Canadian High Interest Savings Bank Accounts

After carefully reading through all the fantastic information on this web site, I applied for a savings account at Achieva. I was quite excited about it since it's a much better rate than my BMO and ING accounts. To my great dismay… my application was rejected because of the "results of their credit investigation". I phoned them to find out what that means, exactly, and what I can do to get accepted in the future. But the lady would not give me a straight or helpful answer.

I was worried that Achieva's credit check would reduce my poor credit rating even further, but I had NO idea that my poor credit rating would actually prevent me from getting an online savings account.

I should first explain what I'm looking for: I have RSPs, a small savings account, and a small pension that I'm thinking of putting into a locked RSP (no idea if that's a good thing to do).

I wasn't comfortable with Hubert because I read about some security concerns (and some other poor feedback). And it's also such a new entity. I thought I would stick with someone with a little more experience in the virtual banking world.

I also looked at Accelerate, Achieva and Outlook. And they seemed to be pretty similar. Accelerate has a slightly higher rate but I don't like the $50 transfer fee for RSPs, and what really killed it is that they don't yet offer EFTs. Plus, Outlook offers locked in RSPs.

I originally didn't look at Ally because they don't offer RSPs. But since Achieva doesn't want my money, I applied for a HISA account with Ally.