Alright all,

I’m just back from Canada after spending a year there and have recieved a couple of canadian cheques (tax refunds) and was wondering, can I just walk into my local bank and cash them?

They’re from the Canadian tax office so are legit and i still have my canadian social insurance card so can this be done?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

You can but you’ll be stiffed for a hefty charge per cheque.

For smaller amounts, these guys are the cheapest: http://auctionchex.com/index.php

I’ve used them for a Canadian cheque from a relative and it was all very simple. Recommended.

I cashed a couple of GBP cheques in Spain, it cost me though. Those clever bankers don’t miss any tricks.
Pop into the bank and ask them… 💡

You can certainly cash them for a fee, but also bear in mind there could be a clearance time of up to 12 weeks.

At Santander, they charged a tenner for US dollar cheques and the rate seemed pretty close to interbank (few years ago). Clearance was a few days, but they reserved the right to take the money back for a long time (see 12 weeks above), so assuming you’re confident the cheques will go through (you mentioned a tax refund), then you should be OK. Mine were from UBS, so I was fairly confident (though now not so sure of course).

Worth asking them I think.

Back in the days when I used to use cheques and got the odd one from the US, Barclays was the place to go.

They used to have no fee for cheques under a certain amount (think for US it was $50, and would be the equivalent for CA). Most other banks charged.

You didn’t have to bank there either, just pop over to the foreign exchange desk of Barclays.

Last time I did it was many years back though so may have all changed.

I’m guessing though the tax refund is going to be a lot more. Still I think the fee was favourable.

Alternatively you could set up an account in that currency and pay it into that, but not much use unless you’re going to spend in that currency. I do that with PayPal to receive US payments as sometimes I’ll buy from US so I just don’t bother exchanging it, but that’s electronic stuff not cheques (have to set PayPal up to accept in local currency by the way, else it converts at a hideous rate).