How do you convert large sums of USD? (7.Viewing)

With everyone using places like spaceship that pay out in USD how is everyone converting USD to CAD

So aside from the normal exchange rate the Canadian Big Banks will charge you a fee of around 2.5% on top of the interest rate which in itself does not sound like much but if you have a large sale it can add up significantly.

$1,000 = $25
$10,000 = $250
$100,000 = $2500
$1,000,000 = $25,000

So here is where it starts getting crazy, lets say you get a once in a life time 5 million dollar sale and the funds get wired DIRECTLY to your bank account, the bank will charge you an exchange rate (usually not the best rate) plus a $125,000 bank fee. Factored in with the lousy exchange rate that can be a significant amount.

How can you get around these fees?

Is it possible?

Yes for sure....


Get a Wise.com USD and CAD account and have the funds wired into the USD account.
Then move the USD funds to your CAD account at about 0.1% to a max of 0.2%

So on that 5 million $125,000 bank fee the wise equivalent is $500 or a mere pittance on smaller amounts.

Then all you have to do is connect your wise account to another bank account and pull the money in free of charge.

Your entire transaction was 0.1% to 0.2% depending on the amount you converted.

Same goes for credit cards, they all charge 2.5% on top of the exchange rate, apply for the new Wealth Simple Visa and you can buy domains without an exchange markup to whatever the credit limit is on your card but most marketplaces restrict credit card purchases to a maximum of 5-$25,000.


So there you have a couple of ways to avoid the dreaded 2.5% conversion fee markup the banks charge

I have lots more info on wise.com here....

A Wise replacement for Paypal - Very Inexpensive

Forgot to mention that wise also gives you virtually the best exchange rate, with little to no markup, the banks seem to add a random amount there as well and once you combine that with the above the shortfall over wise can be even more dramatic.