Cross Border Realty Questions

Why should someone set up an account in advance of a real estate purchase? - Why is it important?

Setting up your account with Custom House, A Western Union Company prior to making your purchase gives you the peace of mind of knowing that, once your purchase and paperwork are complete, your funds are ready to transfer immediately – quickly, and at your convenience.

How one would save money VS with their bank?

Custom House’s “Quick Quote” feature allows you to view and lock-in real-time rates for more than 140 currencies before making your payment. This means that you don’t have to worry about losing money on exchange rate fluctuations occurring between payment initiation and delivery. Also, with Custom House, there are no activation or account maintenance fees.

Currency contracts - what are they and how do they work?

A forward contract is an agreement to exchange currency at a given rate over a period of time – up to a year. A forward allows you to lock-in your rate in advance, and then draw down (exchange currency at the agreed-to rate) at your convenience.

How do I sign up? Link to get started?

To sign up, contact Andrew Endl at aendl@customhouse.com or sign up online through the link below. Sign Up Now

How long to set up an account?

The process to setup an account is quite simple. The application process on your part usually takes under 10 minutes. Our goal once you have submitted your application is to have the account ready to trade within 24 hours.

How can I send the funds to US Title Company?

The easiest and fastest way to convert and deliver funds to the US is with an international wire transfer. Custom House allows you to initiate wires conveniently either on our online payments platform or through one of our Corporate Foreign Exchange Dealers. Once booked, our wires are delivered efficiently and reliably via our international network of banking relationships, allowing you to build better business relationships and gain a key competitive advantage.

How long you have been in business?

Custom House has been providing foreign exchange solutions since 1992. In September 2009, Custom House became part of the Western Union Family. For more than 150 years, the familiar signs of Western Union have stood as a trusted symbol for connecting friends, family and businesses around the world.

Known today as an innovator in financial services, The Western Union Company has become an industry leader in global money transfer with over 400,000 Agent locations in 200 countries and territories.

Financial stability?

Custom House is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Union, a Fortune 500 company with a market capitalization of more than $12.5 billion USD - a size that rivals most major Canadian financial institutions.

In addition to our financial strength, however, the fact that our processes are materially different from our bank competitors in many respects allows us to adopt a much more risk-averse business model, thereby solidifying our financial position. We apply rigorous credit evaluation to all of our customers, thereby ensuring that we aren’t taking any significant credit risks.

Custom House does not engage in proprietary or speculative trading as most other financial institutions do, thereby ensuring that our trading activities are aimed entirely at managing and mitigating our risk instead of increasing it and ensuring, therefore, that your funds with us are safe.

Western Union has an A3/A- credit rating, $1.6 billion of cash, and greater than $1.1 billion of operating cash flow.

What are the fees? Are there any hidden fees?

Our payments are sent using our many global banking partners. For each of these outgoing payments there is a $20.00 CAD wire charge.

More info from Custom House (PDF)