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Foreign Payments

The University annually makes a large number of payments to suppliers outside Canada. This section describes how these payments are handled.

U.S. Payments

Foreign Payments

U.S. Payments

Invoices in U.S. dollars are paid by cheque from the University’s U.S. dollar account. These invoices are processed in the same way as invoices from Canadian suppliers, with the exception of the USD currency code and payment method “B”. Note: No foreign draft payments will be issued in U.S. dollars.

The buying department pays the Canadian dollar equivalent based on the bank’s buying rate in effect at the time the invoice is processed. This rate is updated in FIS daily.

Foreign Payments

Foreign Drafts

  • Invoices to be paid by foreign draft are entered into FIS in the same manner as Canadian or U.S. invoices with the exception of choosing the appropriate currency to be used and payment method “D”.
  • A remittance advice listing all invoices paid with the draft is mailed along with the draft.
  • No foreign draft payments will be issued in Canadian or U.S. dollars.
  • For the costs associated with foreign drafts (cost per draft, stop payment, investigation, additional copies), contact the Supervisor, Accounting Services.

Refer to the following FIS Reference Guides for the detailed process for entering foreign invoices and expense reports:

Foreign Payments by Wire Transfer

Payment via wire transfer is not a cost effective method of making foreign payments and should be avoided. Please consider utilizing draft payments or payment by credit card. But if a wire transfer payment is necessary, the following describes the essential elements of the process used at the University:

  • There is a facility to wire funds around the world to another financial institution,
  • The bank guarantees that the funds will be transferred within 3 business days,
  • Generally, funds paid by wire payments to the U.S. and Europe may take up to a week to be received, and to the Far East it may take over 2 weeks,
  • Bank requirements for wire payments require complete beneficiary and beneficiary bank addresses,
  • Please contact us for current costs associated with wire transfers.

To request a foreign payment by wire transfer, complete the Outgoing Foreign Payment Wire Transfer Request form (PDF) with all the required information. In order to complete the form, refer to Instruction to complete the Outgoing Wire Transfer form .

For payments to Europe an IBAN (International Bank Account Number) is required along with a BIC (Bank Identifier Code). For payments to Mexico an 18 digit CLABE (Standardized Bank Account Code for Mexico) is required. For other foreign payments, the SWIFT code is required (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication). For additional assistance in completing the bank information on the form, please refer to the following sites for an IBAN de-coder tool, a tool to confirm the bank using the BIC code, and an IBAN information guide.

Note that all outgoing foreign payment wire transfer requests require proper supporting documentation to be included with the request (e.g. invoice, contract, etc).

Last updated: December 1, 2011