Which saving account | General comparisons | Discussion forum

Pick the best institution. If no online transfers then use the old fashioned cheque and ATM card. I image. Over the next few years cheques will become a thing of the past and financial institutions will all have an online method.

I haven't actually tried to do this yet, but I think I can do it at Peoples.

AltaRed said

I have Peoples Trust, President's Choice Financial and Canadian Direct Financial savings accounts.

Just wondering: If you were going to keep just one of these, which would you choose? I'm hoping to find a bank that consistently offers better interest rates than my BigBank (both for HiS and GICs) and would interact reasonably well with same. It doesn't have to be the best in every category, but I am looking for good marks in all categories.

Does anyone else have an opinion about which bank would be the best all-purpose choice?

oldlady said

AltaRed said

I have Peoples Trust, President's Choice Financial and Canadian Direct Financial savings accounts.

Just wondering: If you were going to keep just one of these, which would you choose? I'm hoping to find a bank that consistently offers better interest rates than my BigBank (both for HiS and GICs) and would interact reasonably well with same. It doesn't have to be the best in every category, but I am looking for good marks in all categories.

Does anyone else have an opinion about which bank would be the best all-purpose choice?

Depends upon your needs.
For Savings with higher rates I use:
Accelerate for rates and good service.
Outlook Financial for rates with the ability to early redeem with penalty with so so service.
Oaken for rates and good service so far.

For day to day banking and sort of local:
BMO and Coast Capital.

I truly believe in NOT being loyal and to take advantage of good rates when you can. I have a Hubert account but am not a huge fan.

I like the various Manitoba Credit Unions but most of my money is at Implicity. They've only been around for just over a year but they have proved to be the most consistent over that time with rate predictability. They currently offer the best savings rate (except for the various specials offered by others which will drop dramatically when they expire in a couple of months) and Implicity tends to offer the best GIC rates. And their fees are far better than the other Manitoba virtual offerings.

Implicity is fee free, allows access with cheques, debit cards, and thru the Acculink ATM network which is all over Canada (a bit sparse in Ontario though as reported by others?). I'm not sure what you mean about not having internet banking. They all have Internet banking. Unless you mean me-to-me transfers. Which you're correct, few do. But I'm still hopeful that Implicity will have something by summer as they have suggested. But it's not a big concern for my particular needs at the moment. Implicity still offers more access than the other Manitoba CU's and their rates are constantly better than most, and fee free. But each to their own.

I have been looking at this question again too. I much prefer to sit at home and move the money around rather than get out to a bank or ATM in bad weather.

Getting back to the original question, excluding the question about QC availability,
I conclude that EFT is only available currently at CDF, Hubert, Peoples Trust, PC Financial and Tangerine, of which only Hubert, CDF and Peoples Trust offer rates in the higher end of the range.

Implicity and Oaken both say they will be offering EFT in the foreseeable future.

My main issue is pulling the money out, which is harder to negotiate in most cases. The next best bet to EFT seems to be through cheques, in which case there are 2 issues: cost of the cheques themselves and cost of processing a cheque. It looks to me like Accelerate might be best on this score because they currently offer 1.9%, do not charge for the cheques, and will process 1 cheque per month without a fee.

Is this summary correct, or have I missed something?

dougjp said

I can only compare CTC, People's and Canadian Direct. CTC became uncompetitive on rates a year ago or more, and therefore lost most of my money, but they have the most prompt online transfers to and from. They also had, for 2 years, 'bait' deals on TFSA rates to grab money and then dropped the rates without any drop in general market rates elsewhere, 3 months later, so they lost my TFSA as well. People's is almost as good and I've had no problems, except they dropped their rate slightly and the competition didn't. Canadian Direct has good rates for a CDIC insured bank but their online transfer system is usually dead slow. If you have to get cash to cover a stock purchase for example, which has to be funded 3 days after the stock purchase, you might be OK, but I wouldn't depend on it... Now I have heard Canadian Direct is in testing for a different competitive online transfer system. When they get something the same as CTC and People's, they get more business. Meanwhile, just use it for money you want to park for some time. My 2 cents.

I can comment on Canadian Direct Financial. Their online transfer is awful and slow, and quite different from others. A few days ago, after finishing a transfer, a survey popped up. Then I wrote criticism comments on the survey. Hope they will listen.

Other than that, their savings rate 1.9%, TFSA 2.25% (only lower than People's), GIC 5-year 2.75%. Best of all, they have free chequing account(first book free, subsequent chargeable). Only President's Choice/Tangerine offer free chequing but their interest rate is only 1.3%.