Switching from a Canadian to a US Bank

Does anyone know how easy this would be? I will be moving from Toronto to Boston for schooling in August, and am looking into getting a citibank account since they have some sort of special relationship with my school.

Most banks have something similar to a program to help you switch accounts from another banking institution. I was wondering if anyone has done so from a Canadian account to an American bank?

I currently bank at RBC, and would like to have my money transferred to the States and then to have the RBC account closed. Is it possible to do so without physically being at a branch?

Hi,

I wouldn't worry about choosing a bank with any sort of relationship to a Canadian bank. Yes, you have to close out a Canadian bank account in person. I just recently found out that your can write yourself a cheque in Canadian funds and deposit it into a US bank account, at Chase bank, at least. They will determine the exchange rate on the spot and I was not charged any fee for doing this.

Pamela

I belive Reba has good info on RBC, they have a USA "sister" bamk I belive that makes it easy to transfer between them.

What I did was keep a Cdn bank acct open at Presidents Choice (PC) and I uses Customhouse . com to transfer $$ to my Wachovia (USA) bank. No fees at all if you do it electronically (EFT) Much better exchange rate than if you go into a USA bank with a CDn cheque! Takes a few days to set up, but is very easy, and they are extremely helpful. Head office is in Victoria BC. I had actually walked by it numerous times when I resided there!

yep, you can stay with RBC as your primary bank and they can transfer funds to an account with RBC Centura (their US banks).

If however you want to switch to Citibank because its on your school campus, then you'll need to go there and open an account first, then go back to your RBC branch in TO and fill out some paperwork to get them to wire transfer funds to Citibank and close your account. That's what I did, but there is a fee for the wire transfer. I was with Scotiabank at the time, and I think they charged me like $40CAD. Which isn't much really I guess, depending on your bank balance

Personally though, if you're only going to Boston temporarily for school, I'd keep the RBC account, and just open a separate account in the US. Then you won't need to worry about banking when you move back to TO.

$40 for a wire, ouch! Customhouse is totally free if you do it electronically. But I guess if you need the $$ asap, wire would be a better choice.

depends on the amount you're transfering really doesn't it? Mine was a large enough sum that $40 didn't matter much.

Its all gone now mind you

I would think it would matter a lot more if ur transferring a larger sum of $$. When one considers the exchange rate. If one is exchange $5 a slight difference in exchange rate doesnt matter, but if your transferring 50,000, it sure does! And $40 buy s a lot of beer! lol

Does anyone know how easy this would be? I will be moving from Toronto to Boston for schooling in August, and am looking into getting a citibank account since they have some sort of special relationship with my school.

Most banks have something similar to a program to help you switch accounts from another banking institution. I was wondering if anyone has done so from a Canadian account to an American bank?

I currently bank at RBC, and would like to have my money transferred to the States and then to have the RBC account closed. Is it possible to do so without physically being at a branch?

Do you have to notify the US or Canada when you move money in either direction? If I wire money from a Canadian bank account to a US bank account, is there anything to report? And how about in the other direction? Thanks in advance.

What do you mean "anything to report"?