RBC International Transfers: Everything You Need To Know

Arguably the best-known name in Canadian banking, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is a global financial services giant with over 150 years of history in the industry. Spanning a total of 37 countries across the globe, RBC today boasts more than 16 million customers and 86 thousand employees, making it not only Canada's largest bank but its largest company altogether!

RBC offers a multitude of financial services, all of which are priced very differently. When it comes to international money transfers (and wire transfers in particular), however, the bank can be very expensive.

When sending money abroad from Canada, for example, the bank will charge you a transaction fee on top of an already large hidden exchange rate fee, sometimes bringing the total fees to around 8% of your total transfer amount. This makes RBC an expensive choice for international money transfers, especially when compared to the many lower-cost alternatives, such as Remitly and TransferWise, that may be available to you.

What Will RBC Charge You?

To send money abroad with the Royal Bank of Canada, you'll in most cases need to instruct a standard bank transfer to send funds from your bank account to your beneficiary's. Each transfer comes with a fixed fee, the size of which will depend on how much you send.

Take a look at RBC Canada's fee schedule below to see how much you'd pay in fixed fees depending on the amount your transfer:

• A C$6 flat fee for transfers of C$1,000 or less;
• A C$10 flat fee for transfers over C$1,000.

When it comes to sending a larger sum of money abroad, many people opt to send a wire transfer, which is handled more closely by the bank itself and can only be sent physically from a bank branch. However, when it comes to sending wire transfers abroad with RBC, there are very high costs associated with the service, such as a flat fee starting at C$45 per transfer!

International Transfers with RBC: Beware the Hidden Fees

Over and above the fixed fees outlined above for bank and wire transfers abroad, RBC will also include a hidden fee into your international money transfer. These fees, known as exchange rate margins, are formed by offering a slightly worse exchange rate than the real one on the market, known as the mid-market exchange rate.

RBC's exchange rate margins vary depending on the destination country and currency in question and tend to hover anywhere between 2% and 4% of the total transfer amount. Take a look at the breakdown of these hidden fees by country below:

The Costs Combined

When taken together, RBC's exchange rate margins and fixed fees can constitute a large portion of your transfer amount, especially if you plan on sending a small amount to a foreign country.

For instance, if you were to send C$300 to a friend over in the UK, you would pay 3.24% of your transfer amount (or C$9.53) in hidden exchange rate margin fees, and a further C$6.00 in transaction fees. The total fee amount (C$15.53) would therefore constitute more than 5% of your transfer amount and leave your recipient with £165.08 at the time of writing.

Contrast that to making the same transfer with Skrill, a UK-based global money transfer service. With Skrill, you'd pay no flat fees and just C$2.43 in exchange rate margin fees. By contrast, this would get your friend £172.73 at the time of writing — 4.5% more than they'd have gotten were you to have used RBC.

To get a clearer picture of the exact costs you can expect when sending an international money transfer with RBC, take a look at the fee breakdown below (as of 10/11/2020 18:00 +01:00 GMT):

Global Transfers With RBC: Other Fees to Anticipate

Over and above the fixed fees and hidden exchange rate margins that you'll pay when making a global transfer with RBC, there may be other expenses yet before the money arrives in your beneficiary's account. Depending on your individual circumstances, these might include:

• A C$25 cancellation fee if you decide to cancel or amend your transfer after having already sent it;
• A C$35 penalty if you don't specify an International Bank Account Number (IBAN) when transferring to a country that uses them;
• A C$25 tracing fee if, after your transfer has been delivered as instructed, you'd still like to trace it. (If the transfer wasn't delivered as instructed, this fee will not apply);
• A debit advice fee if you request optional advice from RBC on how to instruct your transfer. This fee would be C$5 if you were to call the bank, or C$3 if you were to email them.
• A correspondent bank fee (typically ranging between C$10 and C$100) if your bank transfer cannot be made directly to your beneficiary's bank. RBC buries mention of this fee deep in its terms and conditions, making it far from transparent.

Is RBC Right for Your International Transfer?

The Royal Bank of Canada is, without a doubt, a world-class bank with a stellar record of service, and it'll likely accommodate your everyday banking needs just fine.

However, when it comes to transferring money internationally in particular, it's well worth considering your options more closely if you're somebody who likes to keep your costs down. That's because RBS can be quite stifling in terms of both its high costs and in terms of its transfer limits (one can only transfer a maximum of C$2,500 per day).

As such, if you're somebody who'd like to get the best deal while sending abroad, and/or transfer at above the limit imposed by RBC, then we'd encourage you to run a search on our real-time comparison engine to discover the best third-party providers to suit your needs.

Take a look at the table below to get an idea of how a few of these services compare to RBC on a C$250 transfer to the Philippines (as of 10/11/2020 18:00 +01:00 GMT):