Euro to Cape Verdean escudo (EUR → CVE)

The Cape Verdean escudo has been pegged to the euro since 1998, at a fixed parity of 1 EUR = 110.265 CVE. The peg is backed by a credit line from the Portuguese government and administered by the Banco de Cabo Verde, which commits to defending it.

This makes EUR/CVE an unusual pair. The overwhelming majority of currency pairs float on market sentiment, and a converter has to fetch the number from somewhere several times a day. Here there is no number to fetch: it is settled arithmetic. Any site showing you a different "live" EUR/CVE rate is either showing an intermediary's rate or is simply wrong.

The practical consequence cuts both ways. Good, because you do not need to watch the market or pick the right day to convert — there is no better day. Bad, because the stability creates a false sense that there is nothing to lose here, when in fact almost everybody loses money on this conversion without noticing.

The rate is fixed; what you are offered does not have to be. There are two places the gap shows up.

The first is the tourist counter. Many hotels, restaurants and shops in Sal and Boa Vista accept euros but convert at a round 1 € = 100 CVE instead of 110.265. That is roughly 9.3% on everything you spend that way, and it is almost never posted anywhere.

The second is transfers. A remittance service can charge a low fee and then hand over escudos at a rate below the official one. Because the official rate is public and fixed, that gap is unusually easy to measure — just compare the rate you are quoted against 110.265.