EQ Bank has released its card product today. | Page 5 | EQ Bank | Discussion forum

Doug said

All other cards offered by the other four Big Banks + HSBC Canada and Manulife Bank are sheer garbage.

Those who have a Tang savings account get 2% cash back on three spending categories (the rest 0.5%) deposited to the account at the end of each cycle. Not sure if AMEX pays it monthly or at the end of the year, and if it's a credit posted to the account.

Laertes said

What? WHAT??? 3% for groceries? When did this start? How did I not know about this? Did you get an email or anything? Is it a personalized offer for you?  

BMO has a cashback MC with 3% on groceries only, the rest is 0.5%. Cashback is redeemable once you accumulate $25.

BlueSky: Amex pays cash rebates annually, in September last I looked.
RetirEd

HISAhopper said
I am heading to southeast asia, Thailand , Vietnam...
I am thinking of bringing the EQ prepaid card to withdraw cash when needed from the ATM of a foreign bank. As I read there are no withdraw fee and no FX fee on the EQ side, then the only fee I may need to pay is the withdraw fee charged by the ATM foreign bank. Do I understand that correctly?
I am also bringing the HSBC WE mastercard for any larger purchase as there is no FX fee.
Any comment or suggestion would be appreciated.  

Yes, that's right. Note MasterCard International does build about a 1% foreign exchange margin into their posted foreign exchange rates, but EQ Bank does not charge any additional FX spread beyond what MasterCard International charges.

The issue you may run into going to third-world countries like Vietnam and Thailand is your card simply not working, so I recommend having cash on hand and a third credit card, probably a Visa (or two). At the end of the day, if push comes to shove and that's the only card you can use, better to use it and pay a bit of a fee.

Cheers,
Doug

With this card, can you move money from the card back to savings account?

You can segregate but it is not required since the card account earns the same interest rate (at least for now) as an savings account.

tc said
I'm taking the EQ card to Europe and plan to withdraw cash from local ATM Can forum members comment on their experiences? Any hiccups, issues?
Which banks charge or not charge for using their ATM ?(Names)
Also do local restaurants/shops take the card?
Thanks in advance
TC  

Just keep an eye on your account. We were planning on using this card in Europe, but before we even used the card once in anyway or put a balance on it, someone tried to use it. We never even had the card out of our house. EQ didn't even call us. We got a warning about NSF on the account for a transaction, so we locked it, called EQ. They couldn't tell us anything about the incident and just sent us new cards. We've never used it.

Luckily we had no money on our card, who knows what would have happened if we had.

I asked EQ to get back to us with some sort of explanation. Never happened.

It were a while ago. Yes, I did get cash from ABM without issues. Whatever ABM fees were - EQ Bank refunded them. No extra fees appeared.

Next time I use EQ card to withdraw cash, I'll try Savings. I don't use that card very often, but it is convenient card to get cash from any ABM with no fees. It replaced one my debit cards I kept in my wallet for that purpose.

tc said

Just did a cash withdrawal from Scotiabank ATM, options checking,savings or credit card available, used 'savings' as per EQ . Transaction went thru smoothly. I checked EQ, amount taken from EQ card, not savings. Also did a few purchases to check. First purchase no pin or signature required.( this is to sync your chosen pin)
Second purchase, pin required. Third purchase,tap works.

Just wondering if members had ANY experiences OUTSIDE CANADA, especially cash withdrawals or using it to make purchases.  

Most people seem to use wealthsimple or wise for prepaid cards outside of canada. Not sure why. I was going to use my eq card outside of Canada last year, but it was compromised before I even took it out of the house. I wasn't home when the new card arrived so I couldn't take it with me, but I'm a little leery about putting money on the card now as they could not explain how someone was trying to use my card for cash payment when I hadn't even used it once and these days banks seem quick to blame you for any sort of financial loss due to fraud.