<p>My daughter does have a student checking account to pay things like monthly rent. She uses RBC because they have the closest ATM on campus. She charges other monthly costs like the FIDO bill and groceries to her Visa card which I pay on-line for her. (There is a 1% international transaction fee, but Visa does give a good rate–much better than a bank.)</p>
<p>We use the ATM transfer method, but actually since we only live 2 hours away, we also bring up $$ when we visit her.</p>
<p>The RBC Centura corresponding bank transfer is only two years old. It appeared initially to be the best way to get funds to Canada quickly. ( Western Union and wire transfer work, but are expensive.) I would live to hear anyone’s positive experience with Centura.</p>
<p>Same issue for a US student coming to McGill this month but now it’s 2012-- Any suggestions about Canadian banks–ones that are easiest to transfer $ from US, etc.? Thanks so much!</p>
<p>We have already set up an account with RBC for our daughter who is attending this fall. However, at a recent McGill Sendoff event, the McGill representative did mention First Republic Bank as one that was a good one to look into for cross-border needs. Low fees or no-fees, don’t remember exactly what he said, but he did single it out so you might want to check into it!</p>
<p>TDBank is also another good option but I think they are predominantly in New England. No fee student account in Canada and no fee checking account in the US. According to them, you can transfer money between US checking account with Canadian account with no fee and almost instantly. Bank debit card can be used in either country and always no fee, like US debit card can be used in Canada and vice versa.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, there is monthly maintenance fee on linked US RBC account to Canadian account.</p>
<p>I spent some time talking to a few banks yesterday (TD Bank, Bank of Montreal, ING Direct, RBC). RBC seems like the best option if you want a linked US account. RBC US is online only, and their Savings Account has no fees if you maintain a certain balance (I think $300). Free transfers are limited to 5 or 6/month. I was able to open an account over the phone. We made an appointment to meet with an RBC branch officer in Montreal to set up the Canadian account during move-in. They do have Saturday hours. The Student account is no fee with 25 transactions (ATM/debit)/month.</p>
<p>ttparent, TDBank told me that wire transfers from the US to Canada had to be initiated by phone from the Canadian account. Seemed so kludgey–is that what they told you?</p>
<p>Yes, transfers for TDBank across between US and Canada are made through the phone system. There are no online way of doing it and I can understand your thinking about it being a little bit awkward and not as good as online access. There is also $5k limit per day for such transfer.</p>
<p>Thanks for pointing out the RBC savings account, I have not thought about that and that is definitely a good way of doing it without paying monthly fee. The thing is we already have TDBank account and a branch in our town and RBC has no physical location in the US. With RBC, we probably going to have to use the remote deposit which involves taking pictures of the check and electronically send it to RBC. So which is worse, doing telephone transfer or sending picture of a check a few days before going online to do the transfer?</p>
<p>Re: deposits to RBC, I am linking my BoA account directly to the RBC US savings account, and will just transfer money that way. I’ve never used that check photo thing, though it looks good when the Olympians do it on TV :-)</p>
<p>The linking feature is free, and easy to set up online from the RBC account. Takes a couple of days to finalize. You can link an account from any bank. The only limitation is that you are legally restricted to 5 transactions (whatever combination of money in/money out) per month.</p>
<p>RBC was fine for moving money, but they would not grant a credit card with even a minimal limit. This is truly remarkable, considering the thousands of dollars savings and checking.</p>
<p>Don’t use RBC. They make no effort to understand the need of the customer.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if TD Bank is still the best bank to go with for US to Canada funding of a student, as it was mentioned in a recent forum in NYC by McGill (maybe by a parent) that was no longer the case (the person there did not take notes). I’m looking to
-either transfer in or deposit funds into the US account (we live in NJ near NYC) that is linked to a Canadian branch account,
-and have them accessible, preferably via a Visa or Mastercard branded debit card (so it can be used for debit or credit transactions) in Canada
against Canadian funds so there is no foreign currency charge,
with as much as possible on-line transacting and reporting in both the US and canada. </p>
<p>I’m not sure how checks are done in Canada, but being able to see the image on-line would be a plus.</p>