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Transferring Pound Sterling to Canada
February 10, 2020
10:50 am
JenE
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A family member is to receive an inheritance of approx. £35,000 from the U.K. Does anyone have a suggestion as to the best way to do this?

February 10, 2020
10:54 am
GICinvestor
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Find the best sell rate here in Canada and sell $10,000 at a time.

February 10, 2020
3:57 pm
Loonie
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This occurred in my family a few years ago. The executor (lawyer) in charge of the estate in Britain had it wired to our Canadian Big Five bank. It was over 10K and there was no problem.
You would need to get all the relevant ID info from your Canadian bank to complete the transfer, including a country code and so on.

February 10, 2020
4:24 pm
GICinvestor
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From what Loonie is saying....to make good choices.
What bank or CU will hold funds in Pound Sterling?
And then take it from there as you can shop for the best sell rate.
And keep in mind how fast can that FI provide you with Pound Sterling to exchange elsewhere at the best “sell” rate you can find.

February 10, 2020
4:29 pm
Loonie
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I would imagine the value of Sterling is in high flux at the moment due to Brexit. No telling what it will be worth next week or next year.

February 10, 2020
5:21 pm
GICinvestor
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I was just thinking to cash it all in now but in small chunks to stay away from the $10,00 money laundry controls. I know it’s not but have heard that some money exchanges, themselves, like Vancouver Bullion & Currency Exchange (so I heard) are under scrutiny for money laundering. <= allegedly!

Yes with Britain being unstable......it’s a crap shoot to hold or sell now!!

February 11, 2020
5:35 am
ReX
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Your family member may wish to open either a US or Canadian dollar Nova Scotia Bank account (the only bank that does not use third party New York based financial institutions for international transfers where funds get bogged down for weeks). Make sure to note all info e.g. branch address, acc#, routing# etc… Bank in UK may also have a mandatory 12 letter/digit SWIFT code requirement for NS so supplement with Xs e.g. NOSCCATTXXX

Funds will get converted to the currency of the account transferred to e.g. US dollar for US dollar account. Recipient will be contacted by NS with questions as to the source of funds etc. NS has to file a report for amounts larger than 10k CDN$. “Inheritance” is the magic word.

February 11, 2020
6:42 am
Loonie
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I just checked some dates. The money received by my family member from the British estate would have arrived in 2015. It was a direct wire transfer to Canadian bank. It went to RBC, where the recipient does all their banking and is well known to staff.

We did not encounter any of the difficulties mentioned above. I think it was about $20,000 Cdn. It arrived into a Cdn dollar account, in Cdn dollars with Sterling original amount and exchange rate noted, as I recall. Perhaps the fact that it came from an "estate of..." account made it more straightforward.

My advice to JenE would be to tell the executor to go to the bank where the estate account is and ask them how to send it to canada. Surely they will be familiar with anti-laundering rules as they are everywhere and people still send money all over the world in large amounts. The British bank should know best how to deal with it from their end.
If the executor is a lawyer, this is what they will do anyway and it will almost certainly be wired to recipient's account.
If the executor is not a lawyer, it's too much to ask of them to be figuring out some alternative method. Just wire it.

February 13, 2020
3:09 am
JenE
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Thanks for the tips, I’ll pass them on.

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