TORONTO — Home delivered pizza? Check. Groceries or medications? Check. Beer? Check. Foreign cash? Check.
CIBC has become the first Canadian chartered bank to allow consumers to order foreign currency online. The cash, up to an equivalent of $2,500 CDN, is delivered by Purolator courier anywhere in Canada.
“It’s an innovative, disruptive new platform we’re offering to Canadians,” said Vineet Malhotra of CIBC Global Markets.
Typically, Canadians buy foreign currency at a foreign exchange company, at an airport or at a bank. However, most bank branches carry a limited number of currencies. If you want, for example, Chinese Yuan, you’ll need to place an order and return days later to pick it up.
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CIBC’s new “Foreign Cash Online” feature is available to both the bank’s customers and non-customers.
Buyers log on to a website and choose from about 75 foreign currencies. After electing how much to spend, paying by account debit or credit card (for non-customers), cash is dispensed from one of eight currency centres located across the country.
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Over the next one to four business days customers will receive the equivalent of up to $2,500 CDN in currency, the bank says.
Customers who want higher volumes of foreign cash can have as much as $9,500 CDN in equivalent foreign currency delivered to CIBC’s Pearson Airport branch in Toronto; up to $50,000 CDN can be delivered to another CIBC branch, for bank customers only.
CIBC does not charge any delivery fees for the service and promises highly competitive exchange rates compared to other providers.
Global News asked the bank to provide its exchange rate at 2:30 p.m. ET Thursday on five currencies: from China, the U.K., Jamaica, Mexico and Australia. At the same time, exchange prices for the same currencies were obtained from Kantor, a company that also offers exchange and delivery.
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The exchange rates were virtually identical: CIBC’s rates were slightly lower to buy Chinese and Jamaican funds; Kantor.ca was slightly less expensive when buying British Pounds Sterling, Mexican Pesos and Australian Dollars.
But taking into account CIBC’s free delivery service, compared to Kantor’s additional fee of up to $15 for delivery and 2.95 per cent fee for credit card transactions, CIBC service is likely a better deal.
On October 15, CIBC announced it was eliminating fees for Canadians to send money overseas, boasting it was “dramatically reshaping the $30-billion-a-year Canadian international remittance market.”
Larry Tomei, senior vice president of National Sales and Service, said the elimination of fees is significant.
“Canadians can now avoid paying upfront charges, which can be significant, and have the confidence in knowing that the amount of money they send will be received by their loved one,” Tomei said in a statement.
Home-delivered foreign currency is CIBC’s latest effort to brand itself as a bank that’s trying to help customers save time, as well as money.
“This is about making something convenient that is not convenient today,” said Malhotra.
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