flexsingh

Hi guys, been a very long two years sine I posted.. been enjoying the life in Canada!

I am now approaching the time to buy my first home and am looking at transferring Money from UK Bank (Halifax ) to my TD account here.

Is it as simple as providing the wire transfer details and having the GBP sent to Canada, which is then converted to CAD?

I have been told many different versions with some stating the money will first be transferred to USD, and then to CAD meaning I get hit twice with currency conversion

newlife_canada

I deal with overseas transfers all day long here in the UK. You should ask your bank (halifax)to process an international payment, quoting the amount in GBP that you would like to send.

Your payment will be sent in GBP through an intermediary bank in the US and then to your CAD account, exchange rates will only be applied when they hit your TD account.

MIght be worth while asking your bank in Canada, if they can give a fix rate. Most bank will do this for a large amount of money.

Soooooo wish we were in your situation. Can not wait to be in Canada, looking for our first property.

Congrats

Simon Legree

Why would it go through a US intermediary ?
That doesn't make much sense. I would have thought it would have been a straight "nostro/vostro" transaction between the two banks or, if there is no direct connection, their correspondent bank in Canada.

TS00

It depends on how much you are transferring. If relatively small amounts, just do an international transfer. Even though you will get a poor exchange rate, it's easy and convenient.

If transferring larger amounts, rate becomes more important, as your losses can amount to thousands in a single transaction. In these cases it's worth using a forex company. You transfer to their UK account, they convert and transfer to your Canadian account at a pre-agreed rate. This rate will be significantly better than the rate applied by the bank.

Aviator

You can also write yourself a cheque on your UK account and deposit it in you Canadian account. On occasion and by negotiation I get the same rate as an FX broker offers. For established customers there is often no hold on funds, for newer customers there may be a hold, but no transaction fees.

Be sure the funds are in the account, if the cheque bounces and gets returned, it is at the banks sell rate not the rate they gave you when they bought the funds off you to exchange.

tee1

Use a forex company not your bank. Even if your just changing a couple of grand you'll be better off. UK Bank to Canadian bank you'll be done over both in fee's and exchange rate. I quite like http://www.fxcompared.com/ to compare companys and get the best rate on the day. TD trust will charge an incomming wire fee of $10 I think regardless of how you wire the money

RoMo82

I agree with this, Banks will give you the worst rates going. I've been transfering my wages from the UK using UKForex and i've been getting very good rates and fast turnaround, also if its over £3k there's no fee. I think they might have a top limit though so if you're doing a very big sum you might have to do one or 2 transactions.

orly

Always used http://currencyfair.com/ myself to transfer money over.

Seems to be competitive and it's pretty easy to use after you set it up and verify yourself (with passport)

flexsingh

So I'm looking at transferring 50k or so... If using a forex company how safe is it?

smurf8

Wish I'd new that before. Just transferred money over and lost about £800 Oh well u live & learn

Tony_Tiger

If your at the bank and get quoted a rate. Ask for a better rate. They are allowed to adjust and negotiate. If they say no, go higher up the chain or complain.

tee1

I guess it's worth noting that not all fx companies are fsa regulated and with some company's in theory your money could be lost should they go bust during the transfer but in reality very safe. It's important you do your research, make sure they have a segregated client account and read online reviews of the company but thousands of people do it everyday with no problems.
It's worth opening a couple of accounts with different companies so that you can chose the one with the best rate on the day. I used smart currency exchange and would recommend them. For the cash you want to transfer fx broker is the only way to go

This page tells you things to check at the bottom of the page http://www.moneysupermarket.com/curr...oney-transfer/

Derpmaster

Use a forex company for that amount. None of them charge any wire transfer fees for over $3k usually and you can pay EFT from UK bank account probably branch to branch transfer.

There's also VBCE who will take a wire, convert it to CAD, then send branch to branch in Canada (free) through HSBC, TDbank, RBC whatever banks they use. Or get a demand draft from your bank in UK and mail it to VBCE it's free if over $5,000

Theoldfields

We used Halo Financial and it worked for us. There may be better ones out there but Halo were significantly better than the high street banks.

Destrike

I'm very new to this sort of thing, but when I last stayed with my Fiancee, I used the PostOffice, was able to transfer money from my own account into her account without fee's

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/international-payments