Question 1

What is purchasing power parity (PPP)?

Accepted Answer

PPP compares currencies by what they can actually buy, not by their market price. If a basket of everyday goods costs 400 lira in Türkiye and the same basket costs £10 in the UK, then 40 lira has the same purchasing power as £1 — regardless of what the currency markets say. Parity Check uses this idea to convert prices and salaries into their local real-world value.

Question 2

Why is the PPP conversion different from the exchange rate?

Accepted Answer

Exchange rates are set by financial markets — trade flows, interest rates, speculation. The price of bread, rent or a bus ticket barely factors in. In many countries goods are far cheaper (or pricier) than the market rate implies, so a nominal conversion can overstate or understate what your money is worth by 50% or more. The PPP figure corrects for that by using actual local price levels.

Question 3

How often does the data update?

Accepted Answer

Exchange rates refresh every time the data is loaded, with recent stored rates as fallback. The underlying PPP, income and inflation figures come from the World Bank and are published annually — the app always shows which year each figure belongs to next to the result. Cached responses refresh automatically, so the numbers update without any manual steps.

Question 4

Where does the data come from?

Accepted Answer

Three sources: live market exchange rates from a public FX feed, and PPP conversion factors, gross national income per capita and annual inflation from the World Bank's open data API (indicators PA.NUS.PPP, NY.GNP.PCAP.CN and FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG). City-level ratios are derived from Numbeo cost-of-living data and stored with the app. The methodology page documents every step.

Question 5

How accurate is the conversion?

Accepted Answer

It's an estimate of relative purchasing power, not an exact price quote. National averages hide big differences between cities, neighbourhoods and lifestyles, and category indices are rescaled within bounded ranges. Treat the result as a solid rule of thumb for understanding what money is worth — not as financial advice or a precise budget.

Question 6

Can I compare specific cities, like Istanbul and London?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Both country selectors in the converter let you pick a major city instead of the country average. City ratios adjust the national figures so you can compare Istanbul rent against London rent directly, across categories like groceries, eating out, transport and utilities.

Question 7

How does the salary comparison work?

Accepted Answer

The PPP salary calculator takes a monthly income in one country and shows what you'd need to earn in another to afford the same standard of living. It also compares your figure against the target country's average salary (calibrated from World Bank income data) so you can see whether the amount is high or low in local terms.

Question 8

Why do the categories show different conversions?

Accepted Answer

Prices don't move together. Rents in a city can be extremely expensive while groceries are cheap, for example. Parity Check keeps separate indices for overall costs, rent, groceries, restaurants, transport and utilities, each rescaled from the same base data — so the adjusted amount reflects the category you actually care about.

Question 9

Does Parity Check use live exchange rates?

Accepted Answer

Yes for the nominal FX comparison and the rates panel — those use current market rates. But the core conversion deliberately does not: it uses purchasing-power factors, because the whole point is that market rates don't reflect what life costs. Both figures are shown side by side so you can see the gap.

Question 10

Is this financial advice?

Accepted Answer

No. Parity Check estimates relative purchasing power using cost-of-living data, not real-time financial exchange rates. Figures are approximate and for general understanding only — always check current prices and rates before making financial decisions.

Frequently asked questions