Debbieken

Hi everyone,

Sorry if this isn't the right place to post. Just wondered If anyone could share experiences regarding the cheapest way to move your money from Sterling to Canadian dollars? Ie, a lump sum to open a new bank account etc?

Thanks,

Debbie

iaink

Moved it to the right spot for you.

There are many threads about this, plus a sub forum operated by one of the exchange rate companies.

dgagitw

HSBC Premier are about the cheapest mainstream option I've seen. The best option overall I've been able to find is to open an account with oanda.ca setting your base currency to GBP. You can then fund the account directly from the UK via a SWIFT instruction paying just the usual fee for a transfer. From there, you can use their online trading app to buy CAD at something very close to the spot rate. It's quite a bit of hassle but if you were to transfer 100K GBP you'd save something like 1K over the bank alternatives so probably worth it.

spaceace

In our Canadian experience with HSBC has been awful in every respect (and I've been a customer since the Midland Bank days)

I've used a few of the big currency dealers online and I highly recommend ozforex

Good luck!

helcat12

We have used TorFX and also had contacts with HiFX.
Both were able to transfer money in large or smaller sums. The rate they offered was fine for us and they were easy to deal with.

The UK banks were not easy to deal with, however.

I had trouble with Santander and my OH had some (fewer) issues with Barclays.
Both were very difficult about us transferring large-ish amounts of our money to unfamiliar bank account, even UK based ones (which is what TorFX use.) In fact, TorFX actually has a Barclays account, but they still made the OH telephone every day for several days because he could only transfer ten thousand pounds a day.

Santander wouldn't even tell me how much of my own money I was allowed to transfer at once!

I'd research with your UK bank about their requirements for transferring money to other bank accounts not held by you before you agree anything with a money transfer company just to reduce the stress and chances of things being delayed by your UK bank, but I would recommend the money brokers for transferring funds.
They worked well for us.

spaceace

the great thing about ozforex is they use a Barclays account in the UK to receive your funds, so you only ever transfer the funds from UK to UK. Ozforex forwards on the money to your CA account. simples

spaceace

duplicate. sorry.

dgagitw

Same here and agreed - HSBC in the UK, HK and USA have all been good for me, the Canadian operation sucks though. The one thing they do have that's unique I think is the ability to link up all of your accounts globally and then transfer money between them online. It used to be the FX rate they offered was pretty good - about .5% spread in total - but that spread seems to have widened in the last 6 months or so.

Debbieken

Wow, thanks everyone, very helpful

yzf.shaun

I've used these a few times and always found their rates reasonable.

helcat12

Yep, same as TorFX.

It should make it much easier but just beware if you are already in Canada and trying to set up a transfer for a large amount.
It automatically gets referred to the High Risk transfers department at your bank by some banks (Barclays and Santander in our case) and then if you are not present in the UK it can be a right palaver.
That is what caused us all the grief.

If we could have gone into a branch it would have been fine, but that was a little difficult when in BC.