Exchange rate - best way to transfer money from US to Canada?

[Luc Boiron]

Hi all,

I'm wondering what the best way to bring a large chunk of money from the US to Ontario? 

I'm looking to bring some USD and I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this to get the most CAD out of it. I can have this money wired to a new account at a Canadian bank, so I was thinking that I could have that wired to me and arrive in CAD, which won't be the best exchange rate. I could also have it wired in USD to a USD account at a Canadian bank, then have it exchanged to CAD when here. 

Does anyone have any tips to get the most CAD out of the USD? It's enough that it's worth saving $0.01 on the exchange rate.

[Roy N.]

Luc:

Go though a Foreign Exchange (FX) desk.    Depending on who is your {Big-5} bank, they may have a fairly competitive FX desk (TD does).   If this is a possibility, it will be more convenient to open and use an FX account with the bank's brokerage than to go through a third-party desk such as CanadianForex.

Once you have an FX account set-up you can either purchase/sell at spot rates or, if you have a window before you need the cash converted, you can set a threshold with the desk and they will trade when that rate is met/exceeded.   Additionally, if you will be exchanging a larger amount at once, you can negotiate the spread with the desk.

Never transfer funds from one retail bank account to another, you will pay the largest spread going that route (your bank will love you, but it won't due you much good).

What we generally do is transfer USD from a U.S. bank to a USD denominated account at our Canadian bank.   We then convert currency via our FX account (which can pull/push funds from both our CAD and USD denominated accounts).