set by what the market will bear rather than by what the metal costs.

Two issuers, one direction

Put the two documents side by side and the pattern is clear enough to plan around:

Neither charge got meaningful coverage. Both apply to a transaction most cardholders believe is the safe, transparent choice. And both are separate from the foreign currency markup you already pay, which means a rupee-billed transaction abroad can attract a charge where a dirham-billed one would not have.

What to do

Always decline rupee billing abroad. Choose the local currency at the terminal and on foreign checkout pages, every time. Your card network converts at its own rate and your bank applies its usual foreign currency terms, which is a known cost. Dynamic currency conversion stacks an unknown exchange rate and a percentage charge on top of it.

Check what tier your specific ICICI card is on. The gap between the top and bottom rows above is 2.51 percentage points on the same transaction, which is not a rounding difference. On ₹2 lakh of rupee-billed spend it is about ₹5,000.

Read your statement line by line after a trip. A conversion charge does not announce itself at the counter. It shows up afterwards as a separate entry, and it is the only place you will find out that a merchant you assumed was Indian is registered somewhere else.

Polo Match ranks cards by net annual value against how you actually spend, including foreign spend. If you want to see what a card costs you specifically on overseas transactions, the forex calculator ranks cards on verified foreign currency terms and leaves out the ones we cannot verify.