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Withdrawing money in Africa Withdrawing money in Africa
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Photo by Lois Pryce, schoolkids in Algeria

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  #1  
Old 6 Jan 2009
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Withdrawing money in Africa
More jitters. I've just been looking at the Lonely Planet site, and it tells me that:

Mauri,
Mali,
Niger,
Nigeria,
Cameroon,
Gabon,
Congo B,
DRC,
and
Angola,

are all bereft of ATMs. How do people get money out for travel? Do you have to pop into banks, or carry fort Knox with you? I don't want to make myself a target by having to carry my complete trips' finance with me really.

I suppose the countries I listed that are in the CFA make it a bit easier, but I am still a little confused.

Thanks,

Birdy
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  #2  
Old 6 Jan 2009
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Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Edinburgh
Posts: 762
Birdy,

I am in Mali today, in Bamako. ATMs for visa are no problem (generally a better card for w africa), but there is one bank that does Mastercard (Banque l'Atlantique, next to the Grand Mosquee).

Can't remember what I did in Niger, a couple of years ago. But remember, you can always* go into the bank and get money instead of ATM.

A modest stash of euro will get you out of a hole.

Doug

* always doesn't literally means ALWAYS here :-)
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  #3  
Old 7 Jan 2009
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Thanks for that Dougie.

As luck happens, the only credit card I could get (no credit history at all - not so much as an overdraft,) is a MasterCard. Both my debit cards are Visa though.

Nationwide refused to give me either their debit card or their credit card, so unfortunately I will be paying a 2% withdrawal charge on Barclays.

I really am retarded, and this is a bone question, but how do you withdraw money from an African bank with an English card? Can it be any bank? Because I guess there are not a lot of Barclays banks in the Congo.

Birdy
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  #4  
Old 8 Jan 2009
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Sorry for bumping, but someone must know how the cash system works over there.

I must apologise for my lack of savvy, I went from my mother's apron strings into the army, and they then sorted everything out for me. I don't understand the civvy world!

Birdy.
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  #5  
Old 8 Jan 2009
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Sahara
Try previous pages of the Sub-Sahara section, there's at least one about cash. Sorry, that's all I can add. Linzi.
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  #6  
Old 16 Jan 2009
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For what its worth, when I was in Mauri a bit ago I found it very hard to find somewhere to get hold of cashish - the guide books say its no problem, but maybe i'm a bit of a muppet... Even finding an ATM from one of the bigger banks (the 'domestic' banks only take domestic cards) was difficult - I never actually found one in Nouadhibou. This led to a lot of cabbage soup being consumed - with any spare cash being used for fuel...
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