Hey Folks, Just wondering who is offering the best exchange rate for moving money from CAD to GBP. we move money through our canadian bank but the exchange is terrible.. Thanks

Wise is what we have used for many years but there are others out there like torfx.

Using multiple windows on your browser try opening 2 or 3 at once and put in a sum to be transferred and compare the sum that will go into your bank account.

I have used Wise for ears Open a Wise multi currency account

I like how your spelling mistake matches your member name

Another vote here for Wise.

Previously I've seen suggestions to open a Wise US dollar account, or a Wise euro account.
I thought the point of the Wise account was to have pots of different currencies.
So you could transfer money from, say, your US dollar pot, to your GBP pot, or from your GBP pot to your euro pot.

What use would there be for an account that was designated for just one currency?

That's what we do, but it is optional, you can continue to use Wise as a regular forex company if you choose to do so.

I've no experience with international money transfers, so I'm getting quite confused about this.
What I was considering was converting US dollars to GBP or euros.
To do this would I need to open a US dollar account, or a multicurrency account?

I looked at the Wise website, and only saw marketing information, I didn't see any details on how to use an account.

You don’t need to open a multi currency account.

1. Create an account with Wise.com, you will be given a Wise member number.
2. Initiate a transfer to a bank, say to your bank account in the UK, provide your bank details and how much in USD you want to send. Wise will show much that will result in GBP
3. Send the money in USD to Wise using their bank details that they will provide, with your member number in the memo field. I usually choose to wire the money rather than use ACH as it is faster.
4. Do a small transfer first to get confidence in how it works. You can save your destination bank with a nickname so you don’t have to enter all the bank details for future transfers.

Thanks for the detailed info.
I had taken another look at the Wise website and started to find some useful information. ( I had probably rushed through it too quickly before).
So I'll spend some time looking at the site and getting used to the terminology and features.
One thing I did notice, was that it is free to receive funds, but you are charged from 0.33 % to send funds.
I thought they made their money on the exchange rate rather than by fees. Has this changed recently?

I don’t know if anything has changed. What is important is how much you get in GBP for the USD being exchanged. I have often had 2 windows open at the same time to compare 2 companies and then clicked submit on the better deal and closed the other window.

Wise says it always gives the mid-market rate and makes its money on the fee it charges, others make their money on the exchange rate they charge.

https://wise.com/gb/blog/how-does-wise-work

So I must have mis-remembered about the charges.
On the link you gave, the example of a transfer worked out at a charge of about 0.25% which is less than the minimum 0.33% they quote.

I had also been on a European section of the website as I would also like to convert to Euros, and the minimum charge was shown as 0.68%.
So their charge looks as though it is dependent on the country you are sending from/to?

Not surprising when you consider how their system works. They have local bank accounts in every country they operate in so their fees are dependant on the banking charges in the countries they operate in.

I have a USD account with them with standard US routing and account numbers and I have this account linked to the US brokerage account where my IRA is. (I don't have a Wise GBP account as I don't need one). When I wish to withdraw funds I initiate a free ACH transfer from my brokerage funds which takes up to 24 hours during the work week (no ACH transfers at weekends or federal holidays). As soon as it hits my Wise account I get an alert on my phone plus an email. I then use my Wise App on my phone to transfer the funds to my regular UK bank account and the transfer happens in seconds. This is because Wise maintains a bank in the UK and simply transfers the money to my account using the normal UK bank to bank system. Since they have many other customers sending money in the other direction they don't actually transfer that much money between countries, just need to top up their UK and US bank accounts depending on the difference in money flows between the two countries.

I have a USD account with them with standard US routing and account numbers and I have this account linked to the US brokerage account where my IRA is. (I don't have a Wise GBP account as I don't need one). When I wish to withdraw funds I initiate a free ACH transfer from my brokerage funds

Thanks, that's very useful information for me.
I used the Wise calculator to look at dollar transfers, and they make a charge for ACH transfers.
So by initiating the transfer from your brokerage account you can avoid this charge.
So to do this, I would have to specifically open a US dollar account with Wise.
And to convert to GBP and euros, I would need to register on the Wise account, both a GBP bank account, and a euro bank account, that could accept the transfers.

Thanks again, I'm beginning to understand what I need to do.

Almost correct. When you create a Wise member account you don’t have to create a Wise GBP or euro account. When you send money to a GBP or euro account you will asked if you wish Wise to remember the account details and give it a nickname. (You don’t have to create a Wise currency account for the place you are sending money to, I don’t have one, just a USD Wise account, but I have a nickname for the accounts I send money to so I don’t have to enter the destination bank every time, Wise remembers it with the nickname).