US Bank Acct for Canadians

[Ryan11]

Well I am canadian and right now I just keep my bankroll in Neteller and poker sites. This sucks because I don't really get any interest or anything on it. But if I want to cash it out to my bank and ever have to get it back into the site I have to convert it from USD to CAD and vice versa.

What I would like to know is if it is possible to open up an account at ING or whatever in the states without being a US citizen or living in the US at all. This way I could just transfer it in and out of the sites as needed and make a bit of interest while at it. Also would any of this be possible without having to go to the bank in person(ie by fax).

Anyone have any experience with any of this or any other suggestions?

[Nicodemus]

One of the best options is to open an account through RBC Royal Bank for their American subsiduary, RBC Centura which is a USA domiciled bank. RBC will issue you debit cards and I believe you can even link your Canadian and US accounts through debit cards and online banking. This is a service initially designed for Florida snowbirds, but it works for all Canadian customers of the Royal Bank. There are a variety of other features and services RBC will provide when you set up this way. I am pretty sure you need to have an existing account in Canada with RBC and it certainly helps to have some sort of established client history to ensure it all runs smoothly.

TD Bank Financial also has a USA subsiduary called TD Banknorth, but I am much less familiar with how it operates.

Once you have one of these accounts set up, it will be far easier to set up an ING direct USA account. ING Direct in Canada and ING Direct in the USA are two totally distinct operations (ie. setting up an ING direct account in Canada will not give you an ING direct USA account). You need an existing bank account to be able to withdraw funds from ING.

Current law in the USA (Patriot Act) largely prohibits opening accounts by fax, etc. (although there may be some exceptions). The RBC Centura option definitely works because your account is set up by RBC, even though you do the paperwork in Canada.

Nicodemus.

[Ryan11]

Thanks a lot, I will check into this, it looks exactly what I'm looking for.

[PatInTheHat]

Also interested in this.

[gamblor333]

I tried doing something similar in the past as well. I opened a US$ account at TD and thought I had it figured out. Then I found out that when I did a withdrawal to my US account, the money would be converted from US to CDN, then back to US - with me losing out on two exchanges, instead of none. So much for that idea as needless to say that account now sits unused.

[Nicodemus]

The accounts I am talking about here are NOT USD-denominated accounts at TD Financial or RBC Royal Bank. The accounts I am advising to open are accounts at SUBSIDUARY BANKS which are domiciled in the USA, not in Canada. This is substantially more sophistocated than just opening up some US dollar accounts at your local branch. The reason you suffered the multiple exchange rate is that even though a bank account is denominated in US funds at say, RBC Royal Bank or TD Financial, is that is still a CANADIAN bank account with Canadian routing, etc. So when a poker site or Neteller send the money back to your account, they do a conversion to CANADIAN funds since it is going to a CANADIAN-domiciled bank account. When these Canadian dollars are received by the bank, it sees that the destination account is a US-dollar denominated account and performs a conversion to US dollars.

The accounts at RBC Centura and TD BankNorth are actually US-dollar bank accounts at banks IN THE UNITED STATES (which happen to be subsiduary banks of Canadian Banks). When money is sent to the account by a poker site or Neteller, it will remain in US funds.

Nicodemus.

[tywest]

Have you linked Neteller to a US bank account (RBC Centura etc) assuming you have a Canadian address in Neteller?

Just wondering because they can't link to a US$ account held at a Canadian bank and I wasn't sure if this was for regulatory reasons, technical reasons or they just like the extra fees on the exchange.

[sumdumguy]

Does BMO have a similar relationship with Harris bank?

[Nicodemus]

Now that you mention it, I believe they do.

Nicodemus.