Help centre
Why does the exchange rate applied to my transaction differ from the one displayed on the site’s pricing page?
The exchange rate displayed on our online brokerage platform corresponds to the average rate (the average between the buy and sell rates) provided by National Bank. When you trade a security in a currency other than the one in which your account is nominated, NBDB acts as counterparty on your currency conversion and will therefore take a spread on the rate applied to your transaction.
Watch our tutorial to see how to make a currency conversion on the online brokerage platform. You can also perform a currency conversion from the NBC Wealth app.
Note: you can open accounts in USD, enabling you to trade U.S. securities without having to convert currency for each transaction.
Let's look at how to convert Canadian and US dollars in your National Bank Direct Brokerage account. As with cash transfers, currency conversions are made from the transfer icon permanently located at the top of the screen. Simply click on the icon to proceed to the transfer screen.
In our example, I want to convert an amount of $25 from my Canadian dollar margin brokerage account to my US dollar margin brokerage account. The first step is to choose the brokerage account from which the funds will be converted.
Once that choice has been made, I will proceed to choose the other brokerage account that will be receiving the funds once the conversion has taken place.
By entering the amount to be converted, the applicable exchange rate, and the converted amount are displayed here. As stated, this rate is guaranteed for the next five minutes. I can now simply click on Review transfer to proceed to the final screen.
The last step allows me to validate my transaction, which is to perform a conversion in this case. After validation all that remains for me to do is submit the request by pressing Confirm. A new window will appear, titled Transfer, which confirms that the operation is Processing.
If necessary, I am also able to consult the status of my request by clicking Activities heading and then the Funds transfers tab as shown here. This ends our video on how to perform a currency conversion at National Bank Direct Brokerage.