How to avoid double conversion fees on an international deal
When a cross-border deal closes and the proceeds move to professionals in different countries, one conversion fee is expected. Two conversions — which is what happens more often than anyone clearly states at the outset — is a quiet tax that brokers, closing attorneys, and advisors tend to absorb without realizing what caused it. On a meaningful deal, the math is real: a commission in the hundreds of thousands can be reduced by several percentage points before it ever reaches your account, and it happens not because the spread is wide on any single trade, but because the money was converted twice. This article explains exactly why that happens, which deal structures trigger it, what each conversion actually costs, and how professionals who manage their own payment terms can structure the disbursement to avoid it entirely.
What double conversion actually means
The term sounds self-explanatory, but it’s worth being precise about the mechanics, because professionals routinely confuse it with a wide single FX spread — which is a different problem entirely.
A single conversion means the proceeds land in Currency A, they get converted to Currency B, and the recipient holds Currency B. One conversion event, one spread charged. The friction there is purely about who controls the rate and how wide the markup is — a real issue, but a contained one.
Double conversion is structurally different. If you regularly pay suppliers in euros, receiving euro payments and holding them until needed eliminates two conversions — EUR to GBP, then GBP back to EUR. The same logic runs in reverse when it goes wrong: the money is converted from its origin currency into a transit currency, often the domestic currency of an intermediary institution, and then converted again from that transit currency into the final recipient’s operating currency. Two events. Two spreads. Two markups. The value extracted in that round-trip is not marginal.
The specific version that hits dealmakers most reliably is this: a deal closes in one currency, proceeds are wired to a party whose account is in a second currency, that party then needs to pay out to a counterpart whose account is in a third currency — or, more commonly, proceeds pass through a correspondent bank that operates in its own home currency before reaching the destination. Intermediary banks play a critical role in traditional cross-border payments. When two banks do not have a direct relationship, correspondent banks route funds between them. In that routing, the conversion can happen twice: once on the way in, and again on the way out — often without either party being clearly informed that the second one occurred.
Where the fees actually live in a cross-border wire
To avoid double conversion, you need to understand what you’re actually paying when a wire moves internationally. Most professionals look at the flat wire fee — $25, $45, whatever their bank charges for the outgoing transfer — and assume that’s the full cost. It is not close to the full cost.
FX spreads are often larger than transaction fees but harder to spot because cross-border payments travel through a web of correspondent banks, card networks, and messaging systems, each charging fees. The spread on the conversion itself is typically the largest single line item in an international transfer, and it is almost never shown as a fee. It is embedded in the exchange rate your bank quotes you versus the rate at which currencies actually trade between institutions.
Most traditional banks add a markup of around 2–3% above the mid-market exchange rate. This fee serves as a buffer to protect banks from currency fluctuations. Exchange rates change constantly — sometimes by the minute — so banks include this margin to avoid losing money if rates shift unfavorably between initiating your payment and completing the exchange.
On top of the spread, there are the lifting fees. Lifting charges, or lifting fees, may be charged by intermediary banks or by the recipient’s bank for handling the international payments. These fees are charged to the recipient in cross-border transactions. When funds travel via the SWIFT network, they often pass through intermediary or correspondent banks. These banks deduct lifting fees, typically $15–$50, from the transfer before it reaches the recipient. Because fees are deducted mid-route, the sender may not know the exact amount the recipient will receive.
Now run that structure through two conversion events and you have the core problem. Each conversion carries a spread of 2–3%. Banks often mark up the rate 2–5% above mid-market, meaning a $100,000 transfer could cost $2,000–$5,000. If the same capital base gets converted twice at 2.5% each time, you’ve lost over 5% of the disbursed amount before anyone spent a single dollar on anything you agreed to pay for. On a $500,000 commission disbursement, that’s $25,000 gone without a single recipient seeing it.
The deal structures that force a double conversion
Not all cross-border deals produce a double conversion. Understanding which structures create the risk tells you where to intervene.
Three-party international deals
The clearest trigger is a deal where the seller, the buyer, and the professionals involved all sit in different currency jurisdictions. A seller in Australia, a buyer in the United States, and a broker who operates primarily in euros out of Spain: the proceeds may close in AUD, get routed through a US correspondent in USD, and then land in a euro-denominated account. That’s two conversions minimum — AUD to USD, USD to EUR — and potentially a third if the Spanish broker then pays out a referral split to a fourth professional in another currency.
In this structure, currency conversion is central to most cross-border transactions. Exchange rates, foreign exchange fees, taxes, and banking fees all apply, sometimes at multiple points. Each conversion point is a fee event and a spread event, and they compound. The compounding is what makes double conversion significantly more damaging than a single wide spread.
When the deal currency isn’t the operating currency of anyone involved
This happens routinely in markets where deals close in a currency that none of the professionals actually bank in. Commercial real estate transactions in certain Gulf markets, for example, may close in USD even when both the buyer’s representative and the seller’s representative are locally based professionals who hold accounts in dirhams or riyals. The proceeds hit a USD account, convert to local currency for the professional’s operating account, and then convert again if any portion of the split needs to be disbursed internationally. The deal currency was a functional transit currency that nobody needed — and both conversions cost real money.
When proceeds consolidate before splitting
This is the version that catches closing attorneys and disbursing agents most directly. A closing attorney or settlement agent receives the full gross proceeds in one currency and is then responsible for disbursing to parties who operate in different currencies. If the proceeds arrive already in Currency A and two recipients need Currency B and Currency C respectively, the disbursing professional faces a structural choice: convert the entire pot once into a transit currency, then split, then convert each portion — which can mean two conversion events for every non-base-currency recipient. Or convert once per recipient directly from the original currency, which means one conversion per disbursement but no double-conversion penalty.
The distinction matters enormously at closing. A closing attorney handling a $3 million international commercial transaction splitting four ways to parties in four different currency jurisdictions is, in the traditional wire model, presiding over a significant and often unplanned FX loss event for every professional involved.
The correspondent bank hop
In international transfers, the two financial institutions involved — the one sending the money and the one receiving it — don’t always have a direct connection to each other. Intermediary banks bridge the gap in the international banking network, helping international money transfers find a route between the two banks. When that routing requires the correspondent to hold the funds in its operating currency before retransmitting them, you get an involuntary double conversion: the funds arrive at the correspondent in Currency A, the correspondent converts to its own currency to hold and process, and then converts again to Currency B for the final leg. Each intermediary may deduct fees and introduce delays, which contributes to limited transparency in traditional international payments.
This is the most insidious version of the problem because it is largely invisible to the parties. Neither the sender nor the recipient instructs this conversion — it happens in the routing infrastructure, and neither party is shown the rate applied at the intermediate step. Banks and payment intermediaries often handle FX conversions differently, with limited visibility for businesses. Without upfront rate transparency, companies may face hidden costs that are only revealed after payment.
The math on a real deal
Take a cross-border commercial brokerage transaction: the deal closes at $2,000,000. The broker’s side commission is 3%, or $60,000. The broker is based in the UK and operates in GBP. The seller’s proceeds and the commission pool are disbursed in USD.
The disbursing agent wires $60,000 USD to the UK broker. The broker’s UK bank converts from USD to GBP at a rate that includes a 2.5% markup on the mid-market rate. On $60,000, that’s $1,500 lost to the spread at conversion point one.
Now the UK broker owes a co-brokerage split of 30% to a French partner, so they wire €18,000 equivalent from their GBP account to a French EUR account. The conversion from GBP to EUR at another 2.5% spread costs another $450 equivalent.
Total FX erosion on $60,000: roughly $1,950, or 3.25% of the gross commission — gone entirely to conversion overhead, not taxation, not service fees, not anything anyone agreed to. And this scenario assumed only two hops and a relatively modest spread. In practice, exchange rates dictate the final payout amount, as platforms adding opaque spreads or high FX markups can reduce settlement value by up to 6%.
On larger transactions — the kind where a broker’s commission on a $10 million commercial property sale is $300,000 — double conversion at 5% aggregate cost means $15,000 leaves the deal invisibly. That is not a rounding error. That is real money that the professionals in the deal earned and did not keep.
The core strategy: settle in one common currency, once
The most direct and durable answer to double conversion is deceptively simple: agree on a single currency for the entire disbursement chain before the deal closes, confirm that all recipients can receive in that currency, and make the conversion happen once per payee in a single controlled event.
Special consideration is given to platforms that allow businesses to hold and manage multi-currency balances directly, as this prevents forced, costly double conversions during cross-border trade. The underlying principle here — settling in a single currency that all parties can hold before converting to their respective operating currencies locally and individually — is the structural solution. When each professional controls their own single conversion on their own terms, they can time it, shop the rate, and at minimum are not being subjected to an involuntary second conversion they didn’t know was happening.
This approach does require some upfront clarity at deal setup: each professional states the currency in which they can receive cleanly in one hop. In many international deals, USD serves this role effectively, since most professionals in cross-border commercial real estate, M&A advisory, and structured finance maintain USD-capable receiving accounts. For deals anchored in Europe, EUR can function the same way.
When you use a local currency account to accept payments in the corresponding currency, you can avoid FX fees altogether. The practical implementation of this is simple: if the deal closes in USD and two of the three professionals in the split have USD accounts, the disbursing agent wires USD directly. One FX event, at close, for the one professional who doesn’t hold a USD account. The other two hold their position and convert locally whenever their treasury situation calls for it.
Multi-currency account infrastructure
The professionals who handle international deal flow regularly and avoid double conversion systematically tend to maintain accounts that can hold multiple currencies without forcing an automatic conversion on receipt. Multi-currency accounts let you hold foreign currency rather than immediately converting every receipt to pounds. This creates strategic flexibility. If you regularly pay suppliers in euros, receiving euro payments and holding them until needed eliminates two conversions.
This is not exotic infrastructure. Several fintech-era banking and payment platforms provide multi-currency account functionality that allows a professional to receive in USD, hold in USD, and convert to their home currency at a time of their choosing — rather than having their receiving bank auto-convert on arrival. The difference between those two behaviors — auto-convert vs. hold and convert — is the difference between one conversion event and two.
Locking the rate before close
On larger transactions, a forward contract can accomplish something that even good routing cannot: it eliminates the conversion timing risk entirely by locking the rate at deal signing rather than at disbursement. Forward contracts allow a business to lock in an exchange rate today for a payment that will occur at a specified future date, typically anywhere from a few days to 12 months out. A UK company that knows it needs to pay a US supplier $500,000 in 90 days can fix the GBP/USD rate today, eliminating exchange rate risk for that transaction.
For a closing attorney or broker who knows at signing that they’ll be receiving a specific commission in 45 to 90 days, a forward contract removes the market exposure entirely. The conversion happens once, at a known rate, on a known date. There is no double conversion, and there is no guesswork about what the amount will be when it arrives.
When stablecoins eliminate the problem structurally
The most structurally elegant solution to double conversion is not rate optimization within the existing banking rails — it is settling the payment itself in a currency that is already the same on both sides, so no conversion is required for either party.
Because stablecoins represent digital dollars or euros, there is no FX conversion if both sides transact in the same stablecoin. This is the core proposition for cross-border professional disbursements: if every recipient in the deal receives USDC — a dollar-denominated token that maintains a 1:1 peg to the US dollar — then no FX event occurs at disbursement, full stop. The broker in the UK, the co-broker in France, the closing advisor in Singapore: each receives a dollar-denominated asset. Each then converts once, locally, on their own terms, through whatever channel offers them the best rate.
Network fees on a USDC transfer are typically a few cents. There are no correspondent banking fees and no built-in FX spread because the dollar leg never leaves the dollar. FX cost shows up only at the off-ramp. That is the structural difference. With a stablecoin-denominated disbursement, the double-conversion problem is architecturally eliminated — there is no transit currency, no correspondent bank converting mid-route, no second spread. There is one conversion when the professional chooses to off-ramp to their local currency, and that conversion is fully within their control.
Stablecoins win three properties at once: settlement is final in seconds to minutes rather than days, per-transfer fees fall to single-digit cents on most chains rather than $15 to $50 per wire, and the payment instrument is programmable, meaning a transfer can carry conditions, route through automated logic, and integrate with onchain treasury operations directly.
The regulatory environment for this has matured substantially. This growth has been facilitated by growing regulation, particularly the GENIUS Act. This landmark legislation creates a federal structure for stablecoin issuers, requiring reserve holdings in safe assets and compliance with banking regulations. For professionals weighing whether stablecoin-denominated disbursement is operationally credible, the answer is increasingly yes — the issuers are regulated, the rails are institutional-grade, and the compliance workflows are increasingly standard.
This is precisely where Shaka operates. When a broker or closing attorney builds a Shaka payment link for an international deal, they set the recipient wallets and split percentages upfront. When the deal closes, the proceeds move onchain directly to each wallet in a single transaction — no transit through a correspondent bank, no mid-route conversion, no second spread event. The professional controls the disbursement structure; Shaka handles how the money lands. Each recipient gets their precise share in a dollar-denominated asset and converts to their home currency exactly once, on their own terms.
What the disbursing professional needs to get right at deal setup
Most of the strategies above require that the disbursing professional — the closing attorney, the lead broker, the escrow agent — sets the terms of disbursement before close rather than after. After close, your options narrow. Before close, you have full flexibility to structure the payment chain in a way that prevents double conversion entirely.
The checklist is short but must be deliberate:
Confirm the currency in which each recipient can receive cleanly, meaning in one banking hop without an automatic conversion on arrival. Do not assume that because a co-broker is based in Canada that they can only receive CAD — many professionals working international deals maintain USD accounts specifically to avoid conversion friction.
Identify any recipient who cannot receive in the deal’s base currency. For those parties, the question is not how to avoid conversion but how to ensure the conversion happens only once, under controlled conditions, at a rate they’ve reviewed before agreeing to. A co-broker in Germany receiving euros who is being paid from a USD pool needs one conversion, clean, with a disclosed rate. If the wire goes from USD to an intermediary bank that holds GBP before routing to EUR, that single recipient will absorb two conversion events. Routing directly from USD to EUR via a provider with a EUR payout capability eliminates the problem.
Agree on timing. Every cross-border payment made in a foreign currency carries the risk that exchange rates could shift between when it’s initiated and when it settles. Even the smallest of fluctuations can erode profitability. The professional who controls the disbursement controls when that risk event occurs. Locking the conversion rate through a forward contract, or converting immediately at close rather than letting proceeds sit in a transit currency during a multi-day wire clearing window, removes the exposure entirely.
Document the agreed-upon disbursement currency and method in the deal documentation or co-brokerage agreement. This sounds procedural, but it matters in practice: a co-broker who later disputes that their cut was short because of FX conversion has a clear basis to raise the issue if the agreement is silent on currency. If the agreement specifies disbursement in USD to a specified IBAN or wallet address, the conversion outcome is each party’s own decision, not an ambiguity to arbitrate later.
The difference between a bad rate and a second conversion
One point deserves to be stated plainly, because professionals sometimes conflate these two problems and end up addressing neither of them properly.
A wide FX spread — your bank charging you 3.5% over mid-market — is a pricing problem. You solve it by using a better-priced conversion channel: a specialist FX provider, a fintech platform with interbank-adjacent rates, or a stablecoin off-ramp that charges a fraction of a percent. Payment providers make money on foreign exchange through the “spread” — the difference between wholesale rates and retail rates. A 2–3% spread is common, though it’s often buried in the exchange rate rather than shown as a separate fee.
Double conversion is a structural problem. You don’t solve it by getting a better rate — you solve it by removing one of the conversion events from the chain entirely. These are distinct interventions, and the professional who addresses only the spread while leaving the double-conversion structure in place has cut the cost of the problem by perhaps 40% and left 60% on the table.
The sequence is: first, eliminate the second conversion by settling in one common currency or using an onchain rail that carries dollars end-to-end. Then, optimize the single remaining conversion by timing it, shopping the rate, or locking it forward. Both steps matter. But they are not the same step, and they are not interchangeable.
The professionals who do this well
Dealmakers who handle international transactions repeatedly tend to develop a routine around disbursement architecture that newer entrants to cross-border deal flow often don’t have. That routine looks something like this: before a deal is signed, the lead professional confirms the receive-currency of every party in the split. That information drives a simple matrix: who can receive in the deal’s base currency, who needs a single conversion, and who — if left to the standard wire process — would absorb two conversions. Any party in the third column gets a specific instruction: receive in base currency, convert locally.
The professionals who consistently out-earn their peers on international deals are not necessarily better negotiators on commission rates. They are frequently just better at ensuring that the commission they negotiated is the commission that actually lands. On a deal where 5% of the disbursed amount disappears to unplanned FX friction, a professional who has structured clean single-conversion disbursement has effectively earned an additional 5% relative to an equally skilled peer who didn’t. That is not a minor edge. Over a career of cross-border deal flow, it is a material difference in accumulated wealth.
The mechanics of an international deal are inherently complex. The payment structure does not need to be. You close the deal. You determine, before close, how the money moves and in what currency it moves. And you structure the disbursement so that each professional in the split converts once — on their terms, at their timing, with full visibility into the rate — and not twice because the infrastructure made that decision for them without their knowledge.
