Hurlabrick

We will be doing quite a few trips to the US in the coming years. It would be great if we had a USD bank account where I could move money using the good rates I can get through TransferWise, then draw USD cash from a US ATM (rather that cart USD paper money around or draw cash from my CAD RBC account at horrible rates and a charge for doing so.

Any thoughts on how I could achieve this? Can a Canadian open and hold a US bank account with a Canadian address? Am if barking up the wrong tree or is there an easy way of doing this??

Almost Canadian

Can you not simply obtain a US$ account with RBC and use that when in the US?

I haven't done it but not a day goes by when I don't see such accounts when viewing clients' financial documents.

Hurlabrick

Ah, didn't know about that. So I can have a USD account that I can transfer FOREX exchanges from GBP to USD straight into?? Maybe a quick trip down the road to the local branch is in order!

Siouxie

It's all online - not the personal account though as that won't let you withdraw in the US apparently.

U.S. Banking Solutions from RBC Bank - RBC Royal Bank

U.S. Banking for Canadians - Spend time on both sides of the border?
No matter how often you visit the States or how long you stay, we make it easy for you to bank, live, work and play on both sides of the border.

scrubbedexpat091

RBC has a US bank as well that might be worth looking into.

https://www.rbcbank.com/index.html

Note that while the website is similiar to the Canadian one, the link is to the US website RBC Bank.

Hurlabrick

I think a trip to RBC to talk to them in person.

What I DON'T want is a USD account that sits alongside my CAD account but the only way I can move money into the USD account is by using the RBC FOREX rate (although I might end up having to live with this).

What I DO want is a USD account that I can transfer money into directly myself (or have my sister transfer money into as she lives in NY) from my UK account using the TransferWise service as it gives a much better rate.

I am not clear on what would happen if I sent a USD transfer of money via TransferWise to my Canadian account IF I opened a USD account with them as well - how would that work??

scrubbedexpat091

I hope I word this correctly so it makes sense.

We use a credit union so maybe banks do things differently.

We have both a Canadian fund account and US fund account, each account has its own account number.

If we transfer US funds into the US dollar account, the funds remain US dollars, if we transfer Canadian funds into the US dollar account its exchanged into US dollar and vice versa.

So if we had say someone wiring us US funds, we would provide the account # for the US dollar account, those funds would remain US dollar.

Downside for us anyhow with a Canadian US dollar account, is we still need to carry cash, our debit card is largely useless in the US and surcharge free ATM's are not always available.

CanadaJimmy

Depending on exactly how many trips you plan on doing, you could also get a 0% Forex card like the Home Trust Preferred Visa. It's in CAD but when you buy in USD it gives you the Visa exchange rate with no additional fee on top (most cards add 2.5%). Doesn't help with withdrawing cash though.

I have heard of people going to banks in the US and opening bank accounts as Canadians, there's no requirement to be a US Citizen/Visa holder to open an account. TD has branches in the US as well which is an option as well.

Jerseygirl

How long are you going for? We spend approx a month at a time in Florida. We have a US bank account but we pay for most things by credit card. I don’t usually go to the bank or ATM while we are in Florida.

We have TD US and Canada accounts. They are completely separate companies and one doesn’t seem to have any idea about the other. We opened the US account before moving to Canada, thinking it would be easier to transfer money.

Hurlabrick

Pretty much what you say, 4-6 week trip once or twice a year with a couple of one week trips. I forgot about the ATM charges. Maybe I am over-thinking or over-complicating this.....

CanadaJimmy

Interesting, they seem to imply you can do cross-border banking but perhaps it has to be set up in a specific way. https://www.td.com/ca/en/personal-ba...order-banking/

Jerseygirl

We had transfers set up between the two countries and it worked for smaller sums of money. The problem arose when we wanted to transfer money for a house purchase. We couldn’t get any joy over the phone/internet, so hubby went to our US branch. He saw the manager who was clueless. Took the guy 24 hours to get it sorted out.

bc2015

The Rogers Bank Mastercard gives 4% cashback on all foreign currency transactions. They still charge the FX fee of 2.5% but the rates seem good. Cashback can be redeemed immediately against any transaction on the card over CAD$20.