Personal Finance

Which has a better USD to CAD rate, Paypal or Banks?

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  • Jun 3rd, 2015 11:26 am
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Member
Jul 8, 2013
335 posts
82 upvotes
Montreal

Which has a better USD to CAD rate, Paypal or Banks?

Deciding whether to go from Paypal USD to CAD in my account, or Paypal USD to USD Savings Account to CAD.
10 replies
Deal Addict
Dec 21, 2012
2058 posts
334 upvotes
Toronto, ON
Bank pretty sure...but it's not that much of a difference to be honest.
Deal Addict
Aug 19, 2014
1658 posts
2172 upvotes
Go to Banks, if its high amount, staff person can give you little high rate.
Deal Fanatic
Jun 17, 2013
5120 posts
1501 upvotes
Montreal
pretty simple. Go to your bank and ask them how much you would get by exchanging, then go to paypal and do the same thing.

When you log into paypal it shows you what the conversion would be, and most banks have it on their website...sometimes with a calculator. Whichever is higher go with that. In the past, sometimes the bank was better, sometimes paypal was better...in the end it was usually 1-2% difference.
Deal Addict
Oct 17, 2005
4158 posts
2892 upvotes
Toronto
Paypal had a better rate than RBC the last few times I converted.
Deal Addict
User avatar
Nov 28, 2007
3204 posts
1094 upvotes
Whitehorse, YT
dbzkid777 wrote: Deciding whether to go from Paypal USD to CAD in my account, or Paypal USD to USD Savings Account to CAD.
I thought the hard part was getting the USD out of PayPal. Do they allow you to move it to a bank or forex dealer?
Deal Addict
Feb 27, 2011
2161 posts
726 upvotes
Marzipan wrote: I thought the hard part was getting the USD out of PayPal. Do they allow you to move it to a bank or forex dealer?
There's another thread on this. The topic should really be pinned.

how-withdrawing-usd-paypal-account-avoi ... on-973455/

The RBC US High Interest eSavings works as a real USA bank account and you don't need a ITIN or any of those silly things.
Newbie
Aug 24, 2012
70 posts
9 upvotes
If you want to go through the hassle, you can try XETrade, it's what I use when I convert USD/CAD.
Deal Addict
Feb 27, 2011
2161 posts
726 upvotes
fairbairn wrote: If you want to go through the hassle, you can try XETrade, it's what I use when I convert USD/CAD.
Oddly enough XE has a higher rate than I thought. When I checked last year, they were close to PayPal! It might have just been a bad day with lagging though.

If you want to get a really good rate, you have to use Norbert's Gambit. In theory no exchange should be able to beat that if done properly, as it's at market rates. Questrade is the cheapest service to do that with I believe. It's a $4.95 minimum per trade, or a $89.95 rate + 1 cent minimum per share. There's also a $0.004 fee per NYSE share removed. I haven't done the math to see at what point it becomes worth it to do that (it's basic algebra, shouldn't take more than a minute or two), but off the top of my head it probably becomes worth it once you hit around ~$750 being exchange (a 1% difference would be $7.50, more than enough to cover the trade cost).

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