Savers Roundup November 2019: Savings account interest rates higher than GICs

Work for your GIC deals

We’ve seen very little movement on our GIC chart over the past month. The spread between the best 1- and 5-year rates is only between 2.50% and 2.85%.

Look a little closer at some lesser-known financial institutions, and there are some better deals to be had, such as the following:

Savings account interest rates beat GICs?

Look even closer, and in some cases, keeping your money liquid might offer you a better rate than a GIC.

We have now added B2B Bank to our comparison chart. It tops the regular savings account chart at 3.30% — a rate that it has kept since B2B Bank first appeared on our radar on August 12, 2019. Note that it does not have registered accounts, at least not yet. If you’ve had any issues opening an account with B2B Bank, check out other people’s experiences in our forum. The next highest rate on our chart is Motive Financial 2.80%, then MAXA Financial (2.45%), Ideal Savings (2.40%), and Outlook Financial (2.40%).

For a TFSA account, MAXA Financial still leads our chart at 2.45%, followed by Ideal Savings, Motive Financial, and Outlook Financial at 2.40%.

Elsewhere, Alterna Bank has decreased its regular savings and TFSA interest rates from 2.30% to 2.25%.

There are quite a few active deposit promotions, including:

Credit card cash back offers and a free personal finance course

On our cash back site for the rest of November, you can get $80 if you successfully sign up for one of a few Scotiabank credit cards: the Scotiabank Momentum Visa Infinite Card, Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite Card, and Scotiabank Gold American Express Card.

Need to improve your personal finance knowledge? McGill University is offering a free online personal finance course!

In other news, if you have the Home Trust Preferred Visa, starting in 2020, it will still waive the foreign currency transaction fee, but will no longer give you 1% cash back for such purchases. (Other purchases will continue to earn 1% cash back.)

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