US$ drawn on a US bank

[Henry Mensch]

brad at looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) wrote: 
->I think it's quite annoying when, if foreigners
->go to the trouble of getting accounts in your currency, the banks still cause
->trouble.

getting an account denominated in USD isn't the issue (you could get a
chequing account denominated in ECUs ... you can still write checks on
that account in any freely-traded currency provided your recipient can
process it).  

the issue is that your cheques probably have words on them that
indicate canadian origin.  bank tellers aren't very bright (they're
paid to be surly, you see), and their most immediate management was
likely behind the teller's window in the not-too-distant past (and
suffer from similar stupidity) and they just don't know if their bank
has arrangements to process canadian cheques drawn in USD.

you can avoid the issue by avoiding the use of cheques.  wire
transfers (pricey for the amount of money involved, but certainly
quick) and credit cards are good alternatives.

# Henry Mensch    /   <henry at garp.mit.edu>   /   E40-379 MIT,  Cambridge, MA
# <hmensch at uk.ac.nsfnet-relay> / <henry at tts.lth.se> / <mensch at munnari.oz.au>
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