Currency conversion for Canadians
I thought that I would provide the web link below to an item on CBC news about getting better conversion rates when buying US$ than you get from your local bank. Apparently Knightsbridge charges 50...
Forum Discussion
I guess I'll wade in with our method. Keep in mind this has evolved over a few years so for us it hasn't been as complicated as it seems when I write this out. ( also my wife and I are kind of frugal as we retired at 55 and 53 respectively w/ o pensions.)
First we have a CIBC U.S. Chequing acount. All our U.S. Dividend stocks get deposited to this account. Unfortunately we didn't buy more Johnson and Johnson and other stocks when the C$ was at par.......sighhhhh.
Secondly, we opened a trading account with Canadian Forex. They are a currency trader, dealing in pretty much all free world currencies. When we have some extra C$ and we think the dollar exchange rate has bumped up a bit, we go on line to Forex, get a quote on buying US $, and if we like it, book the trade.
Our CIBC US$ and CIBC C$ account are linked to Frorex. They don't have a store front where you can get actual currency, it is strictly inter bank transfers. They take the C$ from our CIBC C$ account and deposit the converted amount to the US$ account. The transaction takes about four to five days.
At $5000C, they charge about 1% plus your bank may ding you $15.00. At $10,000C,
the charge is about 0.5% plus the $15.00. The rate they charge is added to the official Bank of Canada spot rate.
For a Credit card for US purchases, we have a BMO U.S. MasterCard that is linked to our CIBC US account for monthly auto payment. This credit card has a $35 annual fee, but is reimbursed once you have $1500 in purchases......like I said we are frugal.....and survived the 2008 2009 market melt down!
Hope this all makes sense, and it works really well for us.
Gord
First we have a CIBC U.S. Chequing acount. All our U.S. Dividend stocks get deposited to this account. Unfortunately we didn't buy more Johnson and Johnson and other stocks when the C$ was at par.......sighhhhh.
Secondly, we opened a trading account with Canadian Forex. They are a currency trader, dealing in pretty much all free world currencies. When we have some extra C$ and we think the dollar exchange rate has bumped up a bit, we go on line to Forex, get a quote on buying US $, and if we like it, book the trade.
Our CIBC US$ and CIBC C$ account are linked to Frorex. They don't have a store front where you can get actual currency, it is strictly inter bank transfers. They take the C$ from our CIBC C$ account and deposit the converted amount to the US$ account. The transaction takes about four to five days.
At $5000C, they charge about 1% plus your bank may ding you $15.00. At $10,000C,
the charge is about 0.5% plus the $15.00. The rate they charge is added to the official Bank of Canada spot rate.
For a Credit card for US purchases, we have a BMO U.S. MasterCard that is linked to our CIBC US account for monthly auto payment. This credit card has a $35 annual fee, but is reimbursed once you have $1500 in purchases......like I said we are frugal.....and survived the 2008 2009 market melt down!
Hope this all makes sense, and it works really well for us.
Gord
