Imagine my surprise and frustration this morning when I found my Ally account, albeit with a $0.00 balance, has been closed by Ally/RBC and cannot be used for the purpose I intended.

Greg

See more at:
https://www.highinterestsaving...../#post7251

All future correspondence and Implicity Financial account opening discussion will continue there.

Cheers,
Doug

maxi said

I too held a US savings rate, however, between the poor exchange rates and fees, I moved most of my longer-term US dollars into several blue chip preferred shares with a stable dividend and share price. I've done far better with this approach over the past three years. When I need short term US funds I shop out the banks and exchange house to see who is offering the best rate at that time.

Ah, but for folks like me who try to be south for three months of the year I need "buckets" of short term US funds. My tactic has been to buy $2000 at a time when the rate seems best to me, allowing me to build up the $8000 - $12000 I will likely need each year.

I also have US semi-blue chip stocks but they are part of my "investment strategy".

Greg

For reference (around 10:10 am today):

To buy US$2000 at RBC would cost Cdn$2094.20
To buy US$2000 at ING would cost Cdn$2084.00
To buy US$2000 at Ally would cost Cdn$2024.26

RBC's rate tends to make minor change multiple times per day
ING's rate tends to not make minor changes and has been known to hold the same rate for multiple days
Ally's rate tends to change minute by minute.

Greg

GSmall99 said

Doug:

I read an article about Capital One's purchase of US based ING and the consensus was that Capital One made a huge blunder by not including the ING tradename in the purchase.

US banking is fragmented 1000 times more than Canadian and while ING and the orange colour had established a presence the feeling was that Capital One were "starting over".

I was also in to see my RBC contact Friday and she had lots of info from head office on Ally's car loan business but knew absolutely ZERO on their deposit business.

I also received the RBC mailed "offer" and was hard pressed to find anything in it that wasn't in the email, which basically said, "come to RBC's 1.2% HISA".

Greg

Hi Greg:

One - Capital One DID use the ING Direct USA tradename for above 12 months (believe the acquisition closed in mid-late 2011) or so, maybe a bit less than Scotiabank's agreement with ING Groep but they had to change the name eventually. Capital One They did, however, acquire the Sharebuilder tradename so will continue using that name indefinitely. Scotiabank will have to ditch the ING Direct Canada tradename by May 2014 at the absolute latest. I expect them to start the rebranding by October or November 2013, though, which is a good thing as I'm sick of the ING brand already. It's doing nothing for them. Keep the "forward banking" motto if they want, but start fresh and put massive marketing dollars into it.

Two - sounds like you're in agreement with me on RBC basically being forced to take Ally's deposit business - they probably didn't even really want it! LOL

Cheers,
Doug

I read an article about Capital One's purchase of US based ING and the consensus was that Capital One made a huge blunder by not including the ING tradename in the purchase.

US banking is fragmented 1000 times more than Canadian and while ING and the orange colour had established a presence the feeling was that Capital One were "starting over".

I was also in to see my RBC contact Friday and she had lots of info from head office on Ally's car loan business but knew absolutely ZERO on their deposit business.

I also received the RBC mailed "offer" and was hard pressed to find anything in it that wasn't in the email, which basically said, "come to RBC's 1.2% HISA".

Greg

Cheers,
Doug

If any non-Ally Canadian customers absolutely wanted to see the wording of such e-mail of such promotion(s), then they can contact me privately to arrange for me to send them a screenshot.

I hope no one is disappointed by this.

On the plus side, more analysis is cross-posted here for review and comment.

Cheers,
Doug

Cheers,
Doug

GSmall99 said

National Post (Theresa Tedesco) has an excellent analysis here:

http://business.financialpost......-business/

Greg

Thanks for sharing this, Greg. Sounds like Theresa's analysis is very much what I've been preaching and prognosticating here.

A little more from me on this topic and then I'll be done before I sound like I'm "beating a dead horse".

I think what you'll see in terms of Scotiabank buying ING Direct's Canadian assets & RBC buying Ally's Canadian assets (and she's right on the money [no pun intended] on this point) is Scotiabank needing them to "bulk up" on deposits to boost their capital adequacy ratios whereas RBC took Ally's Canadian assets solely for the huge consumer auto and dealer floor plan financing to essentially became a leader in a new business line and were quite likely forced to take Ally's ResMor Trust Company deposit business (i.e., sort of like saying, "I'll sell you my yacht but you have to take this little aluminium fishing boat that goes with it.") and that's why you're seeing the very quick winding down of the small deposit business to get it over quickly as it was very likely a money losing operation. I feel for the call centre employees, most of whom have already likely received some sort of notice of severance or will in the future.

We've seen RBC's plans unfold and, down the road in the months ahead, is GICs will gradually be rolled over into RBC issued GICs using the RBC platform but they may retain the ResMor Trust Company entity for CDIC purposes or they may decide to liquidate it entirely and close it up to save on CDIC membership dues & deposit insurance premiums. In terms of Scotiabank buying ING Direct's Canadian assets, you'll see potential future plans for ING Direct Canada rebranded as something like Scotia Direct, Scotia Money, RED Bank or some other name now that ING Direct USA has been rebranded as Capital One 360, a sort of "direct banking" operation with the tagline/slogan, "the national bank of wherever," that is a separate unit of Capital One Bank which has some branches. Scotiabank may tweak the ING Direct Canadian products around the edges, possibly allowing ING Direct Canadian customers to have full-access to Scotiabank's ATM network instead of The EXCHANGE ATM Network to save on costs & so forth but, if they do that, they will disconnect from The EXCHANGE ATM Network as they will not want the extra burden of having to process other FIs deposits and bill payments at what would then be the largest Exchange ATM Network member in Scotiabank. They'll most likely launch a no-fee and/or low fee credit card, probably a Visa card and not the hoped for MasterCard, now that they've partnered with American Express to give them dual issuer status. They'll probably expand the line of credit/overdraft offering, may institute a nominal fee for WHOOPS! protection and likely expand/enhance the Mutual Funds product portfolio. In short, like RBC needing to grow consumer auto financing, Scotiabank needs to organically grow this multi-channel deposit business.

Cheers,
Doug

I'm curious, as no application for a credit facility or access to funds (i.e., overdraft/line of credit or immediate access to deposited funds such as no holds), why is it necessary for you to perform two (2) credit inquiries (one "soft" one with TransUnion and one "hard" one with Equifax)? You should have full access to one's TransUnion consumer credit report and be able to view any sort of personal identification, active/closed credit facilities and any recent inquiries on one's credit file from that. Both Hubert Financial, a division of Selkirk, MB-based Sunova Credit Union, and ING Direct Canada, a subsidiary of The Bank of Nova Scotia, only pull a "soft" inquiry for all online account openings in order to satisfy their own internal as well as regulatory/anti-money laundering requirements. In order to limit the number of recent inquiries on my consumer credit reports, my ask of you is that since I am not applying for credit nor am I asking for any special reduced hold times on deposits is that you only use my TransUnion consumer credit report to fulfill your administrative requirements involved in the account opening process. Also, could you pass on this as a suggestion to your head office/operations department in charge of developing your account opening policies & procedures manual that the TransUnion inquiry be used for both the identity verification questions in the online account opening questionnaire but also in any & all administrative procedures to actually open the account(s), provided the application is not seeking a credit facility or reduced hold times on deposits?
The “soft” inquiry through TransUnion doesn’t affect your bureau (beacon score) any way. That inquiry is run for security purposes for when members complete the application process. Once we receive the physical cheque for your initial deposit we run the “hard” bureau using Equifax which does affect your beacon score. We don’t see any of the security questions asked by TransUnion therefore we need to run the credit bureau on our end once we receive the deposit. So unfortunately all members need to have their credit bureau run when opening an account. This is required through our anti-money laundering legislation.

In terms of the ATM and EFT deposit hold times, can you pass on a second suggestion to reduce these times, in line with the major Canadian chartered banks and most credit unions (i.e., for ATM deposits, 4-5 business days after the day of the deposit and, for EFT deposits/transfers in, 2-3 business days from the date the transfer in request is made)? This would be in line with ING Direct Canada, Hubert Financial and Ally Canada, a product/division of ResMor Trust Company.
Our policy for holds is 10 business days. If a member brings in multiple deposits which clear with no issue we may be able to reduce the hold days, but for all new members we place 10 day holds.

Finally, I had only one more question I forgot to ask: does your online banking platform allow Implicity Financial customers to add other Canadian bank accounts in their own name using the one or two small "test" deposit verification method? For instance, let's say I add my ING Direct Canada THRiVE Chequing Account to my Implicity Financial online banking profile, in order to verify my ING Direct Canada Account, Implicity Financial would send a small "test" deposit (or two) less than $1.00 to that account and then I go into Implicity Financial online banking to key in the amount of the small "test" deposit once it shows up in that account in order to validate the account. This is the way Hubert Financial and Ally Canada allow you to add external Canadian bank accounts and is a much simpler, more streamlined (and paperless!) verification method than sending in a paper-based form with a VOID cheque or VOID cheque/account verification form/original bank statement from that external Canadian financial institution.
As of right now our two ways to transfer electronically are through Interac E-transfer which cost $1.50 per transaction and Electronic Funds Transfers which are set up using our Pre-Authorized Transfer form and attaching a void cheque which can then be emailed or faxed to us. I have attached the link for the form https://www.implicity.ca/Share.....erform.pdf
In the upcoming months we will be providing members the access to transfer funds from one institution to Implicity and vice versa through their online banking. We also offer cheques and ATM cards to our members.

I also asked, "One more quick question (I promise!) - can I change my Implicity Financial debit card PIN at an Acculink Network ATM?", which went unanswered, and forgot to ask when Implicity Financial actually launched publicly but will re-ask/ask those questions in my fourth message to them.

This prompted another follow-up between me and Kerrie Dobson, Contact Centre Representative, on Feb. 22nd as Erin was out of the office:

As for the second, "hard" credit bureau check you perform through Equifax, that shouldn't be a problem. Although I had an inquiry at the end of December 2012, other than that I've had no "hard" inquiries in over a year so shouldn't affect it too much. I'm hoping you'll retain a copy of my credit bureau report for as long as I have an account/membership with Implicity Financial, in case I ask to see it in the future, it won't be necessary to pull it again. My suggestion, however, is that you run a second, "soft" credit bureau inquiry with TransUnion (instead of Equifax) to fulfill your account opening/anti-money money laundering regulatory requirements. This would be in line with what Canadian Direct Financial (part of Canadian Western Bank), Hubert Financial (part of Sunova Credit Union) and ING Bank of Canada are already doing. Could you kindly pass this along to the appropriate department?
Erin is away today, so I’ll respond on her behalf. We will retain a copy of your bureau with your file for as long as your account remains open, so there should be no need to run an additional inquiry in the future.

Second, in terms of the ATM/EFT holds, the hold periods on new members is understandable. However, I would like for you to pass on a second suggestion to the appropriate department charged with implementing changes to your policies & procedures that your standard EFT hold period be 2-3 business days, which would be consistent with what the "virtual bank" competition is doing. For ATM deposits, I'd like to see the maximum ATM deposit for all clients be a maximum of 7 business days for all CAD deposits (cash or cheques, since, let's face it, most FIs use an outsourced provider with no way of notifying you of cash deposits). Or, are you saying that if that provider notifies you of a cash deposit by an Implicity Financial member, you'll reduce the hold period? At any rate, if you wouldn't mind passing on this second suggestion, it would be greatly appreciated.
The 10 day hold period was put into place to safeguard both our members and Implicity against any type of fraudulent activity on accounts. We are not notified as to what an ATM deposit consists of, so we are unable to amend hold periods based on cash vs. cheque deposits.

In terms of the EFT transfers, and forgive me if this sounds a bit rushed as I am just heading off to work but wanted to get this e-mail in, does that mean you can currently do sporadic EFT transfers online once you link your external bank account using the pre-authorized transfer form or do you only allow a regular savings plan of a specified amount? In terms of the future plans for a online verification/account linking method, does that mean we'll be able to use the small "test" deposit method? If so, that's great.
Our EFT Transfers are to be used for regular deposits to your Implicity account of a specified amount, which we can set up on our end. We are working towards having the linked account functionality available by the summer, and at that time will have more information for you regarding the small test withdrawal.

As you can see, they are very responsive and very helpful. I will have to follow-up, though, as they seem reluctant to pass on my suggestion(s) for procedural/efficiency improvements regarding credit bureau checks and hold periods to their appropriate operations team. As well, I'd like to see the regular/standard hold period for all deposits (even if no "access to deposited funds"/"cashback" limit(s)) reduced to 7 business days and 2-3 business days for EFT transfers where the funds are "pulled" in once they offer that service, which they currently don't offer as the pre-authorized payment form is only for regular, fixed amount automatic transfers between an external account and Implicity Financial. Does everyone else have the same take/read on that?

It is also interesting they will be launching the account verification method similar to Hubert Financial and Ally but will be using "a small, test withdrawal," not a deposit, which makes sense as the same information is included in the EFT transfer as a deposit but without the extra cost to them. I just hope they deposit that small withdrawal into one's Implicity Financial account so we're not out any money. I will follow-up with them once it actually launches. We may even see more FIs use this method as well.

Cheers,
Doug

http://business.financialpost......-business/

Greg