Ok, so you've got this supplier in China and this client in USA, now what? I mean, how do you actually make and collect payments? Whether you enforce your purchases and sales through letters of credits or other means, at some point money has to cross the borders and possibly change currency. Every bank, including yours, will tell you that they can perform international transfer of funds. You might assume that, similarly to cheque accounts and other common banking products, banks do not differentiate on international payments. You would be wrong: fees greatly vary among banks, as well as services and speed of execution.

Moreover, fees are often country-regulated. In Belgium for example, intra-EU bank transfers have to be free (you read me well: 0$), with no limitation on amount, currency, or country. Compare that with ridiculously high fees to transfer money between Canadian and US banks for example. A transfer from a Belgian account to non-EU account is also much cheaper than the equivalent operation in a North-American bank. The good news is, any organization can open an account with a Belgian bank if it has a supplier or client in EU - any supplier or client in EU, whatever the amount transferred. In other words, Canadian companies that need international bank transfer should seriously think about opening an account in Belgium (or any other country having favourable bank regulations for that matter, but I don't know any other).