Im going to living in Canada (BC) for a year starting oct,
im wondering whether its beneficial due to current exchange rates and canadian interest rates to transfer all my uk money to a canadian bank account or leave it in a UK bank account and withdraw it when needed.
Can anyone tell me the advantages and disadvantages to either?

Thanks
Scott

I can only go from my bad experience I'm afraid, I'd wait and not exchange at this point. Go with getting your money out from a Uk account when needed and watch the exchange rate.

oh right ok, what experience did you have? is the exchange rate not good atm?

i assume nationwide are the best uk bank to go with as there is no withdrawal fee to withdraw abroard?

Steve is right - the exchange rate is crap - 9 month ago it was 2.3 and now you would be lucky to get 2 dollars for one of your english pounds. I would just draw out what you need for now and move a larger sum over if/when it improves.

ok thanks,
cheers northern rock ;-)

we have a completion date of 4th December at the moment and an option to bring it forward a couple of weeks, because of the rate we are going to hold off as long as we can and even then wont send all the money in one go.

Nationwide card is great - great rates ( business not tourist rates) and you do not get charged at all, only if you did a cash withdrawal on your Credit card. That s the only way i've done it for years on holidays etc..

We did get caught out earlier in the year by ( i think) Bank of Montreal THEY actually put a charge on the transaction ( without saying so at the machine) and it was actually transacted in US dollars!!! ( now at the moment that wouldn't matter but back then it did!)

Tina

As others have mentioned the rate is not that good right now. Also remember the rate you get buying $CDN will not be the same as you will get if you end up wanting to buy GBP in a years time to take home. The spread depends on the institution you use, with the major banks it can be quite a large gap.

Also consider the interest rates, Canadian banks are like scrouges.

I've been surprised at how poor the interest is on savings accounts here, but the PC Financial bank site had an account with >4% interest when I looked a few days ago.

In the long term over the next decade I think the Canadian economy is going to do substantially better than the UK economy so I won't be surprised if the exchange rate is stable below $2 to the pound by 2010... but I do expect it to pull back some in the next few months. There's just too much speculative money in Canadian dollars and that almost has to lead to a sell-off before long.

As such I'm not intending to transfer my remaining pounds for a while; but I only have about 20k left in my sterling account anyway.

PM me your account info i'll do it for you.

sounds dodgy

hahaha, no thanks.

Talk to your bank , all depends how much you want to exchange and if they have an agreement with the banks in Canada you just might get a better exchange rate .... its worth asking about prerential rates ! i know the HSBC do ....