Getting payments from international clients

[Carless]

It looks like I may have acquired myself some clients for my contracting services.  Given that this will be done completely over the internet, and probably international (I'm in Canada, expecting clients in the US and UK mainly) are there any recommendations about ways to transfer funds?

Electronic methods would be nice to speed up payment, but I want something reliable, user-friendly and ideally cheap.  This will probably only be a very small side-gig for now.

Thoughts about ways to handle the different currencies without loosing too much $?

[duncan7]

You could try https://www.currencyfair.com/

i have an account but have not used it yet.

[Step37]

I have been using Firma F/X to pay my US and European vendors; their rates are very good, and they send ACH payments (and whatever the European equivalent is) for no fee. If a wire payment is necessary (quite rarely), it’s only $15. With ACH payments, the money is received within one business day (wire is usually same day, so not much different).

I just looked, and they also have a US division. If your customers don’t already have something set up for making foreign payments, and they’ll be using your services regularly, they could probably get set up without too much hassle. They would just need your account information. https://firmafx.com/en-us/company/

You might want to set up a USD account to receive funds into (if you’re asking for payment in USD, obviously - I imagine you could also get a GBP account in Canada, but I’m not sure - they’re more likely to be able to pay in CAD; I think sometimes it’s difficult for American companies, though I’m not sure why). That way you can wait for favourable times to convert.

ETA: good luck with your new venture/side gig!

[Paul der Krake]

Transferwise.

[Carless]

I have been using Firma F/X to pay my US and European vendors; their rates are very good, and they send ACH payments (and whatever the European equivalent is) for no fee. If a wire payment is necessary (quite rarely), it’s only $15. With ACH payments, the money is received within one business day (wire is usually same day, so not much different).

I just looked, and they also have a US division. If your customers don’t already have something set up for making foreign payments, and they’ll be using your services regularly, they could probably get set up without too much hassle. They would just need your account information. https://firmafx.com/en-us/company/

You might want to set up a USD account to receive funds into (if you’re asking for payment in USD, obviously - I imagine you could also get a GBP account in Canada, but I’m not sure - they’re more likely to be able to pay in CAD; I think sometimes it’s difficult for American companies, though I’m not sure why). That way you can wait for favourable times to convert.

ETA: good luck with your new venture/side gig!

Thank you for the advice - I'll take a look at all of these services.  Since this is all likely to be person-to-person (unlikely to involve companies), I have to take care to pick something as user-friendly as possible.  I've heard some horror stories about wire transfers...

Transferwise.

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be a valid option for Canada-UK transfers yet.

[GuitarStv]

Lol . . . isn't this the exact problem that cryptocurrency is supposed to solve?

[Carless]

Unfortunately I feel that's far too volatile to be useful at this point.  Maybe in a few years.

[Paul der Krake]

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be a valid option for Canada-UK transfers yet.

I don't think you need it:
Step 0: open borderless account with GBP and CAD currencies.
Step 1: instruct your British customers to pay you into the GBP account that looks like a local UK account to them
Step 2: transfer the GBP balance into your CAD balance
Step 3: send CAD from your Transferwise balance to your regular Canadian bank account

You will incur some light fees at step 2 and 3. Or did I misunderstand your use case?

[Carless]

I didn't realise this was an option!  This looks a lot like what I need, somehow I missed it when looking at their site earlier.  Thanks.