Help with money exchange

[RogerMcLellan]

Hello all,

I have recently been looking for a vacation property in Costa Rica which I plan to be staying at for a few months each year. There is one property I am intersted in but I am concerned with making the deposit on it. As I am from Canada and the property is being sold in US dollars I called my bank to see what kind of exchange rate they would offer and it appeared to be much worse than the rate I saw on the financial websites. They also said they would charge a fee of $35 just to wire the funds! I think the bank will be making a lot more on the exchange rate. Does anyone know if there another way to do this?

Sincerely,

Roger

[Russ]

Hi Roger,

The $35 fee is normal for wire transactions, but you should be able to find a good exchange rate. If not from your own bank, you might consider calling around to see where you can get the best rate.  Keep in mind that you can initiate a wire transfer from any bank in the world to any account in the world.  So you would just have to figure out how to get the money from your bank to the other bank that is offering a decent exchange rate and then initiate the transfer in US dollars from that bank.  More than likely the bank that you want to wire from can just debit your account electronically. 

Another way could be to do a deposit here into a local bank account using your international debit card.  Apparently credit card companies offer very good exchange rates in general and I have had success depositing into the Banco Nacional account using this method. You just go to the customer service desk and tell them which account you want to deposit to. 

I tried to get information on the Internet about getting a good exchange rate for Canadian dollars, but wasn't very successful.