As our permanent move (9th July) creeps ever closer, I've been hanging back watching the market waiting for the right time to trade our stash of sterling, however, time is running out and the rate's been struggling to make 1.60 for weeks. So, today when it briefly broke the 1.61 mark, I decided to bite the bullet and ring my broker at Moneycorp.com. Arranging a Forward Contract for £50K to be completed at the end of June was an unnerving experience to say the least, however, they were very helpful and I'm feeling confident that our money's in safe hands. I have to pay 10% now and the remainder on completion when they deposit the dollars in my Canadian account. The spread was bang on 100 points (0.6%); basically the Interbank Rate was 1.612 and I got 1.602. I'm sure there are better deals out there but Moneycorp seem a well established, reliable company and they're affiliated to the Forces Pension Society (I'm a member) which means they cover any transfer fees (both sides of the water). Incidentally, I have an XE Trade account too and when I rang them for comparison they only offered me 1.5888 ($660 less).
This is the first major transaction I've done with Moneycorp. Up until now I've been using their online GPS account which allows me to do my own trades online up to a limit of £20K. There's a fixed spread of 1.5% (240 points) on that, no matter how little the amount (the smallest I did was £100) - again no transfer fees are charged. It's very fast too; I can make an online payment to Moneycorp from my Nationwide and it's in my Canadian account within 24hrs (sometimes the same day if I make the payment in the morning). I used the GPS account to move small amounts when we were over in January for our landing trip; it was very convenient.
One transaction down, a few more to go.
