CLK350
Member
Ouch! You paid a 2% ForEx fee for converting CAD to USD?
You need to learn about Norbert's Gambit (would've saved you $1,000 CAD on $50K). Recommend using these two dedicated ETF funds to do these two trades: 1. CAD=>ETF then 2. ETF=>USD
So for the cost of 2 trades, you can convert any desired amnt between USD and CAD (without the 2% currency exchange fee). Works in the other direction too when taking profits.
Cheers!
FWIW: I have been using Transferwise (now Wise) to send/ receive money to and from France, Belgium and US. They claim much better rates than banks, and faster transfers, which is my experience, 2-4 business days. TBH I haven't double checked carefully their rates, but just figuring the wire fee of $30 AND the 1-2 week delays was enough to convince me. The way it works is simple, they basically open foreign accounts for you and you can simply decide how to allocate your funds in between your foreign accounts. If you want to pay someone in France, you pay as if from domestic to domestic bank, only need the routing no /account nos.
For foreign investments all you would have to do is set up institutional transfers from Wise to your other accounts.
OT/ Rant - Established banks really have been super slow to adapt to the modern age, and have certainly taken advantage of their clients for too long. A transfer from a friend with an account at HSBC in LA to my account at HSBC in NYC took ... get this, TEN fkg days, that was a few years ago. But really ???
Transferwise is established in London UK although I recall it started in Estonia, maybe because Steve Jurvetson was one of the early backers (he was also an early backer of Tesla, and Board member too until he became Board member of SpaceX). Which gave me confidence in it in their early stages.