No mention of Foreign Currency Exchange on the site

Hey Guys,

As a Canadian living and working in London as a foreign exchange dealer I am surprised there is no mention on the website of the perils of dealing with the major banks when carrying out a foreign currency transfer. The banks make an absolute fortune out of unwary businesses and individuals transferring funds without recognizing that the exchange rates provided by the banks is often anything from 2.5% to 4% worse than the actual spot rate or interbank rate. You can access these rates by using a foreign exchange specialist and potentially save yourself thousands that you would have unwittingly given to your bank for the privilege of simply doing a currency transfer. I deal with private individuals every day emigrating in and out of the UK so you can believe me when I claim that that the savings are substantial. I work for a City based brokerage called Voltrex Foreign Exchange so feel free to contact me directly if you want to know more about your options when transferring your savings abroad.

The Canadian dollar is trading at 1.9723 to the Pound. If you are thinking of moving to the UK then now is the time to lock in an exchange rate.

Yeah, this is an excellent point, never ever ever ever use a bank for foreign currency exchange. Most of them use brokers anyway, so why not use one yourself and cut out the middleman?

Customs House is pretty good because they're Canadian. Offices in Victoria, BC and Newmarket, ON.

Another piece of advice for anyone who is planning on moving overseas is to get a bank account in that country ASAP, even if you only happen to be on vacation there and the thought crosses your mind, because it's relatively easy to do, but usually only when you're there.

That way you have somewhere to send the money to without incurring additional fees. Plus you can do the transfer more easily when the exchange rate is favourable, and then the money can sit there getting interest.

Plus (and this is a big plus) the longer you have that bank account with money in it, the more likely the bank will be to give you a credit card when you move there. So if it's going to be a couple years before you finish the move, you have two years of account history with them.

Good point guys. Definitely something I need to get some info about on the site. I use forex as well for a lot of transactions.saves lots of money over the banks. Especially now with the high canadian dollar!

I've a good friend working at Custom House in London. They are a good firm but are less concerned with individual or private fund transfers and concentrate on corporate business.

i use www.tranzfers.com for transferring money between my canadian and uk bank account. they charge a flat 7 quid per transaction and post excellent exchange rates, and the customer service is outstanding. i've saved thousands of dollars since i started using these guys. this company was recommended by www.moneysavingexpert.com.

Since the topic has arose I am wondering if any of you can tell me whether the following incident was "normal" or not .
a few years ago I was visiting Malta with a friend and we went (yes, I'll admit it) to the bank to change our travellers cheques to Maltese pounds. She was just ahead of me in line and we were each changing $250 cnd. She took one teller about 5 seconds before I took another teller. She ended up with about 7 pounds (at the time about $24 cnd) more than I did when we compared notes later.
Was that a totally normal experience or not? Just wondering!

Lisa

I'm just curious.How do governments and the tax man look upon this money transfers to a foreign account. I'm currently living in the UK but am moving back to BC next year. We set up an account with CIBC with deposits so that we have a credit record upon our return, however, had not planned on transferring monies like mentioned as I thought it opens a paper trail with the tax man ! I checked out the 3 sites mentioned and the rates are excellent.

regarding canadian income tax, i've done so much research on this because double taxation scares me. i'm surprised that the subject isn't mentioned very often on this site.

if you did not acquire the status of 'non-resident for the purposes of income tax' when you left canada, then you are still considered a canadian resident for the purposes of income tax, and as such you are required to submit a canadian income tax return every year regardless of where you're living. on each income tax return you must declare your *worldwide* income for that year (you can also claim a foreign income tax credit, so you won't be taxed twice, thank god).

so, if you were not declaring your worldwide income on your canadian income tax returns whilst living in the uk, and you were being audited by the canadian revenue agency, and they were looking at your bank account records, then you might be in trouble. they could easily trace the money back to the uk source and discover that the income was not declared on your canadian income tax return. otherwise, you're simply transferring money that you already declared (and paid tax on), so you'd have nothing to worry about.

Luckily my brother is an accountant and took care of alot of this for me.

Revenue Canada did audit my tax return for my UK earnings and required me to send in my P60 or some other proof of foreign employment. So hold on to any and every form that you get if you are still having to do your taxes in both countries.