Moving money FROM Canada TO UK

jprehc

I need to move around CAD300,000 from my Canadian bank to my UK bank. Safest, fastest, cheapest way to do this, please? 

Standingstrong

Well regardless your uk bank will block the payment for pending AML/ML suspicions , 

have you ever made a £300,000 payment to your uk bank account before?

 And do you have a traceable source of proof from where you got the funds from.. as the bank will ask for it if that ever happens 

Daliah

I would use a multi-currency account at Fineco Bank as they give the best exchange rate, are a proper bank, and seem not to be fazed by large transfers. FSCS protection up to £85K, so best doing 3 transfers, and distributing your money to other accounts (unless you can claim temporary high balance protection)

Failing that, Wise could be next best choice. Definitely split your transfers, since they have no FSCS protection. There might be some others you might want to consider, none of them comes with FSCS. Wise and all the others will be easier and quicker to open than Fineco, and are generally quicker than Fineco. I would be happy to settle for the slower option because of FSCS.

jprehc

Standingstrong said:

Well regardless your uk bank will block the payment for pending AML/ML suspicions , 

have you ever made a £300,000 payment to your uk bank account before?

 And do you have a traceable source of proof from where you got the funds from.. as the bank will ask for it if that ever happens 

Pro tip: If you have nothing useful to say, keep quiet. 

xxx

jprehc

Daliah said:

Thanks for the useful info, Daliah.

I've spoken to a broker and it seems to be a pretty straightforward matter. BUT...they want to charge 0.5%. Why a percentage? (I'm being rhetorical here). On my transaction, that's around £1,500. If it was double the amount it would be double the fee, presumably. Why? Is moving CAD600k twice as difficult as shifting half the amount? If it was in bear pelts I could perhaps understand it as you'd need more pack horses, guards, and maybe a bigger ship. But pushing buttons to move money that has existence only as some electrons?   

Daliah

It's understandable that a broker charges - it's their way of making money. If you want their service, you have to pay for it.

But there's no real reason for why you couldn't do it yourself and save the broker charge.

callum9999

jprehc said:

Daliah said:

Thanks for the useful info, Daliah.

I've spoken to a broker and it seems to be a pretty straightforward matter. BUT...they want to charge 0.5%. Why a percentage? (I'm being rhetorical here). On my transaction, that's around £1,500. If it was double the amount it would be double the fee, presumably. Why? Is moving CAD600k twice as difficult as shifting half the amount? If it was in bear pelts I could perhaps understand it as you'd need more pack horses, guards, and maybe a bigger ship. But pushing buttons to move money that has existence only as some electrons?   

Because the more money, the higher the cost of them. It has nothing to do with "moving electrons".

I personally found OFX to give the best rates from Canada to the UK when I did it - invariably better than Wise.