Opening a Euro Bank Account from Canada

Hello!

My cousin and I are moving to Ireland in September, but first we will be traveling around Europe for 2 months. To save money we would like to convert all of our money to Euros in one big lump sum before we leave.

The problem we have is we don't have a bank account to transfer the Euros into. Does anyone know of a way to open a Euro bank account in Canada, or open one in Europe from Canada?

Thanks!

Christopher Edwards

With the new "know your customer" security measures with European banks you have to be present at the branch in order to open a European account. It's possible for a non-resident to open an account in Europe with your passport. If you just want to exchange funds from dollars to Euros you can go into your bank and they will do it for you at a fair exchange rate. They usually need up to a week to order large amounts of foreign money and it's withdrawn from your account.

My daughter worked in France 5 years ago as a musician. She has been back in Canada for the past 3 years. The recording company sends her royalty checks in euros and even though we wrote them that we cannot cash them here, they are still sending these checks. Can we do anything with these checks here? Cibc & Rbc have both refused them.

My daughter worked in France 5 years ago as a musician. She has been back in Canada for the past 3 years. The recording company sends her royalty checks in euros and even though we wrote them that we cannot cash them here, they are still sending these checks. Can we do anything with these checks here? Cibc & Rbc have both refused them.

Try TD or BMO, but according to RBC's website it shouldn't be a problem? I mean, they even have a foreign currency cheque converter on their website! Of course, if you just ask to cash them without any explanation, the tellers probably assume you want the cash in Euros - ask to cash and exchange the Euros, and ask to speak to a manager if they still won't help you. I'm not a banker, but I can't think of a legitimate reason for them to refuse to change the cheques into Canadian dollars - they'll even get money out of it since banks always charge fees to cash foreign cheques as well as currency exchange fees.

This is probably a bit extraordinary depending where you live and how much time you have, but I managed to get a euro bank account in about 30 minutes (over 10 days however) when I was in Luxembourg.

You just need your Canadian passport.

I entered an ING in Luxembourg (there's one in Kirchberg) walked in and got the account the same day.

You have to pick up the card in person about 10 days later though...

but your account is activated and you can do transfers via the internet etc...

I know this is kind of an extreme action if you don't live in luxembourg or nearby . But ryan air flies to frankfurt hahn HHN and you can take a flibco bus flibco.com I think to luxembourg. I think you can also rent a smart car at sixti.lu for 10euros/day. I you live in Brussels it's a 3 hour train ride.

You could use it as an excuse to visit Metz which is a nice city or Trier which is only 30 minutes away by train.