The percentage charged on the exchange of one currency, or one form of money, into another that is more valuable.
Example sentencesExamples
The money of such banks being better than the common currency of the country, necessarily bore an agio, which was greater or smaller according as the currency was supposed to be more or less degraded below the standard of the state.
The agio was taken into account by asking the party who traded it to add an extra amount, so that it took seventy iron drachmae, and not sixty, to make up the acceptable equivalent, and hence the real value of a silver mina.
When such a situation arises, the party who owns the more desirable currency is not willing to exchange it unless it receives a premium, agio, for the advantage which he is willing to trade.
The disproportion between the 3,400 Shekels and the 1,000 Half-Shekels is to be understood from the prescription of the Mishna that each payment of a Half-Shekel for one person was liable to an agio of 4-8%.
First, he framed the phenomenon of interest, not as a return to financial investments, but rather as a premium, or agio, in intertemporal exchanges.
Origin
Late 17th century: from Italian agio, aggio, literally 'ease, convenience'.