What’s the Most Expensive Way to Add US Dollars to my BMO InvestorLine USD RRSP Account?

Once you have a US dollar sub-account within your RRSP or other investment account at BMO InvestorLine, the next question is how do you fund it. There are two obvious methods: you can exchange Canadian dollars into US dollars; or you can buy an inter-listed stock on the Canadian exchange and sell it on the American exchange. (There are also a few less obvious methods.) Which is the most expensive (not the cheapest) way to add USD to your InvestorLine account?

How to Check the Foreign Exchange Rate at InvestorLine

You can check the foreign exchange rate BMO is offering very easily at InvestorLine. (It’s not so easy at Investor’s Edge: there you have to phone and ask.)

  1. Sign in to your InvestorLine account.
  2. From the Trading tab, select Foreign exchange.
  3. If  you want to see how many US dollars you can buy for 1 Canadian dollar,
    in the Action: area select the radio button beside Sell
    In the Amount $: field, type: 1
    In the Currency: area select the radio button beside CAD
    Click on the Calculate button
  4. The system will respond with
    an Approximate Rate (in this example: 1.055)
    and
    a Total: (in this example: $0.95 USD)
  5. If you then select the radio button for USD in the Currency: field
    change the Amount $: to 0.95
    and click the Recalculate button
  6. The system will respond with
    1.023
    and
    0.97 CAD.

Beware of the Foreign Exchange Fee Built Into the Foreign Exchange Rate

“Wait a minute!” you exclaim. “How come if I change 1 CAD to US I get 0.95 USD but if I change that straight back to CAD I only get 97 cents!”

That’s because there is a built-in foreign exchange fee on top of the actual exchange rate. You get fewer USD than you’d expect for each CAD you spend, and you get fewer CAD for each USD you spend. The bank gets a bit of the money each time you change it.

You can see on this exchange and exchange back, you have paid the bank 3 cents on 1 Canadian dollar, or about 3% in fees.

It may not seem fair, but it’s true.

Testing it with a more practical amount of 1000 CAD:
1000 CAD gets $947.87 USD
and $947.87 USD gets $969.67 CAD

That’s a loss of 30.33 or 3.033%. Ouch.

You can see why investors started looking for a way around these fees!

So How Bad Is It Really to Pay This Foreign Exchange Fee to InvestorLine

Some readers may be thinking, ya ya I have to pay a fee. So what? How bad is it, really?
Well, I guess it depends on how much money you are converting whether it FEELS bad (The loss is actually the same as a percentage.)

If you convert You lose
$1 $0.03
$1 000 $30.33
$10 000 $303.30
$100 000 $3 033.00 $2 181 **

** InvestorLine’s automated exchange rate improves for amounts in this range. When I actually tested the available exchange online, it cost only $2181, rather than the 3033 I had estimated based on the rates offered at 10,000 and lower. The screen message also said they would phone me to discuss the rates: in other words, they will reduce the commission if it will keep you investing with them. Thanks to Michael James on Money for pointing out this error!

Or to put it another way, would you pay a 3.033% MER on a mutual fund that just replicates the index? Then why would you pay this fee for even less service?

Using the Automatic Foreign Exchange Offering at InvestorLine is the Most Expensive Way to Convert Cash

In conclusion, the most expensive way you can convert cash in an InvestorLine account is to use the automated foreign exchange feature under the Trading menu.

Since I prefer to save money, not spend it needlessly, the next article will discuss some other methods to exchange currencies that cost less than this.

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Have you ever got caught by a horrible foreign exchange fee? Did you buy something on a credit card and get dinged with an extra 2.5-5%? Did you buy something online only to find that they billed you in USD at some terrible exchange? Please share your experiences with a comment.

Where Can I Find My US Ledger Stocks in My BMO InvestorLine RRSP or TFSA Account?

Recently I set up a US dollar sub-account within my BMO InvestorLine RRSP account. Then I transferred some shares in TD into the US side. I intend to sell them there and buy something on the NYSE using the US dollars I will get for the sale. So I’ve been keeping an eye on my account waiting to see them journal over from the Canadian side to the US ledger. After a while I began to wonder where they would show up.

When I made the request to move the TD shares to my new US sub-account within my RRSP, I asked for only 100 shares to be transferred. That left me with some TD shares still in the Canadian dollar side of the account.

The first business day after the transfer, when I checked My Holdings under the My Portfolio tab, I could see two lines for TD. One line was for the 100 shares I had transferred. The other was for the balance of shares that I didn’t move. Both lines reported the current share price and value in Canadian dollars. So I thought, mistakenly, that the 100 shares had not yet been moved to the US dollar ledger.

How to See the US Side of a BMO InvestorLine RRSP or TFSA Account

A few business days later I began to wonder why nothing seemed different in the My Holdings view. Rather than just phone and ask, I decided to check around the screen. Sure enough, I had overlooked something:

To see the US dollar side, or ledger, or journal, or sub-account or whatever it should be called, you have to change the display in My Holdings. Here’s how:

  1. Sign in to your account/s.
    1. Go to https://www.bmoinvestorline.com/
    2. In the User ID or Account # field, type your account number or if you have grouped your accounts under one User ID, type your User ID.
    3. In the Password field, type your password.
    4. Click on the Go button.
  2. From the drop-down list at the top right of the screen, select the account within which you created a US dollar side.
  3. From the My Portfolio tab, select Holdings.
  4. From the Categorize by: drop-down list, select: Asset class & settlement currency.
    Click on the Go button.
  5. When you are finished reviewing your InvestorLine holdings, be sure to click on the Sign Out button. For increased security, close your browser session.

What You Will See When Displaying the US Journal for your InvestorLine Account

In the Cash balances section you will still see a line item for Canadian $ Cash and for U.S. $ Cash. They don’t move these lines under the next sub-headings.

The next new sub-heading reads: Portfolio held in CAD

Under it are the usual suspects:

Cash equivalents

  • GIC
  • Mutual funds

Fixed Income

  • Mutual funds

Equities

  • a list of your stocks with no heading. (Huh!)
  • Mutual funds (Remind me to sell that loser soon.)

Keep moving down and you’ll reach another new sub-heading:
Portfolio held in USD

For now I only have one sub-heading beneath that:
Equities
and a list of my shares.

Under this Portfolio held in USD: Equities section I finally see the two items in USD.
They are:

  • the Market Value, in USD; and
  • the Unrealized gain/loss in USD.

For some reason the listed Average Cost and Current Price are both still reported in CAD.

I can understand the Average Cost might be, since I did buy these shares in CAD.

I’m not sure why the Current Price isn’t listed in American dollars. Maybe the program just can’t pull prices from two sources easily?

I did go over to the Equity Order screen and check the spot prices for TD on the Canadian and American exchanges. They are not even close to the same price (because of the exchange rate.) They are trading about for about 4 cents less in USD than in CAD. The correct trading price (15-20 minute delayed) in CAD is being reported on both the Portfolio held in CAD and Portfolio held in USD sections of the screen.

How Can I See What Exchange Rate InvestorLine is Offering?

There’s also a little line at the bottom of this Holdings screen that says the current Exchange Rate is:
I USD = 1.0410 CAD; 1 CAD = 0.9606 USD

As you can see, these numbers are not opposites, so these must be the Exchange Rate INCLUDING the foreign currency exchange fee charged by BMO InvestorLine. (Otherwise if it costs 1.0410 Canadian to buy a US dollar, you should get 1.0410 Canadian if you sell a US Dollar.) I have no idea what I was trying to say here. What it does say is wrong as Peter politely pointed out.

Conclusion

I learned from this that I should click around more on my InvestorLine screens if I want to find out what’s going on in my account.

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Did you catch on right away that your US dollar shares could be found by sorting your Holdings? Or did it take a day or two like it did for me? Please share your experiences and tips with a comment.