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How can I transfer my USD into a brokerage to do Norbert's Gambit?

  • Last Updated:
  • Nov 25th, 2019 8:46 pm
Deal Addict
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Jul 16, 2019
1577 posts
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How can I transfer my USD into a brokerage to do Norbert's Gambit?

Some of my income is earned in USD and deposited into PayPal. (With some companies, this is my only payment option.) I've been using TransferWise to avoid PayPal's usury currency conversion fees, but I'd like to use Norbert's Gambit to save more money.

Unfortunately, PayPal doesn't allow you to transfer USD into a Canadian USD bank account. So how can I get my USD into a brokerage in order to perform Norbert's Gambit?

What seems to make most sense is to transfer my USD from PayPal into an American bank account, then transfer it into a brokerage. But I can't find any Canadian brokerages that accept transfers from American banks.

I feel lost. How can I overcome these hurdles to convert USD to CAD with Norbert's Gambit?
3 replies
Deal Addict
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Oct 14, 2009
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Windsor, Ont.
Well, if you can get your USD from Paypal to an American bank account, then you could always write a cheque to yourself to transfer USD from your American bank account to your Canadian USD account.

Or you could see if you can do Paypal to one of the cross-border accounts that some banks have (I think RBC has one, but there is a minimum balance fee).
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Dec 8, 2010
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Yup... true US account (my past favourite was Alliant Credit Union but I don't know if they are still accepting Canadian applicants), check -> Canadian USD account. Wait 3 weeks for it to clear...
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Jul 1, 2006
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I think a cross border account is probably going to be the easiest.

Keep a USD$1000 balance and it is free (and they pay a small amount of interest, so it isn't completely dead money):
https://www.rbcbank.com/cross-border/us ... vings.html

Combine it with a free US eSavings account and you can transfer money from the US instantly to Canada and make 1 free withdrawal per month:
https://www.rbcroyalbank.com/accounts/us-e-savings.html

CIBC has:
https://www.cibc.com/en/personal-bankin ... nking.html

But you'd need to park USD$3000 and the Canadian account has no free transactions (though at $0.75 is it hardly a deal breaker).

And TD:
https://www.td.com/ca/en/personal-banki ... r-banking/

And BMO:
https://www.bmo.com/main/personal/bank- ... 732665416-

I think the only one that doesn't really have a solution is Scotia.

I only have personal experience with RBC, and it works very well. I have my CIBC Investors Edge setup to push/pull USD from the RBC eSavings account via EFT. I do it maybe once or twice every 6 months, so the 1 free withdrawal transaction per month is plenty for my purposes.

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