Posts Tagged "beneficiaries"

New Firm Focusing On Reducing Currency Conversion Fees For Canadians

Posted by Preet on Feb 15, 2010 | 9 comments

Canadians can pay as much as 2.5% in currency conversion fees which are hidden in what is known as “the spread”. If you are a small business and you convert $5,000,000 per year between US dollars and the loonie, a 2.5% spread means your bank earned roughly $125,000 before costs (which I think we can all agree are not going to be close to $125,000). A firm based in Toronto has set up shop to compete with the banks in fulfilling the currency conversion needs of customers. Their goal is simply to reduce the spread, which translates into more money in the customers’ hands at the end of the day, and a slice of the pie for the firm. They would earn less than...

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Secret Children

Posted by Preet on Sep 29, 2009 | 4 comments

I thought I would share a quick story today. Years ago I had sat down with a prospective client after having put on a seminar for a small group of investors. The investor and I had gone through the regular first steps of putting together a financial plan: we explored and defined his goals, got all the details of his current situation and I was about to leave to do the number crunching when he walked me to my car after the meeting only to make a confession. He hadn’t told me of one other goal of his: he had a secret love child who was almost 20 years old and he wanted to make sure that he received an inheritance, but didn’t ever want his wife to find out. At...

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