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Most Canadian ecommerce businesses do business in the United States. Selling products to American customers means earning US Dollar revenue and this also often requires companies to spend money on marketing, shipping, software and more in USD. Being a Canadian company doing business in the US is challenging because accessing USD banking products has been fragmented, difficult to access and expensive.
As a Loop cardholder, you are now able to open a free US Dollar Account. Unlike accounts with Canadian banks, the Loop US Dollar Account is US-based which means that you will get a local US ABA Routing Number and your own unique account number. Having a real US-based account makes it possible to receive US Dollar payouts from any US marketplace or payment providers (including Amazon, PayPal and others) which isn’t possible with Canadian-based US Dollar bank accounts.
The Current Problem With USD Banking For Canadians
For businesses that receive or spend money in the USA, the company is required to transact in US Dollars. Unfortunately, the legacy Canadian and US banking systems are not integrated which makes it complicated, costly and time consuming to manage money across the border. A common example of how this costs a business money is when a Canadian business tries to have their payment provider (point of sale or marketplace) pay them their revenue back into their account in Canada - many providers will convert this US Dollar revenue into Canadian Dollars at a rate that is 3-5% worse than the real rate (often referred to as the mid-market rate). To make matters worse, money that was converted into Canadian dollars must then be spent in US dollars again on items such as marketing, shipping, software and more which means the company will use a payment method (such as a card) which re-converts their CAD to USD at a rate 3-5% worse than the mid-market rate. The problem of “double-conversion” can lead to 6 - 10% in unnecessary FX fees (as much as $10,000 on $100,000 of revenue!
Additionally, having USD revenue or CAD revenue paid out to one institution and spending on different platforms (on card, Wire, EFT or ACH) can lead to multiple-day transit times causing ads to be paused or working capital to be tied up.
Loop’s Solution
Loop has come up with a solution to the cross-border banking problem - launching the first Canadian-US banking solution that is tightly integrated into each country’s local banking systems, with total cross-compatibility. Coupling the Loop US Dollar Account with Loop Card and Loop Payments is a powerful solution to save on FX fees, get paid faster and improve cash flow. Here are a few examples of how Loop can help:
• Earn your USD revenue from Amazon.com and provide Amazon with your Loop US Dollar Account account information so you can receive US Dollars without converting them. You can then use your Loop Card to pay for your Amazon-related expenses (like advertising) which lets you avoid FX and get up to 55 days of extra interest-free capital
• Use the USD funds in your Loop US Dollar Account to send money to your suppliers around the world in USD for free. If you need to pay your suppliers in any other currency, you can also do that easily by converting from USD directly into the currency you need through Loop (rather than USD to CAD to another currency).
• Get paid in US Dollars from anyone that needs to pay you by providing your Loop bank account number and ABA routing number. You can use this to get paid in US Dollars from platforms like PayPal or Shopify, or even as a form of payment from any large wholesale customers like Target.
• Easily convert the USD you have in your Loop US Dollar Account into Canadian Dollars for any local Canadian expenses you have. You can make any local payments in Canada using Loop Payments (including things like taxes to the CRA) or you can use your Loop Card and benefit from interest-free purchasing!
Features and Benefits
The Loop USD Account is the most powerful USD account for Canadian ecommerce businesses in the market. Benefits include:
• Fully online sign up with no trips to a branch, the US or phone calls required to open your account
• No monthly or annual fees so you can invest in your inventory and marketing
• Accessible in your Loop Account so you can instantly pay off your Loop Card balance or send money around the world using Loop Payments
• Based in the USA so your marketplace payouts will be able to send you USD instead of converting it to CAD, saving you 2.5%+ in FX fees on every dollar you earn
• Reduce the complexity in your banking and payments workflows by reducing the number of tools and services you need to use to manage so you can focus on growing your business
• Money stored in your Loop US Dollar Account is safe and secure thanks to FDIC insurance which protects deposits up to USD $250,000
The Loop USD Account accepts a variety of incoming and outgoing payments methods:
Incoming
• International Wires
• Domestic Wires
• ACH Payments
Outgoing
• International Wires
• ACH Payments
• Pre-authorized Payments
Join Today
To open a Loop USD Account, login to your account, click Accounts and then click Open US Dollar Account. From there you’ll need to follow the instructions to open the account, including providing a piece of government-issued ID for all of the directors/owners of the business. You’ll be given an account number and routing number immediately after signing up for your Loop USD Account so you can begin sending and receiving USD.
You will need to have an active Loop account before you can open a Loop US Dollar Account so to get started - make sure to open an account here.
Learning more about the features of Loop’s Account product by checking out our multi-currency account page.
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