Location: Ottawa [AC SE through 2/10 (still no Alliance loyalty), HH Diamond]
Posts: 8,410
OT: US$ cheques from TD Canada Trust
As you probably recall, a couple of years ago all the TD Canada Trust US$-account cheques were changed from being drawn on the bank in Delaware to being drawn on TDCT in Canada. I understood this was because of changes to US banking regulations, that a US bank (in DE) had to actually see the customer and couldn't take TD's (in ON) word for it that I was a nice guy.
That's how it was with CT many years ago too, and I used to have trouble with some US suppliers whose banks wanted to send them on collection (I think that's the term).
Anyway, a couple of months ago we discovered a bank in Florida wants $100 each to deposit US$ cheques drawn on our TDCT US$ accounts. Is that now standard in the US? Anyone else encountered this? It makes the US$ accounts much less useful.
I believe TDCT's US$ drafts are still drawn on a US bank.
You should look into getting a TD Waterhouse chequing account. It's a true US based account, so no problems with cheques clearing. And it's quite easy to transfer money between your TD Canada Trust account and this one (although you actually need to talk to a real live human on the phone). They have some account types specifically for Canadian clients.
(I don't work for TD - I'm just a satisfied customer!)
Yes, the TD Waterhouse account is very useful if you make a lot of US$ transactions. You can write cheques, make online bill payments, and you also get a Visa Check Card.
RBC offers a similar service for their customers using the RBC Centura bank.
Andrew - I've used the new TDCT US cheques without a problem, and those who've accepted them had no problem - most of my transactions are for payments near the border. I have asked in advance and have not had a problem. For those cases where the TDCT cheque would not be accepted, you could make the case for the bank to issue a money order as a no-fee coutesy, which is drawn on a US bank.
I know of at least two banks, BMO and CIBC that will allow you to draw cheques on your US$ account that will clear through their branches in the US (typically New York) which should alleviate the concern anyone in the US has to cash your cheque. This is the same arrangement that the banks use when they issue a US$ bank draft.
You need to ask your branch to make arrangements for US clearing.
I live in the U.S. and very frequently deposit $U.S. cheques into my chequing account here at my local Citibank branch.
Yes, they hold the cheques for 5 business days if drawn out of state, and up to 20 days on $U.S. cheques from Canada, but they have NEVER asked for any compensation to do so.
You can no longer draw checks out of your TD Waterhouse Canada account unless you have established that service before it was discontinued a few years ago. If you missed the boat, it wouldn't be possible to be add back on. I bought a U.S. Money order at a TDCT branch recently, and it was drawn on Bank of America (New York based).
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Guava: You can no longer draw checks out of your TD Waterhouse Canada account unless you have established that service before it was discontinued a few years ago. If you missed the boat, it wouldn't be possible to be add back on. I bought a U.S. Money order at a TDCT branch recently, and it was drawn on Bank of America (New York based).</font>
I was not referring to writing cheques from a TD Waterhouse Canadian account. They have arrangements to make it easy to set up an account with TD Waterhouse Bank in New Jersey.
For my business, we pay many suppliers in USA with cheques from TD US dollar account.
Some smaller US banks do charge these exhorbitant fees to their customer for accepting this cheque. For these suppliers, we go to our branch and get a draft, but it is a pain.
just another example of how parts of the US banking system lag far behind.
