11.5.3 Advice for Australians in Canada
Description
This article is from the soc.culture.australian FAQ, by Stephen Wales with numerous contributions by others.
11.5.3 Advice for Australians in Canada
To open a bank account, you definitely need ID, and presumably a fixed
address, but to the best of my recollection we didn't yet have our Social
Insurance Numbers when we opened our first account.
The big banks are:
Royal Bank of Canada (biggest retail bank in the world)
CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce)
Bank of Montreal
Bank of Nova Scotia
Toronto Dominion (somewhat smaller)
I have always found Royal Bank and CIBC to have rotten service, and
Scotiabank the best service. Bank of Montreal tends to have the lowest
mortgage rates (or at least, leads the pack to lower them).
At least in smaller cities, foreign-currency accounts are difficult or
impossible to come by, with the exception of US Dollar accounts which are
quite standard.
Bank deposits (US Dollar accounts excepted) are insured to $60,000 (some
rules about how many accounts this applies to).
There are many other banks, more regionally based, and also Trust
comapnies, some owned by banks and others not. Like the old Australian
building societies, their interest rates are a little higher, but their
services are more limited.
Visa, MasterCard, AmEx standardly accepted (some places no longer accept
AmEx because of high commissions). Diners (now allied with EnRoute) much
less so. If a business accepts one card only, it is most likely to be
Visa. JCB also accepted in tourist-type establishments.
Canada has just seen the introduction of Interac payment, identical to
Australian EFTPOS (only we got it much later than in Australia).
Banks will receive electronic transfers of money from overseas, but will
cahrge for it, even if the amount is transferred already converted to
CAD. The standard charge seems to be about $10. Transfer time varies
between instantaneous and a couple of days (on occasion, longer).
[XXX Anyone care to write something similar for the US, others ?? - SW]
Continue to:
My Books
