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Bank of Canada
The Bank of Canada is one of the few online banks that have an easily accessible, powerful and flexible currency conversion tool. That alone makes it stand out among our website reviews.
If other banks have any such tool they are frequently nowhere near as powerful – local currency is changed to foreign currency, or foreign to local currency only, with limited options. But refreshingly enough it is not so in this case. The Bank of Canada's conversion tool will convert to or from approximately fifty five different currencies based on the bank's own “noon exchange rates”.
Take me to the site! How do I get there?
Okay – you’ll need to hotfoot it to www.bankofcanada.ca. Go to the rates and statistics link on the home page to find the section you want for the currency converter itself.
What does the site offer?
Aside from the converter, you can find out more about the bank itself, and even how to start working for them if you wish! The markets section contains information about how the monetary system works, so if you need more details on money and how the bank uses it (with a relevance to Canada of course) then you will find this site very useful indeed.
Don’t miss out on the glossaries either. There are two in this section, and if you have any doubts about what a particular phrase or word means in relation to currency, you should find the answer here.
What is their currency converter like?
The currency calculator can be split into two sides. For standard currency conversions only the left-hand side needs to be used. The right hand side deals with dates – you can select the most recent business day (the default mode); the past x number of business days (where you select the value of x); or between any two specific dates stretching back over the last ten years.
As mentioned, the left hand side is the business end of the converter. Starting from the top the box titled “Amount”, this is where you should put the amount of the source currency. So for example if you wanted to convert 1000 Euros into another currency this is where you should type 1000 (without any symbols or commas).
Next you have to choose whether you use the nominal rate or the cash rate. The nominal rate is based on the bank of Canada's 12:30 pm rates each day. The cash rate is essentially the same nominal rate minus 4%, as that figure is the fee normally charged for foreign notes.
The “output type” is where you can choose whether you want the results just online (the HTML selection, which is default), or whether you would prefer to have them as XML or CSV files too. Don't worry if you don't understand what that means. Those are file types used to import data into databases. Having the currency output in this way would be very useful for some people's analysis, or their specific programs. You don’t need to touch this if you just want to see the results normally.
The next box down is the “from” drop-down list. Each currency is listed in alphabetical order based on the country name. None of the currencies' three letter codes are listed, which is a bit of a shame but you can easily access them elsewhere if you need to know what they are for any reason.
This box is where you get to select the source currency that you're converting from. So for example if you were converting 1000 Euros into Vietnamese dong, this is where you would select the European Euro. Presumably the somewhat redundant sounding “European” component had to be added to give the currency a specific geographic region.
The box beneath that is the “to” selection box. The same list of destination currencies is there for you to select the currency you wish to convert into. In our example you would select Vietnamese dong here.
Finally click on the blue “convert” button at the bottom right hand corner of the conversion tool. This loads a new page with the results on it. The results page includes the date (which is the date the exchange rate is from, not necessarily today's date); the exchange rate, and the foreign currency amount. On this page you will notice that the three letter currency codes for each country are used. If you have selected a date range each business day's rate will appear here in a list.
On the whole the tool is both useful and powerful, particularly for gathering historical data.
Supposing I need some help and advice – can they help me with that?
There are a couple of popular questions that have been asked and answered at the bottom of the converter itself. You’ll also notice that at a couple of points on the currency converter there are blue ‘help’ links. So if you get stuck at those stages you can simply click on those to see what you need to do.
There is also a ‘contact us’ link at the top of any and every page you visit on the site. This gives you all you need to know about the Bank of Canada, and you will notice an email address here for the webmaster of the site.
In conclusion
The Bank of Canada has a well thought out and very good currency converter for your use. The obvious inclusion of a lot more information on the website is also a good thing since it might help you get additional info if needed.
The currency converter is also good because it has a number of notes underneath it, giving you essential facts that may be relevant to your currency search.
Rating (out of five stars)
This site gets three out of five. It is a good converter and does the job perfectly. Even though it does have limitations it is still exceptionally good to use, and gives you a lot more guidance and facilities – such as the type of output you can use – than some other sites do.
- 3 Stars
Link: http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/exchform.html
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