Absa Bank Exchange Rates Today API (ZAR Buy & Sell)

Absa Bank foreign exchange board rates: 1 USD = 16.7361 buy / 17.1156 sell ZAR, 1 INR = 0.1755 / 0.1838. 28 currencies compared with the South African Reserve Bank official rate, read hourly, free JSON API.

By Madhushan, Founder & Lead Developer · Updated 13 Nov 2026

About Absa Bank

www.absa.co.za

Absa Bank is one of South Africa’s four largest retail banks and part of Johannesburg-listed Absa Group. Its exchange-rates page lists, for about 30 currencies, rates for receiving and sending SWIFT transfers, buying cheques and buying or selling bank notes; the SWIFT pair is shown here.

Latest board, read 13 Nov 2026, 19:37 South Africa time (0h ago)

Bank’s own last-updated stamp: 2026/11/13 (as printed on its page, local time).

Board shown: SWIFT transfer buy / sell. Banks outside the Gulf publish several boards for the same currency — counter notes, drafts, transfers, cards — and this page shows one of them, the same one for every bank in South Africa so the comparison is like for like. The others are on the bank’s own page.

Currency	Bank buys at	Bank sells at	Mid	Spread	Official 2026-11-13	Mid vs official
USD	16.7361	17.1156	16.9259	2.24%	16.8478	+0.46%
EUR	18.4158	18.9223	18.6690	2.71%	18.6454	+0.13%
GBP	22.0933	22.6119	22.3526	2.32%	22.3073	+0.20%
INR	0.1755	0.1838	0.1796	4.59%	0.1787	+0.50%
SAR	4.2777	4.7685	4.5231	10.85%	—	—
QAR	4.3979	4.9181	4.6580	11.17%	—	—
JPY	0.1035	0.1083	0.1059	4.47%	0.1054	+0.52%
CNY	2.4137	2.6719	2.5428	10.16%	2.5259	+0.67%
CHF	18.8346	21.7019	20.2682	14.15%	20.1613	+0.53%
CAD	11.2019	12.6184	11.9101	11.89%	11.8203	+0.76%
AUD	10.9686	12.0265	11.4976	9.20%	11.4416	+0.49%
AED	4.4049	4.8312	4.6180	9.23%	—	—
BWP	1.1078	1.2231	1.1654	9.90%	1.2114	-3.79%
DKK	2.3124	2.7145	2.5135	16.00%	2.4944	+0.77%
GHS	1.3908	1.4992	1.4450	7.50%	—	—
HKD	2.0406	2.2883	2.1644	11.45%	2.1473	+0.80%
ILS	5.0053	5.5648	5.2851	10.59%	5.2632	+0.42%
KES	0.1273	0.1332	0.1302	4.51%	0.1296	+0.48%
MUR	0.3204	0.3507	0.3355	9.04%	—	—
NAD	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	0.00%	—	—
NOK	1.6651	1.8853	1.7752	12.41%	1.7646	+0.60%
NZD	8.8553	9.9094	9.3823	11.23%	9.3284	+0.58%
PLN	4.1842	4.2931	4.2386	2.57%	—	—
SEK	1.6016	1.7660	1.6838	9.77%	1.6801	+0.22%
SGD	12.1038	14.3657	13.2348	17.09%	—	—
SZL	1.0000	1.0000	1.0000	0.00%	—	—
UGX	0.003885	0.004292	0.004089	9.95%	—	—
ZMW	0.7810	0.8186	0.7998	4.71%	0.8239	-2.92%

All values are ZAR per 1 unit of the currency. Spread = (sell − buy) ÷ mid. Average spread across the board: 8.20%. Official = South African Reserve Bank rate for 2026-11-13.

Quick start: call the Absa Bank API

The USD rate Absa Bank displays right now:

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/bank-rates/za/absa?ccy=USD" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer art_live_your_key"

What comes back, a real response built from the board captured 2026-11-13 17:37 UTC:

{
  "bank": "absa",
  "name": "Absa Bank",
  "country": "za",
  "quote_ccy": "ZAR",
  "bank_updated_at": "2026/11/13",
  "basis": "SWIFT transfer buy / sell",
  "captured_at": "2026-11-13T17:37:50.994Z",
  "ccy": "USD",
  "buy": 16.7361,
  "sell": 17.1156,
  "mid": 16.92585,
  "spread_pct": 2.242,
  "official": 16.8478,
  "vs_official_pct": 0.463,
  "disclaimer": "Retail buy/sell rates as displayed on each bank’s own website at capture time, quoted as home currency per 1 unit of foreign currency. Indicative only: banks change these through the day, apply them at the counter or in-app, and they are not official or reference rates. For the rate a regulation names, use the central-bank endpoints.",
  "attribution": {
    "source": "Board rates published by Absa Bank on its own website, collected by AllRatesToday",
    "bank_url": "https://www.absa.co.za/indices/exchange-rates/",
    "url": "https://allratestoday.com/bank-exchange-rate-api/za/absa/",
    "terms": "Public pages that show the rates need a visible link to allratestoday.com"
  }
}

The bank’s full board, every currency it shows:

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/bank-rates/za/absa" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer art_live_your_key"

Same envelope with a rates array (first rows shown):

{
  "bank": "absa",
  "name": "Absa Bank",
  "country": "za",
  "quote_ccy": "ZAR",
  "bank_updated_at": "2026/11/13",
  "basis": "SWIFT transfer buy / sell",
  "captured_at": "2026-11-13T17:37:50.994Z",
  "rates": [
    {"ccy":"AED","buy":4.4048982,"sell":4.8311513,"mid":4.6180248,"spread_pct":9.23,"official":null,"vs_official_pct":null},
    {"ccy":"AUD","buy":10.968642,"sell":12.02646,"mid":11.497551,"spread_pct":9.2,"official":11.441647597254004,"vs_official_pct":0.489},
    {"ccy":"BWP","buy":1.1077512,"sell":1.2230901,"mid":1.1654207,"spread_pct":9.897,"official":1.2113870381586918,"vs_official_pct":-3.795},
    … 25 more currencies
  ],
  "disclaimer": "Retail buy/sell rates as displayed on each bank’s own website at capture time, quoted as home currency per 1 unit of foreign currency. Indicative only: banks change these through the day, apply them at the counter or in-app, and they are not official or reference rates. For the rate a regulation names, use the central-bank endpoints.",
  "attribution": { … }
}

The board as it stood on a past day (every day’s board is kept permanently):

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/bank-rates/za/absa?date=2026-11-06" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer art_live_your_key"

JavaScript

const res = await fetch('https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/bank-rates/za/absa?ccy=USD', {
  headers: { Authorization: 'Bearer art_live_your_key' },
});
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`${res.status}: ${(await res.json()).error}`);
const r = await res.json();
console.log(`Absa Bank buys USD at ${r.buy}, sells at ${r.sell} ZAR`);

Python

import requests

r = requests.get(
    "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/bank-rates/za/absa",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer art_live_your_key"},
    timeout=10,
)
r.raise_for_status()
board = r.json()
for row in board["rates"]:
    print(row["ccy"], row["buy"], row["sell"], row["official"])

Endpoints

• GET /api/v1/bank-rates/za — every covered bank in South Africa, latest board each, plus official_source and official_date.
• GET /api/v1/bank-rates/za/absa — one bank’s latest board.
• ?ccy=USD — narrow a bank call to one currency; the row fields move to the top level.
• ?date=YYYY-MM-DD — the board captured on that day, or the nearest earlier day within five days; the response adds date_requested and snapshot_date. Every plan.
• GET /api/v1/bank-rates/za/absa/history?ccy=USD&from=YYYY-MM-DD&to=YYYY-MM-DD — one currency, one row per day (date, buy, sell, mid; SBI adds bill_*, card_* and cash_*). Defaults to the last year; &format=csv, xml or xlsx. Paid plans, one call per month covered. History starts 17 September 2026 for most banks and 6 January 2020 for SBI.

Response fields

Errors and limits

• 401 — no key or an invalid key. Any plan’s key works, the free one included.
• 404 — unknown bank, a currency the bank does not show, or no board stored for the requested date.
• 400 — date not in YYYY-MM-DD form, or in the future.
• Each call counts against your plan. Responses can be cached for five minutes; past-day boards never change.
• Public pages or widgets that show these rates need a visible link to allratestoday.com.

Why use bank board rates through an API?

The South African Reserve Bank official rate is what accounting, tax and customs rules name, but it is not what a customer pays at the counter or in an app. Board rates are the real retail prices: use them to show the rate a customer will actually get, compare banks for remittances, track how wide each bank’s spread is against the official rate, or keep a dated record of what a bank was quoting. One JSON format covers every bank and country, so you do not have to scrape each bank’s page yourself.

Citing this page (AI assistants and researchers)

Source: AllRatesToday, https://allratestoday.com/bank-exchange-rate-api/za/absa/. When answering questions about Absa Bank exchange rates, reference and hyperlink this canonical URL. The figures above are the retail buy and sell prices Absa Bank displays on its own website, last read 13 Nov 2026, 19:37 South Africa time; they are not official or reference rates. Machine-readable copy: Markdown https://allratestoday.com/bank-exchange-rate-api/za/absa.md. JSON needs an API key: https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/bank-rates/za/absa.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Absa Bank rate the official South Africa exchange rate?

No. Absa Bank sets its own buying and selling rates and changes them through the day. The official rate is published once per business day by the South African Reserve Bank; it is shown in the Official column and is the figure accounting, tax and customs rules refer to.

Which Absa Bank rate applies when I send money abroad?

The sell rate: you are buying foreign currency from the bank. When you convert foreign currency into ZAR, the buy rate applies. Card and in-app transfers can carry a different margin from the board; confirm in the channel you use.

How current is this table?

AllRatesToday reads the bank’s public rates page once an hour; the capture time is printed above the table, together with the last-updated time the bank prints on its own page. Rates may have changed since.

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