With a free current account
That will give me a free visa credit card
That won't charge me for receiving money from the uk (wire transfers) if it is in gbp
That has branches in downtown Vancouver

I'm tired of Scotiabank

PS. I could google this and make comparisons, but it's hard with a 3-month old high need baby, so thanks.

As far as I'm aware all banks in Canada will charge to receive a foreign wire transfer and no decent current account is going to be free, unless you leave $2k+ in your account every month.

Ask at your local credit union, .
At mine it's Mastercard, costs something but points back make up for it. Don't know anything about international transfers but I'm sure they'll talk to you about it.

It's been a while since I transferred money from the UK to PC, but I'm pretty sure there was no fee at the Canada end.

PC checking account is perfectly decent.

And there are plenty of free credit cards. One of mine is TD and I don't even bank with them.

There's a $15 fee in Canada for receiving a wire transfer - I don't know of any banks that don't charge it here.

Not sure if they charge to receive funds from the UK but Presidents Choice is fee free and the account seems reasonable, they have decent fee free master card too.

Thank you everyone! Will look into these. Great starting point!

IIRC all banks will charge you $15 for a wire transfer from abroad, because they have to do a FINTRAC notification.

Try Tangerine. (Used to be called ING Direct). They do free banking, but no credit cards. They have no branches, but you can use Scotiabank ATMs (because they own them now) and a lot of other ones. They do photo cheque deposits too.

Scotiabank do have several free Visa credit cards, don't they?

As for charges for your bank account, just keep a high balance

Maybe what I did wasn't technically wiring. Isn't that what you do at places like Western Union?

Mine was a SWIFT transfer to PC from my UK Bank. It was a % but there was a maximum of £12. It always struck me how cheap it was for the sums involved.

I had a declaration to make In order to make. this payment, personal information relating to the individuals involved in the transfer may be processed for the purposes of: a) Complying with applicable laws, including without limitation anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism laws and regulations, And b) Fighting crime and terrorism, And disclosure to any Government entity, regulatory authority or to any person we reasonably think necessary for these purposes. This may mean that personal information will be transferred outside the EEA to countries, which do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK.
I agree to the above.


I found this in an old file for repeat use.

I last did it in 2005 and I just looked at the UK bank website. The procedure for the size of transfer I made is quite different, so maybe the whole thing has changed since then.

Another vote for Tangerine. Been with them for years and very happy with them.

Anyone else think it funny that technology has been developed to enable something that technology has rendered almost obsolete?



I realise some people still have a use for cheques but it's still funny.

Cheques are more use here than they are in the UK for example, because despite the Interac payment 'email' system, paying people (other than in cash) is still not as straightforward as it could be.

Photo cheques are a good idea and are being introduced in Britain too.

Almost obsolete?? With 3 kids at school I am forever writing cheques.......and paying for them!

Why?

Banks are in business to make money, we send to 2 banks abroad from 3 banks in Canada and they are all different prices, some quick, some slow and if they don't charge the other end they give you a crappy exchange rate to make up for it.
This week we wired money to Thailand and got 29.6B/Dollar, went the next day and changed in the bank and only got 28B/Dollar when XE was quoting the same rate each day.
It has worked against us the opposite way the last 2 times we went.
You don't seem to be able to win.