International
support

In more than 90 countries

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Christine ADAMS
Head of International Desk North America

Support by the
Crédit Agricole group

Last updated: August 2023

Crédit Agricole CIB offers a full range of corporate, investment and market banking products and services to domestic and international corporate and institutional clients. The bank has offices in Montreal and Toronto. The Group's other subsidiaries operating in Canada are Amundi, an asset manager, and CACEIS, which specialises in fund administration services.

For more information, see the list of the Crédit Agricole Group’s locations

The International Desk in North America, part of the Crédit Agricole Group based at Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank in New York, provides support to corporate clients, mainly startups and SMEs in Canada. It relies on the Group's entities, and mainly on a leading historical partner bank. The bank has an office in Paris working with the Desk on inbound and outbound referrals.

For NBFCs, the International Desk offers the support of local law, accounting firms and its leading partners for the internationalisation of companies.

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Means of payment

With Canada

Company cheque

Bank cheque

SWIFT transfer

Bill of exchange

Promissory note

Documentary remittance

Documentary credit

Usage

Common

Weak

Common

Weak / None

Weak / None

Common

Common

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Advice from the
international desk

General Information

There are many business and investment opportunities in Canada. The country has a dynamic business environment, a skilled workforce and competitive costs. In addition, market access for businesses is facilitated by the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union. The purpose of this free trade agreement is to eliminate trade barriers between the two markets.

 

Means of Payment & Banking Specificities

Banking products and vocabulary may differ from French practices. In addition, banking compliance rules are extremely strict in Canada. It is therefore strongly recommended to be accompanied by your French bank to have access to local banking services. This saves time and helps avoid pitfalls.

Some documents required to open an account may be requested such as: registration certificate, articles of incorporation, capitalisation table, identification of partners and signatories and bank recommendation letter among other things. This approach is linked to an important objective of the country to combat money laundering and terrorist activities, which requires banks to carry out in-depth checks on customers, particularly foreign shareholders. These are Know Your Customer (KYC) measures.

Checks are not recommended as a means of payment. Remedies for non-payment are often costly, cumbersome and random.

The concept of credit history is very important in the country. You have to prove that you are a good payer. A guarantee from the bank parent company may be requested in order to obtain local financing for a Canadian subsidiary of a French company that has no credit history in Canada.

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