Is KnightsbridgeFX actually cheaper than Wise, OFX, and the big Canadian banks for CAD to USD?

I run a currency exchange company, so I have an interest in how you convert your money. The rates and fees below are dated and sourced so you can check them yourself.

Rates checked: 1 October 2026, 09:54 to 10:24 ET, from each provider’s public website, no login. Next check: 1 November 2026.

Every week clients ask me some version of the same question. They have seen an ad from Wise, a rate on a bank website, and a quote from us, and the three numbers do not line up. The ad talks about fees. The bank talks about convenience. We talk about the rate. None of that answers the only question that matters: how many US dollars land in your account for the Canadian dollars you send. So we sat down one morning and checked.

What did each provider pay out on 1 October 2026?

The table below shows the US dollars a client would receive for CAD 50,000, as each provider’s own public tool displayed it, in the order we read them. Every row links to the page we used. Times are Eastern.

Sources: Wise (wise.com/ca/send-money), XE (xe.com/send-money), OFX (ofx.com/en-ca/transfer-rates), TD (td.com currency converter), RBC (rbcroyalbank.com foreign exchange), Scotiabank (scotiabank.com foreign exchange rates), BMO (bmo.com foreign exchange), CIBC (cibc.com exchange currency online). Mid-market reference: Bank of Canada daily average, USD 1.4188 CAD on 29 September 2026.

Read the table from the right. The status column tells you more than the rate column. Four of the five banks would not show a rate for CAD 50,000. That means the client has to phone a branch to find out what they will be charged.

On 1 October 2026, the difference between the highest and lowest online quote for CAD 50,000 to USD was US$506.90. Four of Canada’s five largest banks did not quote that amount online.

Rahim Madhavji, President, Knightsbridge Foreign Exchange Inc.

Knightsbridge Foreign Exchange Inc. is registered with FINTRAC as a money services business (registration M09819788) and is regulated by the Autorité des marchés financiers in Quebec.

Why does the amount change who is cheapest?

Because providers price differently, and each method favors a different transfer size.

Wise charges the mid-market rate plus a fee that falls as a percentage when you send more. On 1 October, the fee was 7.41 CAD on 1,000 and 983.90 CAD on 250,000, which is 0.74 percent at the bottom and 0.39 percent at the top.

XE shows no fee and builds its margin into the rate. Its rate improved from 0.697 at CAD 1,000 to 0.6993 at CAD 250,000.

Knightsbridge works the way XE does, with no transfer fee and a margin in the rate, and that margin narrows as the amount grows. Our markup on 1 October 2026 was 0.80 percent at CAD 1,000, 0.70 percent from CAD 5,000 to 25,000, 0.60 percent at CAD 50,000, 0.55 percent at CAD 100,000 and 0.50 percent at CAD 250,000, with 0.1 percent available on larger amounts and for business clients who trade with us regularly. Applied to the same 0.7026 mid-market rate Wise showed that morning, that is 0.6987 at CAD 1,000 and 0.7001 at CAD 250,000. If another provider quotes you better for the same amount on the same day, send us the quote before you book and, once verified, we beat it. The terms are on our Best Rate Guarantee page.

One thing worth knowing about Wise. The rate it displays is the mid-market rate, and the fee sits on a separate line. Divide the Canadian dollars sent by the US dollars received to get the rate you actually paid: 1.4298 CAD per US dollar at CAD 50,000, not the 1.4233 on the screen. That is not hidden, but it is easy to miss. Our rate already includes the markup, so the number you see is the number you pay. The longer comparison is in Wise vs KnightsbridgeFX.

Here is the full picture at every amount we checked.

USD received, 1 October 2026, 09:54 to 10:24 ET, all figures. Knightsbridge column is our published markup by amount applied to the 0.7026 mid-market rate Wise displayed at 09:54, not a separate desk quote. Scotiabank, BMO, and CIBC omitted because none quote an amount online.

Two things stand out. First, at CAD 1,000 the difference between Wise, XE, and Knightsbridge is a dollar or two; at CAD 25,000 it is 59 cents, and the fee you pay your own bank to send the money may matter more than the provider you choose. Second, above CAD 25,000, the field thins out. TD stops quoting at 100,000. RBC stops at 10,000. The comparison at the amounts a snowbird or a property buyer actually moves is between Wise, XE, OFX, and us.

Why do the banks not show up in the table?

That is because their public tools are built for travel money, not transfers.

So, RBC’s converter displays a message at CAD 25,000: “Please enter a lower currency amount or visit an RBC branch for conversions over CAD $10,000.” TD’s converter returned “This amount exceeds the calculator’s non-cash limit” at CAD 100,000. Scotiabank publishes one table and states that it applies to non-cash transactions up to $9,999. BMO publishes a cash table that applies only to over-the-counter cash. CIBC publishes no CAD-to-USD rate without signing in.

A bank client may still negotiate a better rate at a branch or through a private banking desk. Some do. What they cannot do is see the number before they commit, or compare it the way the four online tools above can be compared. It also means any article that says a bank “charges 2.6 percent” at CAD 50,000 is estimating. We have published figures like that in the past, including on our Canadian bank exchange rate comparisons. This page reports only what a provider showed on the screen, at the time we read it.

How did we collect these numbers?

We used each provider’s own public website on a desktop browser from Toronto, without logging in or creating accounts. For every amount, we recorded the rate displayed, the fee displayed, the receiving amount displayed, the exact time in Eastern Time, and the page address. The Knightsbridge figures are different in one way, and I want to say it plainly. They are not a separate quote read at a separate time. They are our published markup for each amount, as of 1 October 2026, applied to the same 0.7026 mid-market rate Wise displayed at 09:54, so the two columns can be compared on identical market conditions. A client who called the desk at 09:54 that morning would have been quoted on that basis. Any client can ask for the markup before booking.

Nothing in this table is a mid-market rate, except for one exception we labeled: OFX’s converter page shows an interbank rate that OFX itself says is “not indicative of OFX Customer Rates,” so we used OFX’s separate transfer-rates page instead, which shows a standard customer rate without registration.

What the table does not include: the fee your own bank may charge to send a domestic transfer or wire to any of these providers, and any fee a receiving US bank may charge on arrival. Knightsbridge does not charge an outgoing wire fee. Wise shows its domestic transfer fee inside its total, 0.31 CAD on 1 October. For the others, check with your bank.

Rates move all day, so a quote read at 9:56 and one read at 10:18 are not the same market. The spread between providers moves less than the rates themselves.

Does a lower price mean a lesser service?

No, and I want to address this directly, because “cheap” usually means corners were cut. Our price is lower for structural reasons, not quality ones. We do one thing, bank-to-bank currency exchange in six currencies, and we buy currency at volume, so our markup can sit where a bank’s cannot. Nothing about the service is thinner.

Here is what sits behind the rate. A person answers the phone at 1-877-355-5239 six days a week, Monday to Saturday. Every trade comes with a written confirmation before any money moves, and every transfer gets a confirmation number your bank can trace. Clients can speak to the same dealer each time, rather than waiting in a queue. We are registered with FINTRAC and regulated by the Autorité des marchés financiers in Quebec. Our reviews sit at 4.9 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 153 reviews and 4.8 out of 5 on Google from 626 reviews, both read on 16 September 2026. Read the critical ones too; most are about setup time, not the rate or the service.

The test is simple. Call the desk with a real amount before you open an account. How that call goes tells you more than any table on this page, including ours. How KnightsbridgeFX works explains each step.

What should you do now?

1. Decide the amount first. Under CAD 5,000, the fee you pay to fund the transfer can outweigh the difference between providers. Over CAD 25,000, the rate is almost everything.
2. Get three quotes within fifteen minutes of each other. Wise and XE show theirs on the page. Ours takes a phone call or a login. Write down the USD figure, not the rate.
3. Ignore any quote that does not show the receiving amount. If a tool shows a rate but not the dollars you will get, it is not a quote.
4. Check what your own bank charges to send the funds. A $30 wire fee on a CAD 1,000 transfer is 3 percent before anyone has converted a dollar.
5. If the amount is CAD 10,000 or more, ask us for a quote when you check the others, and compare the USD received. Request a quote or call 1-877-355-5239.

Knightsbridge Foreign Exchange Inc. is registered with FINTRAC as a money services business (registration M09819788) and is regulated by the Autorité des marchés financiers in Quebec.

Disclosure: This article is written by the President of Knightsbridge Foreign Exchange Inc. and compares the company’s own pricing with other providers. Read it with that interest in mind. It is not financial advice. This article describes rates and fees as displayed by each provider on 1 October 2026. Confirm current figures on each provider’s website before you transfer.