Korean Job Discussion Forums

camdearlove · Joined: 20 Jan 2006 Location: Gangwon-do

A friend and I were complaining the other day about how useless it is to send money home to Canada right now with the high exchange rate. We both agreed that in our opinion, the Canadian dollar would eventually decline and the American dollar would eventually rise again (but who knows when - it could be after I leave Korea and I'm forced to exchange all my savings). I suggested it might be a good idea to open a U.S. dollar account at my Canadian bank and transfer funds into that. When there is a more favourable exchange rate, I'd later convert from American to Canadian dollars. In my head it sounds like a good idea - I thought I'd post on here to see if there's a reason that it's not. Any feedback?

dogshed · Joined: 28 Apr 2006

Can you open a US account? I thought I saw one somewhere that would let
you use ACH to pay bills in Canada.

dogshed · Joined: 28 Apr 2006

I did a google search and found one US dollar account offered by a
Canadian bank. Notice that it is not insured and there is no ATM access.

https://www.citizensbank.ca/Personal/Products/BankAccounts/USDAccount/

quilter · Joined: 11 Feb 2006

I have a U.S. dollars account with the Royal Bank. I opened it while in Canada, so not sure how you would do it from overseas. I'm not a financial whiz, but sounds like it may be a good idea.

Mr. Pink · Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Location: China

All Canadian banks offer US dollar bank accounts.

I had mine at TDCanada Trust mostly because they had the best interest for that type of account. I know CIBC and RBC also have them, as I went in and checked their rates out.

It isn't a bad idea to do. Also, not sure if you know, you can get US dollar bank accounts in Korea too. I had one of those for awhile at KB bank. I also had a Canadian dollar account with KB bank. I know KEB does that too.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: the accounts ARE NOT insured. But as if a Canadian bank would fold...go with either RBC, TD, CIBC or BMO.

mindmetoo · Joined: 02 Feb 2004

I have been waiting for the Canadian dollar to tank vs the greenback since 2003. As long as oil is high and Canada represents the last sane democracy supplying the usa with its oil, gas, and hydro, don't count on the loonie sinking any time soon.

Bite the bullet and sink it into a 5 year investment.

peppermint · Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 4:00 am Post subject:

The exchange rate has been pretty unstable in the last couple of days. It was at $1.10 for a couple of hours on Wednesday, and has dropped to about 1.064 now. My guess is that it will stay at parity or slightly above for a while, the question is, how much above?

camdearlove · Joined: 20 Jan 2006 Location: Gangwon-do

Thanks for the advice!
You're right, the dollar has been bouncing around for a few days now so I'm going to keep an eye on that and figure out what to do when I'm ready to send money home in a month or so.