Sending Money to Canada from the US

Every month, I make an effort to help out my parents by giving them some money to deal with monthly expenditures. On average, with the condo fees, mortgage, and food, they usually spend CAD $2000 on a monthly basis. Since I live in the USA, I did not quite know the best way to send them money. There were a few issues to deal with, such as wire transfer fees, and whether its cheaper to exchange the money in the USA or in Canada. I ended up paying them a few months worth of money everytime I visited in person, and let my dad handle the exchange.

Free International Wire Transfers at Washington Mutual Bank:
However, I recently opened up a Washington Mutual Checking account, mainly because they offer free international wire transfers. At least there is no fee for sending the money through Washington Mutual. However, the bank receiving the money may charge the recipient, so you have to make sure that doesn't happen. Most banks dont charge for incoming wire transfers, they only charge for outgoing transfers. So if your checking account charges you for incoming transfers, then you better get your money out of there and get a better account, unless your bank changes their policies.

Information Required:
From my parents cheques, you can get the account number, and the bank's transit number. Here's a sample cheque:

Sample Canadian Cheque

What you require are the bank account number, and the bank routing number (may also be known as Transit Number, or ABA number in the USA). In addition, you also have to call up the bank to get the International SWIFT code, which for my parents bank, happened to be TDOMCATTTOR. You also need the address of the branch that this money is going to be sent to. So I went to the bank with this information, and at my first attempt, they couldn't send the money -- or more precisely, their system does not accept the provided information. The main problem was that they require the Transit # to be 9 digits long, and there was no way I could figure out how to get the 9 digits.

So after quite a few phone calls, I finally get the right customer service person who is knowledgable enough to enlighten me! (The first person I got at customer service had no idea why, and suggested i go back to the bank and tell them they are wrong :S -- what a stupid suggestion since their system clearly only accepts 9 digits). So the information you need to provide are:

Account Number: You need an 11 digit account number which for the sample cheque is: 1234-1234567
Transit Number: This is the tricky part, you need to add an extra '0' at the start, then the financial institution number, and then the bank transit/branch number, so for this case, it would be: 0-004-12345
SwiftCode: For my parents bank, that is TDOMCATTTOR.

And that will be enough information, along with the bank address, to allow you to send the wire.

Summary:
To summarize, for the above given cheque, your account number, bank transit/ABA number, and International Bank Routing Code (SWIFT Code).

Account Number: 1234-1234567 (Designation Number + Account Number)
Bank transit/ABA number: 0-004-12345 (0 + Financial institution number + Bank Transit/branch number)
Swift Code: TDOMCATTTOR (For TD canada bank in Toronto - For a list of SWIFT Codes for Canadian banks, please see here).

And that is how I send money to my parents every month. The only inconvenience is that I have to physically go to any of the bank's branch to do this. It would have been great if they allowed something like this to be done online through your checking account.