UBS money transfer limit

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
Hi everyone,

I just made an investment in Canada and need to transfer a large amount of money from UBS to a bank in Canada.

Is there any limit to the amount of money I can transfer as one off? I will be calling the bank tomorrow but any info now would help.

Thanks

A

2
There is no limit as far as UBS is concerned. (but note that UBS savings accounts have a limit on how much you can withdraw from them without notice, regardless of whether you send the money elsewhere or not).

There may be a limit if you use online banking which means you may need to visit a branch (easier) or do multiple transfers.

But you also need to check with the receiving bank, as they may require "advance notification" of a large payment arriving.

For example, if you are sending from canada to ubs, you need to tell UBS in advance, if the amount is over 800,000 CAD

https://www.ubs.com/ch/en/swissbank/...sszeiten_E.pdf

3
We experienced a 5 day hold on the Canadian side when we had transfers over 10k. This was with CIBC. They could see the funds, they just wouldn't release it until 5 days had passed.

4
To avoid money laundering accusations you might want to make several transactions less than USD 10'000

5
To avoid being ripped-off on the fx-rate, you might want to look into one of the fx-firms specialising in providing international transfers at good fx-rates.

Personally I like www.currencyfair.com best. They don ́t offer a referral program.

There is also transferwise.com (if you want I ́ll send you a referral) and many others... Many such companies are listed throughout this forum.

With currencyfair (as of today, 11h33) 100.000 CHF buy 112.610 CAD. Transferring funds on the Canadian side >>costs CAD 4/transfer<< .

Rgds, Christian

6
ahm.. that is exactly what will attract accusations of money laundering...

I happen to be a former UBS client advisor and trust me, no one wants to be guilty of having missed potential money laundering so all transactions are monitored very closely.

Of course anyone transferring large amounts of money will be asked for an explanation - that explanation will be noted in the client's history and, if it looks plausible, you're good - but several transactions just below 10'000 from a swiss account to a foreign account will be detected and immediately reported to the according AML officer and the client will be asked some nasty questions.

There is nothing to worry about if you can explain your transaction.

7
In the very few cases where I had to transfer a larger amount, I notified beforehand both the sending and the receiving bank and told them the reason. That worked well and no hold ups