Foreign Currency Exchange Companies
 

I am looking to use the services of a foreign currency exchange company to transfer my house sale proceeds to my new bank account in Canada. The two main companies I am currently looking at are HiFX and TORfx, but I am cautious as I have no prior experience of dealing with such companies. From what little I've researched, it seems to be a bit of a jungle out there, and it's hard to know who to trust, not only to get the best possible rates but more importantly, not to do a Bernie Madoff with my money.

Could anyone who has used an FX company recently please give me the benefit of their opinions, experiences good and bad, and recommendations?

Thanks in anticipation!

S.

Re: Foreign Currency Exchange Companies
 

Never used TORfx to actually move money but I do subscribe to their daily emails on the markets (sorry no help to your situation)
Your local bank manager may actually be able to suggest a company... worth a try?

Re: Foreign Currency Exchange Companies
 

I have moved various sums of money here using hifx over the last year. No problems at all. I did it while in the UK and then when here I was able to update all my contact information etc and still use the service. The only difference is that you can pay with a debit card only when it is registered to a UK address. This isn't really a big deal as I just do a transfer to hifx straight from my account. For larger sums as there was a limit on how much I could transfer each day I had to do three payments, but never a problem. I have dealt with them over the phone with a broker and also simply online. I found that money tended to arrive in my BMO account slightly quicker than in my Canadian HSBC one, but never more than a day or so.

Re: Foreign Currency Exchange Companies
 

Hi, I have just done the same as we are moving to Halifax, NS in a week or two.
I used MoneyCorp as they had been recommended. Very easy to deal with. I did it in 2 chunks, and you are given a week to move the money to them. It cleared in my account the same day that we transferred the final payment to them.

I have also used HiFx in the past and they were also good.
I generally watch www.xe.com.
They quote mid market rates, but they are updated every 10 seconds or so.
For example if you see the rate at 1.76, with a bit of negotiation you will probably get 1.745 - 1.75 depending on how much you are buying.

Where you moving to?

Re: Foreign Currency Exchange Companies
 

We are not planning to move to Canada just yet, but I have been contacted by company called Halo Financial. They are advertised in the "emigrate" magazine as "the guiding light in foreign exchange". Not sure how good they are, but would be interesting to hear from anyone who has used them too.

Re: Foreign Currency Exchange Companies
 

I have used HIFX transfering money in both directions. In all cases they were efficent and gave better rates thatn the banks. You just need to make sure that you get an account setup in advance since you need to either post or eMail them scanned images of documents to proove who you are.

Re: Foreign Currency Exchange Companies
 

Try www.forex.com they are regulated by the FSA, so you can be confident about there services and process and they wont do a runner with yar dosh

Re: Foreign Currency Exchange Companies
 

Hi

We have just used Moneycorp with no problem. The only thing I would say though is to plan how you transfer your money to the exchange company. We are in Canada and although the bank said that we would be able to do an online transfer of a large sum (over £10k) from our UK bank account to Moneycorp, when we actually tried to do it they would not let us. This was after sitting down in the bank and explaining to them exactly what we wanted to do as we would not be in the UK. After numerous phone calls over several nights they finally backtracked and agreed to do the transfer. Make sure that if you will be in Canada when you want to do the transfer that everything is set up as depending on the amount, doing it in £10k chunks over several days may not be feasible. The bank should have set us up with a different type of account or told us to set up an authorisation so someone else could go into the bank to transfer the money as they wanted us to go into our branch - and surprise surprise would not pay for the airline ticket!!!!
The money did come through in the end and within time for Moneycorp and we have just bought our house so it did end up all right but there were a few sleepless nights.
Cheers Ian

Re: Foreign Currency Exchange Companies
 

One thing to also bare in mind if you use a currency broker rather than a bank is that when you transfer the money from the bank to you broker you may get stung with a nasty wire transfer fee. HSBC charged us $175 to wire funds to HIFX :frown: Overall the currency broker was still the better deal though.