Paying during a travel in Canada

Life Hacking
44

Thanks with the detailed tutorial :smiley: the importance for me is to understand that Yuh and Swissquote are considered as the same bank/financial institution in this context…

that’s a good idea, but IB only allow one free withdraw per month so there may will be another 12 CAD additional fee :slight_smile:

45

For your calculation: The correspondent bank will most likely charge you ~25CHF for this transfer. So unless you need more than 2500 CHF in CAD, it’s already not worth it compared to what Yuh would have charged you.

It would have been much much easier to just get a Revolut card… :roll_eyes: :slightly_smiling_face:

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46

Thanks a lot, now I am already travelling in Canada, can I still apply for the Revolut thing? I hope they will not send anything by post

47

They will send the card per post, but I guess you could use the virtual card with Google or Apple pay.

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48

A virtual credit card (any number of those actually) you can create immediately. Loading the account with a credit card is also instant (normally).

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49

Sure, this is all interesting and may save a few dollars. But honestly, for only 3000 CAD for a holiday, I feels it’s not not worth figuring all that bank transfer stuff out for normal people.

And I’m saying this as someone who does such stuff kinda (tangentially) for a living.

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50

maybe it’s the jet lag, but I haven’t understood your last sentence.

51

Although I’m not working for a payment services provider/bank, I still regularly have to figure out international payment instructions (how to transfer funds to someone’s bank account) as part of my job.

But unless you’re interested in such stuff (like me), I’d recommend normal people to not bother and just use a cheap & convenient payment card (Neon, Wise, Revolut, N26, DKB) for their holidays.

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52

Sorry for my slow learning curve, so as per the advice of most of the Mustachians, I created my Revolut account, topped up 15 CHF( for experiment) with Yuh debit card, created a Google Pay account and connected my Revolut virtual card to finance Google Pay.

What shall I do now to make my 1st payment in shops in Canada? 1. shall I wait for weekdays to transfer more CHF to Revolut? 2. Shall I wait for weekdays to convert CHF to CAD? 3. when the conversion is done, can I use Google Pay directly in Canadian shop? I have never used phone payment before.

Thanks a lot

53

Between this post and this one How much did you pay to transfer CAD from IBKR(Interactive Brokers) to Yuh? - #17.

Sounds a lot of hassle to me to save some CAD during your holidays.

  1. Revolut
  2. yuh
  3. google pay
  4. ibkr

The hours spent on this forum and trying to make your wire transfer probably cost more than Yuh 0.95% fee. Don’t forget to enjoy your holidays (with or without virtual card) :slight_smile:

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54

This you can do anytime.

Yes.

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55

I checked a bit outside, seems lots of places accept ApplePay but not Google Pay, unfortunately I have Android phone…

56

Isn’t it just contactless payment? I doubt the terminal knows if it’s talking to a physical card or a phone.

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57

UPDATE: I trried again now(after 30 minutes) and it has worked. looks like the app has bug sometimes

I am about to convert CHF to CAD in Revolut
as soon as I choose CAD(or any other currencies), I get the message " [“We’re sorry, something has gone wrong please try later”

Anyone knows how to solve this? I am waiting for Revolut agent, estimated waiting time one hour…

58

  1. I guess it makes more sense to fund my Revolut account with my UBS credit card? (my only credit cards, visa and Mastercard are with UBS) as there is a tiny cashback (UBS Keyclub)

  2. If Revolut doesn’t charge FX conversion fee, (neither a flat fee nor a %), I guess there is no difference between exchange 500 CHF to CAD in one time or in several batches/times?

Thanks

60

for anyone interested: I tried sending 2 CAD from IBKR to Yuh and I received 2 CAD in 1-2 working days on Yuh, don’t know if it will be the same situation if for several thousands CAD

61

The SWIFT fees vary with the amount of money you sent. In my experiments at least everything under 100CHF was free, and for sums in the 1000s it was always a fixed 25 CHF.

It’s absolutely arbitrary and intransparent though. They could also take half the money and there is nothing you could do. If possible avoid SWIFT transfers at all costs.

62

Thanks a lot for sharing your experience! How do we transfer in this case if we avoid SWIFT transfer? :sweat_smile:

63

You don’t.

Non-canadian and/or cross-border CAD transfers will go through SWIFT. So will any other currency - unless a jurisdiction or monetary/currency union specifically created a cheaper cross-border messaging / settlement system for it (SEPA, or Switzerland and Liechtenstein for CHF).

1 Like