Exchange Rates Application Programming Interface ( API )

Usage

This API allows users to query for active foreign exchange rates. The recorded rates indicate the number of Canadian dollars required to buy a single unit of the foreign currency. New rates are released by the Bank of Canada (BoC) daily at 16:30. The Canada Border Services (CBSA) retrieves these updates between 4:30pm and 5:00pm EST.

BoC provides 23 foreign exchange rates. All other rates are maintained by the CBSA.

Exchange rates from the BoC are updated daily in the system while other exchange rates are updated by the CBSA at set intervals. The updated rates are available for retrieval between 7:00 pm and 11:59 pm EST.

If the above mentioned window is missed, the user can still fetch active foreign exchange rates by using the Historical Exchange Rate API.

Please note, when using the Historical Exchange Rate API:

1. The StartDate and EndDate parameters are required.
2. If fetching a large amount of data use the limit and skip parameters.

Update frequency

As BoC publishes exchange rates every business day, it is recommended that exchange rate data be retrieved on a daily basis. This retrieval should occur after 7:00 pm EST to ensure retrieval of the latest updates.

Technical notes

The Exchange Rate API uses LoopBack 4, an open source framework to create dynamic end-to-end REST API. Please refer to AWS API Gateway for further details. There will be two servers provided, one for development and testing and a second for actual production data. Please ensure these are accessed appropriately during the development lifecycle.

 "ForeignExchangeRates": [
	{
            "ExchangeRateId": 719352,
            "Rate": "0.1589",
            "ExchangeRateEffectiveTimestamp": "2021-11-03T00:00:00.000Z",
            "ExchangeRateExpiryTimestamp": "2021-11-03T23:59:59.000Z",
            "ExchangeRateSource": "BoC",
            "FromCurrency": {
                "Value": "HKD"
            },
            "FromCurrencyCSN": 87,
            "ToCurrency": {
                "Value": "CAD"
            },
            "ToCurrencyCSN": 36
        },
 ]

"ForeignExchangeRates": [
        
	{
            "ExchangeRateId": 718988,
            "Rate": "0",
            "ExchangeRateEffectiveTimestamp": "2021-10-22T00:00:00.000Z",
            "ExchangeRateExpiryTimestamp": "2021-10-22T23:59:59.000Z",
            "ExchangeRateSource": "CBSA",
            "FromCurrency": {
                "Value": "bpg"
            },
            "FromCurrencyCSN": 267,
            "ToCurrency": {
                "Value": "CAD"
            },
            "ToCurrencyCSN": 36
        },
        {
            "ExchangeRateId": 718990,
            "Rate": "0",
            "ExchangeRateEffectiveTimestamp": "2021-10-22T00:00:00.000Z",
            "ExchangeRateExpiryTimestamp": "2021-10-22T23:59:59.000Z",
            "ExchangeRateSource": "CBSA",
            "FromCurrency": {
                "Value": "mpg"
            },
            "FromCurrencyCSN": 266,
            "ToCurrency": {
                "Value": "CAD"

            },
            "ToCurrencyCSN": 36
        },
 ]