Euro Dominated Account that Will Let Me Spend By ATM??

Cucumference wrote: ↑ It is probably much more dangerous to be carrying cash for everything in Euro than using a credit card. Plus a lot of credit card has no FX fee that might actually beat you conversion rate these day, you are better off getting one of those credit card.

If you are dead set on sticking to cash, bringing it with you is probably the only way to consider 'economical'. There is no real good way to transfer cash oversea without an oversea account. Pretty much all oversea withdrawal will have some fee associated with it too along with limitation on where you can get cash.

If you do have oversea account, https://transferwise.com/ is a plausible solution with very low fee.

As you might see that is why most people just bring no FX fee credit card oversea these days. With something like Roger world elite you might end up gaining benefit when you spend money oversea. Still won't beat the best conversion rate but it is not far off and a lot less hassle. Plus you get insurance that come with the card.

1. ATM withdrawals for cash should be done on prepaid cards, since no-FTF debit cards don't exist in Canada. Lead with Stack, fallback on Koho. Can use debit card from TD Bank (US) if you do cross-border banking.
2. Spend should be on no-FTF CC's as much as possible. HomeTrust Preferred for car rental insurance. For hotel bookings, if you book them online in CAD, you could use your favourite big bank or AmEx travel card as it'll hopefully give you anti theft insurance for the hotel stay. If paying locally, best to use your forex spender card. HomeTrust Preferred/Brim/Rogers/HSBC WE/BNS PP Inf are your options for now, unless you have TD Cash via US cross-border banking
3. You can expand your fallbacks and outlets. You can move money cross-border via apps (TransferWise), crypto, 3rd party forex traders who will wire the funds for you, etc.

titaniumtux wrote: ↑ @mcu please don't buy EUR at IB for a trip UNLESS you can wire it to an investment broker or bank account in Europe. Also, what's the spread? Aren't they at least 0.2% FTF??

+1 to what @Cucumference said...but wiring EUR to a TW German iban isn't too useful unless you can direct deposit it to a European bank account.

@Messerschmitt basically...

1. ATM withdrawals for cash should be done on prepaid cards, since no-FTF debit cards don't exist in Canada. Lead with Stack, fallback on Koho. Can use debit card from TD Bank (US) if you do cross-border banking.
2. Spend should be on no-FTF CC's as much as possible. HomeTrust Preferred for car rental insurance. For hotel bookings, if you book them online in CAD, you could use your favourite big bank or AmEx travel card as it'll hopefully give you anti theft insurance for the hotel stay. If paying locally, best to use your forex spender card. HomeTrust Preferred/Brim/Rogers/HSBC WE/BNS PP Inf are your options for now, unless you have TD Cash via US cross-border banking
3. You can expand your fallbacks and outlets. You can move money cross-border via apps (TransferWise), crypto, 3rd party forex traders who will wire the funds for you, etc.

mcu wrote: ↑Many purchases like hotel and car rental will be paying in cash instead of of credit card

titaniumtux wrote: ↑@mcu please don't buy EUR at IB for a trip UNLESS you can wire it to an investment broker or bank account in Europe. Also, what's the spread? Aren't they at least 0.2% FTF??

Messerschmitt wrote: ↑ I did ATM withdrawals from my Amazon CC after pre-paying it, then just paying the 1% fee (no ATM fee anywhere in the world). So I was looking at something similar. Obviously Rogers CC for this is a nono since they still have inherently the 2.5% FX, just gives 4% back on actual CC purchases.

yvrbanker wrote: ↑

Home Trust Preferred Visa should work for that when prepaid. Also STACK sounds useful, though too new a product.

Messerschmitt wrote: ↑
I did ATM withdrawals from my Amazon CC after pre-paying it, then just paying the 1% fee (no ATM fee anywhere in the world). So I was looking at something similar. Obviously Rogers CC for this is a nono since they still have inherently the 2.5% FX, just gives 4% back on actual CC purchases.

Also, I do not deal with USD. I'm purely Euro/Asia that interests me.

1. for ATM withdrawals, lead with Stack MC. Most of the ATM's you visit will accept Stack. Skip the 1% fee entirely. Only absorb local ATM fee and MasterCard exchange rate, no markup. Load via e-transfer, bill pay or visa debit
2. Koho should be your backup (at no opportunity cost). 1.5% fee (forex), but no minimum, and whatever you don't use, you can e-transfer back to bank. That's why there's no opportunity cost. You can literally fund it before you go to the ATM, and if you don't use it, move funds back to bank
3. HomeTrust Preferred is your backup to these. It's a good card to use anyway, so pre-loading it isn't all bad. Granted min $5.50 and 1.5% fee is higher than Amazon CC, but...there's no Amazon CC anymore. This is now your third card for ATM use. If you find yourself resorting to backups a fair bit, you could grab Brim MC as another backup, but I find VISA gets you further than MC abroad. Since you spend (most?) of your time in Europe/Asia, you'd probably benefit from Brim, since the extra backup won't hurt. Also, the extra card allows you to travel longer, if you stagger card expiration dates
4. Mogo is no longer useful in your case. 2.5% FTF has been added (but 3% cashback on forex...net 0.5% earn). This may be useful if you are buying casino chips in Macau or in Europe with CC (any "cash advance" type transaction in forex aside ATM's...prepaids can get you cashback on those, no cash advance fee, while real CC's will do the opposite). Mogo will sting you 2.5% FTF at the ATM, and they have the lowest limit on cash withdrawals plus an ATM fee. You can grab Mogo for these niche transactions, but it'll otherwise mainly be a dust collector

louisvz wrote: ↑ If Interactive Brokers can do a SEPA transfer to a European bank, then I suggest opening a bank account in Europe.

The banking landscape in Europe is very advanced and competitive. A lot of new e-banks have in-app signup and only require a passport and a European address.

N26 is a German bank that is very popular in Europe. To sign up you just need a shipping address in the Eurozone to receive your card (e.g. hotel, Airbnb, friends address). Here are some good instructions on how to sign up. Once you sign up and receive your IBAN, you can receive Euros to the account from any other European bank with Euros.

Yes... I can also say N26 is VERY good.


If you don't have a Transferwise account already, I would also suggest signing up once you get to Europe. With a European signup address, you will receive a useful Transferwise debit card. Don't try changing your existing Canadian Transferwise account to a European one, they will require actual address proof in that case (e.g. utility bill, rental contract, etc)

That would be great!.. The debit card is taking forever to come to Canada. Tired of calling them... I can provide and address in Europe of a close relative but I have already a TW account. How do I go about it? They are not going to ask for a proof of address, etc? Can you give more details? I'd love to have the MC debit.

I would also suggest signing up for a Curve card while you are in Europe. It's not a bank, but a really unique card that has zero foreign transaction fees and can be linked to all of your debit/credit cards (including Canadian cards). I've had one for a couple of months now and recommend it to everyone.

Same as above... I tried with the Curve app but they don't support Canada.. Any ideas?

I really appreciate your post... Exactly what I was looking for and I can't find the answers...
Thanks in advance...


Bunq is also a really good bank that you can use. They have a 1 month free trial and afterwards it becomes 8 EUR a month. They give you 3 debit cards (choice of Mastercard/Maestro cards).

We can update your personal address from our end. But to do so we would need to see proof of address, which has your Spanish address on it.

On the proof of address we need to see all these details: your name, your full personal address, date of issue, logo, or clear name of the sender (e.g. your bank, your local authority, your utilities provider, etc) and the nature of the document (e.g. type of bill, subject of the letter, etc)

A valid document can be:

Your utility bill – Gas, Electric, Phone (We cannot accept mobile phone bills), which cannot be older than 3 months
Your bank or credit card statement (You must send a photo/scan of a physical letter or PDF copy of your statement), which cannot be older than 3 months
Your photo driving licence showing your address and its expiry date
Other government or financial institution issued document, which cannot be older than 12 months

1. Cap1 2% uncategorized, 2.5% FTF is not the worst card on forex spend, but a far cry from the better options. You're out net 0.5%. ATM cash advances will charge you the 2.5%, you'll get no cashback...but a flat ATM cash advance fee? Not sure since you're in QC
2. Since you're in QC, consider any TD or MBNA card for cash advances as backup. You'd prepay it (as you would with any prepaid card), and only incur the 2.5% FTF on cash advances. Again, this is your last resort backup if those Greek ATM's eat up all your other cards
3. Definitely grab Koho. No opportunity cost. 1.5% FTF, no cash advance fee. $60 (20+40) welcome bonus with referral. This is your better card to use if you have nothing better, and your last resort if you have better options
4. Rogers WE gives you net 1.5% on forex spend and Brim gives you 1%/no-FTF (no-AF) OR 2%/no-FTF ($199 AF). Either option outranks Cap1

Messerschmitt wrote: ↑ What are the current 0FX credit cards out there?

mcu wrote: ↑As for Rogers WE, I will be ahead 1.5% but in Rogers $$ only right? Can I use them to pay my bill each and every month th or only once a year like I believe I read somewhere

mcu wrote: ↑ Curve is not available in Greece and stack not in Quebec.

As for Bunq and N26, those seem like decent options but I did notice there are fees every month. N26 might be free but waiting for confirmation. How long before I can get atm cards for these? Also how long for transferwise?