Sherbrooke Currency Exchange.

Since Sherbrooke is located so close to the United States border, it’s vital that you understand some of the inner workings of the FX industry. When you’re looking for an institution that you could trust with your hard earned dollars, you shouldn’t be misinformed. If you avoid taking shortcuts and do your due diligence first, you can find the best FX service that fits your needs. Traditionally, the issue with the foreign exchange business (much like other industries) was that there was a lack of reliable information to the public. Nowadays there is a surplus of information thanks to the internet and individual freedom to express opinions online. Without doing any research whatsoever, most individuals would simply take their Canadian dollars and exchange it at a Canadian bank. However, if you research separate FX providers on your laptop or smartphone, you can go in with an educated view on the subject.

In most cases, the realization that banks in Sherbrooke don’t give the most competitive rates will deter people from ever using their foreign exchange system. The main thing to understand here is that banks offer a plethora of different financial services. Just because a few of the services are competitive, or they are designed to save you money in a competitive manner, doesn’t mean that the rest of their services will do the same. The historical “Big Five” banks in Quebec base all of their operations on consumer loyalty and trust. With this viewpoint, it makes no sense for banks to try to compete on price, since they know their customer base will seek them out regardless.

MoneyGram

MoneyGram is by far the most common foreign exchange franchise in Sherbrooke, Quebec. There are roughly a dozen MoneyGram branches within Sherbrooke city limits if you’d prefer to obtain cash from them. When speaking about exchange rates, MoneyGram can have better deals on physical dollar exchange than the banks. Plus an added benefit is that all transactions performed in-person at MoneyGram are fairly quick. One thing to note is that MoneyGram branches in Sherbrooke don’t operate on the same fixed schedule; some close earlier than others or have different availability. If you live near the downtown core, you could encounter two of them at 50 Place de la Cite (819-823-9449) and 2235 Rue Galt O (819-569-9349).

Banque Nationale

If you don’t want to convert your money to US dollars at MoneyGram you could go to your local Banque Nationale in Sherbrooke to do so. Since many local residents have an account registered with them already, it can be convenient to use their services for small sized transactions. Remember that you’re still not getting the best FX rate, but on small amounts it shouldn’t affect your bottom line too much. You could find a Banque Nationale branch at 3075 Boulevard De Portland, but it closes every day around 3PM (Thursdays are open until 4PM and Fridays until 6PM). If you’d like to speak to their customer support line for more information, you can call (819)-563-4011.

The reality is that currency exchange is by all means a commodity service. There isn’t much room for competition within the service itself, because the bottom line is you’re just trading money. While some car mechanics are more skilled than others, you can’t be more “skilled” (by the same definition of the word) in exchanging Canadian dollars for US dollars. For this reason, the only things left to compete in are price, service quality/attention to order detail, and convenience. And while a large portion of FX users value convenience and delivery speed greatly, most of the time you’ll be looking for the most affordable FX rates. To keep more of your money in your wallet during an exchange, we recommend that you find a lean business that doesn’t operate with the same high operational costs that banks do.

The best ways for a foreign exchange company to stay lean is to reduce their brick and mortar expenses and hone their expertise on one service. You’re in luck, because KnightsbridgeFX does exactly that. The company has no physical in-person branches in Sherbrooke – or really anywhere in Quebec – and instead performs all of their operations online. On top of that, KnightsbridgeFX specializes in currency exchange and nothing else, so they have much less business channels to pay for. So what does this all mean for you? In summary, a company like KBFX that has less costs to make up for can give out better priced exchange rates. After all, our business is all about the customer.