Oh yes, they come to the office carrying the pounds (cash or money order) and take away my cheque in dollars; I don't go out in the cold.

interesting

we called into our bank...RBC and were offered 2.2 over the counter, the manager also told us that he would do better than that as we were changing a large amount.. this was last week when HIFX spot rate was 2.18.

We have since been told that generally Canadian banks offer the best rates here!

Linda

Told by the banks?

No...other people that have change money.

I have no loyalty to anyone....we will go with the best deal !!

But you have to admit that was a petty good rate...far higher than HIFX could do.

Linda

Higher and you were buying pounds, or higher and you were selling them?

K.

Had a firm limit order for 2.2 with moneycorp needed to close out at 2.209 interbank rate to achieve that its just hit it 30 mins ago so should have achieved 2.2 I guess i'll find out in the morning.

Are the rates set to continue.Who knows!

I would advise anyone who is exchanging large sums to explore limit orders and forward contracts rather than relying on spot rates

Selling pounds....buying Canadian dollars

Linda

OK this is a first, i'm replying to my own post.

I have now had a read on Halo Financials web site and it seems they require 10% in order to secure a forward rate. If i am hoping to get say £200,000 out of my house sale i need to give them £20,000 which i simply don't have so i guess i am stuffed.

Price was for selling pounds and buying dollars.
RE forward contract one way to do it is to set a contract for a block rather than total amount e.g 50K rather than 200k. Tactic I am using is that I am exchanging my lump sum in 4 blocks to spread the risk and take advantage of any positive exchange range fluctuations. You can also apply a limit order i.e if it drops to a certain level exchange at your limit order.
Mark

Another way to get a forward rate is to use spread betting on the CAD/GBP rate. The idea is that you bet that it will get worse for you. You pick the time of the bet to meet your timescale. You pick the size of the bet such that if the currency moves against you, the payoff from the bet is equal to the loss on the amount you want to transfer, and if you lose the bet then you lose your stake but make up for it with the gain on the amount you want to transfer.

K.

Sounds complicated although i guess it's worth consideration.
Finance is not my strong point. (Should have paid more attenion in school)

Yes, it is complicated. In essence, spread betting is actually the same as futures: the betting companies are brokers for futures contracts, which is what currency brokers use. Spread betting can work out cheaper. But it is, as you say, more complicated. For only £200K of transfers it's probably easier just to transfer it in 4 tranches of £50K over 4 months to smooth out any volatility in the rates.

K.

Cheers.
I've never been much of a gambling kind. I can put 50p in a slot machine then walk away if i win 60p. I know plenty who can't.

Spread Betting isn't really gambling, although it can be used for it (and you can lose a lot of money, too). You can "bet" the stock market will go up, but that's what everyone is doing when they put money in their pension fund. You can also "bet" that it will go down, which is what everyone selling short does.

Because it's classified as "betting" the betting tax regime applies. This is great because you can "bet" the stock market will go up, then when it (eventually) does, you can collect your "winnings" without tax.

You can even take spread bets on the house price market now. So if you are trying to sell your house, but can't yet (e.g. visa hasn't turned up) you can bet that the market will fall. Then if it does, what you lose on your house you win on the bet. And if it doesn't, what you lose on the bet you win on your house.

K.