sijamie

I'm having some money transferred to my bank here in Canada. Is it better to have the money kept in pounds or have it converted to dollars before it leaves the UK? I'm not really sure of the implications either way. Any help would be appreciated.

Aviator

Better in what way?

Unless you are keeping it in GBP, the only difference will be the FX and the only folks who can give you accurate rates are your bank. The rate will also vary depending on your account type and negotiating skills.

DigitalGhost

When MoneyCorp did it for me the other way (Canada to UK) they just gave me a promise of a fixed amount and then took care of everything else and it actually took less than 24 hours in total.

I believe transferring a foreign currency into a normal UK account will incur charges at the receiving end and considering how greedy and backward the Canadian banks are, I can only imagine those charges being amplified if you're receiving there.

MarkG

My experience is precisely the opposite; I've paid small UK cheques into my bank here and actually had some money at the end of it, whereas it was hardly worth paying small Canadian cheques into my UK bank because the charges would swallow it all.

Geordie Lass

We use Halo to tranfer money across if that helps!

Aviator

I deposit GBP cheques regularly and and get the same or close to an FX broker, no additional charges. Works fine. Amounts from £10 to a lot more.

Really does not matter who you use as an FX house, as long as they are reputable, the rates are going to be pretty even, especially if you negotiate a bit. Some charge a separate fee, some build it into the FX rate. There is no such thing as a fee free transaction, somewhere you pay for it. Banks and FX houses are in it for the money, not our benefit.

Pulaski

Do not use your bank to transfer the funds. You'll get charged wire fees at both ends, and get a cräppy FX rate to boot. There are multiple on-line FX remitters, such as xe.com, xoom.com (search the FX threads on the US forum for other recommendations), which offer a very good FX rate and often no fixed fee at all. Just make sure that you select the "direct credit" (or possibly "ACH", or "BACS") option to receive the funds because if you select "credit by wire" the receiving bank will stick you with a wire fee.

And yes, these transfer services are (generally), have used xe.com, which now belongs to Western Union (and not- coincidentally, is no longer as price competitive as it used to be ) to transfer amounts of $00's, $000's, ..... and, on one occasion, the net proceeds of the sale of my house!

Aviator

Very much a generalization and not correct in all cases. We don't pay any wire fees with out banks and sometimes get the same FX rate as our currency broker offers. The OP should do their due diligence and compare whatever institutions they use.

conjonway

I'm doing a transfer right now with Excel Currencies (see their forum section a bit lower down on BE). I'll let you know how I get on! So far they've been very helpful, and competitive!

SchnookoLoly

We used Oanda, really simple and straight forward. Transfers up to 100k (can't remember which currency) are also protected during the time they are in-transit. There are fees but they're fixed, so if you're transferring large amounts then the relative percentage is pretty low. They were reliable, and the transfer protection was valuable to us.