Understanding the difference in exchange rates across banks and forex bureaus

External question — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: nknj Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/36792 License: CC BY-SA 3.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. I recently moved to Ghana and discovered that the exchange rate at the banks here is somewhere around 3.4 GHS per USD but the exchange rate at all the forex bureaus I visit is around 3.7 GHS per USD. Also, I looked at the interbank exchange rate at the Central Bank in Ghana and it is around 3.19 GHS per USD . I realised that the best way for me to bring money into the country is to carry USD in cash into the country and then exchange it at a forex bureau, instead of doing a bank wire. 2 Questions: What is causing this huge difference in exchange rates across the different financial institutions? If I run out of the USD I carry into Ghana, what can I do to get more money into the country and use the forex bureau rate (without having to leave Ghana, of course)?