Transferring money from a UK to Canadian Bank Account

jenny-wren

I'm trying to transfer money as a gift to a family member in Canada and can't figure out what I need to record for the routing number.

I'm trying to use Azimo and it's asking for an 8 digit routing number. However, in Canada, routing numbers have 9 digits (a leading zero followed by the 3 digit institution (branch number) and then the 5 digit account number).

Has anyone successfully electronically transferred money from the UK to Canada that can advise how I can be sure that the number is right?

I'm panicking about getting the number wrong and their gift going astray :eek:

agrinnall

I was going to suggest that you should use the IBAN but I've found that rather bizzarely Canadian banks are not part of the IBAN system - how weird is that?


I found this blog post that might be of some help to you (but might not).


https://ingbrief.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/canadian-iban-to-european-banks/

eDicky

I would guess that you drop the leading zero to get the eight digit routing code that Azimo request, but best to confirm with them to be sure.

System

agrinnall wrote: »

I was going to suggest that you should use the IBAN but I've found that rather bizzarely Canadian banks are not part of the IBAN system - how weird is that?


I found this blog post that might be of some help to you (but might not).


https://ingbrief.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/canadian-iban-to-european-banks/

Hardly bizarre as IBAN is linked to SEPA (Single European Payment Area) implementation - it's just that some non-European countries have also adopted it e.g. UAE as it's an open format.

Ballard

I haven't looked into this website but it might well be of assistance:

https://canadabanksinfo.org/

agrinnall

Heng_Leng wrote: »

Hardly bizarre as IBAN is linked to SEPA (Single European Payment Area) implementation.

That can hardly be true considering IBAN was introduced in 1997, some years before either the adoption of the Euro (2002) or the prototype of SEPA (2003 - SEPA proper in 2008). However, I accept that it is not as widely used as I had thought it was.

jenny-wren

I contacted Azimo and by the time I got a reply from them I'd managed to find another site that was much more straightforward to use (TransferWise). I didn't need a routing number at all.

The exchange rate was much better with TransferWise and the money went through really quickly. Result!

Thanks for all your advice.