New to Accra

Hi shadialzarif, I travel to Ghana regularly for visits of up to six weeks at a time. I discussed this with my GP and she prescribed several vaccines that I should take to boost the ones I already had (I don't remember what now). I suggest you do the same. As my trips are of a limited duration I take the antimalarials, but you should discuss this with your doctor as well as for longer periods this is probably not viable. Prevention is always best, but not always doable. I plaster myself in mosquito repellent only to find that the pesky rascals zoom straight towards the one spot I managed to miss . I can't help you with a bank recommendation, but I do send money regularly from Europe. I cannot send the money directly from my own bank account (Swiss) because there is no agreement between the countries. I use a site called Worldremit which works very well for me, but they were very rigid at the beginning, I had to send letters etc. to explain why I send money regularly (my partner lives there). But now that this is done there are very few problems.

Hi Jenny,

thanks for getting back and for sharing your experiences in regards to the vaccination and bank transfer. I will look into this with my doctor and will try to find international banks in Ghana who may have an agreement with my Canadian banks for international wire transfer. Keep in touch and lets grab coffee when you are visiting Ghana.

Hi if you need a house help I’m available please. You can imbox me thanks.

Although I have never done it, I am sure that you will be able to transfer money out of Ghana but you might find the fees are very expensive also you are only allowed to send 10,000 US dollars in one year. I have a dollar account with Standard Chartered Bank but you can't  withdraw dollars so you have to take out the cedi equivalent. I have never tried to send dollars overseas.

@hkann

Hope you are doing well and thanks for getting back to me with your inputs and experience about the banking.

I will have to check with several banks then to see who offer reasonable wire transfer fees and the highest limit of transfer per year.

Will be arriving on November 6th so will get to know more once am there

Is there an activity and meetup section in this website for expat events ?

Thxxx a lot and much appreciated

Hi

Not sure if you are aware of Internations. It also has a Ghana forum and they organise get-together. Also you might be interested in joining NAWA as they too have various types of meetings but it is generally only for women.

It is a Government directive that the maximum sent overseas is 10,000 dollars US so the only difference in banks might be the charges.

@hkann

Hello again ☺️

Okay got it .... 10 K per year as per government directions

I actually know internation and have a profile there which I didn't update a while ago , will check it out there

Thx again for all of the details which will definitely help

I only have experience with transferring Euro's from our bankaccount in The Netherlands to our Euro account at GCB bank in Ghana. Unlike hkann, we can withdraw in Euro's from our Euro account at GCB. However, the fee is 2.5 % over the amount we withdraw (this fee comes on top of the usual fee for the transfer from The Netherlands and the monthly Euro 5.-- it costs us to have the Euro account). I already found out that many other banks in Ghana also charge this 2.5 %.

But the advantage of being able to withdraw in Euro's is that you can get a much better exchange rate at some Forex bureau than you will get at a bank so much of the 2.5 %, if not all, will be compensated in that way.

I never had to transfer money from Ghana to abroad. But I had the experience that the bank of a music shop in Accra for many months failed in transferring about $ 60.-- to the US needed for a spare part for my mixer/recorder. In the end I blew the whole thing off and ordered the spare part in Germany (transferring the needed money from my bank in The Netherlands). Just this week a friend will take that spare part from The Netherlands to Ghana for me.

Likely the cheapest way to transfer money from Ghana to (in your case) Canada is having it transported in cash by trustworthy persons travelling from Ghana to Canada. It is allowed to take up to $ 10,000.-- per person in cash with you when leaving Ghana without having to declare this money. I assume that the same applies for bringing such a amount into Canada but you have to check this yourself.

@shadialzarif

Enjoy your time in Ghana it is a wonderful country.  Banking in Ghana is going to depend a lot  on your residence status.  I ended up using Standard Bank and keeping all my Ghanaian income off-shore and only importing the money I  needed back into Canada. it was easier to deal with Standard Bank for international transactions largely because it is part of thier busienss focus.  I had trouble with Canadian banks because they handlr international transactions so infrequently.

I wouldn’t worry about malarial vaccines and pills the side effects tend to be very bad.  Wear mosquito repellent diligently.  I was in Ghana for two and a half years and managed to avoid getting malaria. 

I bought a lot of malaria self-tests and had two malaria treatment packs in my medical kit just in case.

I went though a lot of tests over the first few months because I  was paranoid.

@Robert Gr.

Hello Robert ,

thanks for the valuable information and for sharing your banking experiences in Ghana with me.

Thats true, Ghana allows you to take out 10,000 USD when travelling/leaving however Canada permits only USD 8,000 at its airports.  Not sure how expats who move to Ghana on a couple of years contract bring out all of their savings and end of service money when leaving Ghana for good.

anyhow i will be able to have a better insight when i land to Ghana next week

Again, thanks a lot for the feedback and inputs

best

@shadialzarif

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