Sending money to Canada

Bumbles2

Hi all, not sure if this is the right section perhaps you can direct me if it's not.

I want to send money to a family member in Canada on a regular basis. I want to pay in Sterling but I want to pay as little in fees as possible. Up till now I have been using Western Union. Is there another way I can do this that won't cost me so much?

gommsta

Not sure how much Western Union charge.

I send to family in Canada transferring from my Halifax bank account into their Canadian bank account. I get charged £9.50 per transfer and it usually takes around 24 hours to hit their account.

Cheers

blueberrypie

I regularly transfer money between my UK and Canadian accounts and I use xe.com to do it. Fees are minimal (often no fees at all) and they have a best-rate guarantee. You do need to set up an account, but once that's done, everything else can be done on-line.

Bumbles2

Thanks for the advice guys. Looking into it now!

cottager

blueberry: this thread just reminded me of something, and maybe you know the answer. (Sorry Bumbles, for butting in.)

Going back 10-12 years (pre-Paypal and other methods which have come in since), I used to buy from various booksellers overseas, and paying the ones in Canada was the least problematical, as they were always happy to be sent a normal sterling UK cheque. Not just the odd one: I must have dealt with at least half a dozen and all were the same.

I never asked any of them why this was (just happy at the time not to have to pay draft fees!), but always wondered. Can't imagine they would have offered or accepted this payment method if they'd had to pay charges their end.

So only asking out of interest really: do you know if Canadian accounts do (or did) accept sterling cheques as a matter of course?

blueberrypie

cottager wrote: »

blueberry: this thread just reminded me of something, and maybe you know the answer. (Sorry Bumbles, for butting in.)

Going back 10-12 years (pre-Paypal and other methods which have come in since), I used to buy from various booksellers overseas, and paying the ones in Canada was the least problematical, as they were always happy to be sent a normal sterling UK cheque. Not just the odd one: I must have dealt with at least half a dozen and all were the same.

I never asked any of them why this was (just happy at the time not to have to pay draft fees!), but always wondered. Can't imagine they would have offered or accepted this payment method if they'd had to pay charges their end.

So only asking out of interest really: do you know if Canadian accounts do (or did) accept sterling cheques as a matter of course?

If you mean, did they accept sterling accounts as normal deposits, then no, not any more than UK banks would have accepted Canadian dollar accounts as a matter of course.

Cheques in general were never as popular in Canada for one-off payments as they are here. There was never a cheque guarantee card system, so if you wrote a cheque in a store, you had to provide ID - usually a driving licence - and your telephone number. So most businesses weren't set up to accept large numbers of cheques drawn on *Canadian* banks, never mind UK ones. I don't ever remember depositing a UK cheque into my Canadian accounts, but I suspect that clearing would have taken several weeks at a minimum.

It's possible the sellers you dealt with had an account with a banking institution which also did business in the UK, or that their bank didn't routinely charge substantial amounts for foreign cheque deposits (or that they were on a package which allowed a certain number of them each month - most Canadian accounts are packaged, paid-for accounts, even for non-business users).

cottager

OK, thanks for that: appreciate the explanation.
I certainly wouldn't have expected to be able to put Canadian dollars into my a/c here with no charges, then or now -- so it seemed strange they could 'in reverse', but I never thought to ask at the time.
Thanks again