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Marcus,
In any bank around the world, if you are a new customer opening an account with few dollars you will have to go through this
rig-a-ma-row until they've got some feel of who you are and what you deposit.
To save yourself problems when you get here, have your bank write you a letter of reference on how you conduct your finances (what your average monthly balance is and if you've written bad checks or deposited bad checks). When you get here, open your account right away and have your important documents with you along with a credit card (so they know you are credit worthy).
If you have money that you will be bringing with you, make sure it's not cash, it's not over $ 10,000.00 (can't get through customs with that kind of money-and if you do, you'll have problems depositing it) Leave instructions with your bank that you will be advising them where you will require them to wire your funds to.
Please make sure you advise them that you want your funds to remain in US dollars. When you open your account, the smart thing to do will be to open a US and a Canadian account.
Make sure your original bank gets the US account number to transfer funds to or it will be in Canadian and you can't change it back without losing on the conversion.
If you think you will need about 2000 a month for expenses, please bring double so you can work around the 30day holds.
When they see you've had your money wired (hopefully enough to cover your first month's deposits) they will consider removing the holds. Try to speak directly with the manager of the bank and advise of your situation (the amount of US checks you will be depositing for some freelance work you do on the net).
Also, you may want to leave instructions with your bank on making your Credit Card payments as I recall, you can't make payments to credit cards that are not in the same currency.
Hope that helps!
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