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Email this11:18 am
March 26, 2026
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Hey all. Hello. I've been looking in here for months, and absorbing quite a bit, but have just registered to ask a question. Right now, I'm flummoxed by deposit hold policies at various institutions.
I understand holds on cheques, but e-transfers? Is there anyplace on this site offering a summary of which banks/CU's on the HISA/GIC charts do NOT hold e-transfer deposits? I'm a "little old lady" who's a bit daunted by the idea of trying to find that info on the websites of all those institutions! Maybe someone can help me out on that? Thanks for reading. 
12:40 pm
April 6, 2013
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It is difficult to find a bank or credit union that would put a hold on Interac e-Transfer deposits. See my previous explanation.
4:20 pm
March 26, 2026
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Thank you. I see. My experience has been with Oaken, which is probably an outlier in that it doesn't offer banking services. I can only move funds there by pulling, but mistakenly thought this hold policy was something that applied to moving funds between "alternative" banks/CU's.
I am reading you as saying that most any of the other banks/CUs listed here should place no hold on e-transferred funds (in a reasonable amount). That's great! Thanks again.
5:25 pm
September 11, 2013
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Just yesterday someone called me to e-transfer their daily max ($3K) to my TD account, gave them my email address and I saw it hit my TD account instantly as we were still talking on the phone, couple minutes later I'd transferred it out to another FI. I like e-transfers a lot.
6:13 pm
April 6, 2013
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rakitoon said
… My experience has been with Oaken, which is probably an outlier in that it doesn't offer banking services. I can only move funds there by pulling, but mistakenly thought this hold policy was something that applied to moving funds between "alternative" banks/CU's.I am reading you as saying that most any of the other banks/CUs listed here should place no hold on e-transferred funds (in a reasonable amount). That's great! Thanks again.
There's usually no hold on funds moved by Interac e-Transfers. But, pulling funds is not done by an Interac e-Transfer. Pulling is done by a pre-authorized debit. So, there usually is a hold for funds pulled.
1:17 am
November 9, 2025
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All the FI's I use do not hold interac transfers. Thought that was the only point of Interac. If you need instant access to transferred funds, "push" them instead of pulling. I too have a FI that only offers Interac e-transfers, but no problem setting them up for pushing funds from other FI's in. Assume Oaken is no different.
5:44 am
March 30, 2017
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Poor Richard said
All the FI's I use do not hold interac transfers. Thought that was the only point of Interac.
exactly my understaning and expectation. Which is why the daily limit is set low at $3000 and I was told its set by Interac not the bank.
However lately I see both WS and CIBC will raise the daily and weekly limit etc if they see enough acitivities and assets in the account to support the increase.
Still too small to move money around but at least no hold compares to pulling which is min 4-5 biz days at all banks.
7:12 am
March 26, 2026
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Poor Richard said
All the FI's I use do not hold interac transfers. Thought that was the only point of Interac. If you need instant access to transferred funds, "push" them instead of pulling. I too have a FI that only offers Interac e-transfers, but no problem setting them up for pushing funds from other FI's in. Assume Oaken is no different.
Oaken is in fact different. Only ways to deposit are to pull money in from a linked external acct (with hold up to 5 biz days), or use the old offline methods.
7:44 am
September 29, 2017
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savemoresaveoften said
Poor Richard said
All the FI's I use do not hold interac transfers. Thought that was the only point of Interac.exactly my understaning and expectation. Which is why the daily limit is set low at $3000 and I was told its set by Interac not the bank.
However lately I see both WS and CIBC will raise the daily and weekly limit etc if they see enough acitivities and assets in the account to support the increase.
Still too small to move money around but at least no hold compares to pulling which is min 4-5 biz days at all banks.
Though there is a overall limit set by Interac, it seems banks have their own limits. Daily and weklly do vary between banks/FIs. Some have even raised the daily limit to $10K but rely on per transaction authentication methods.
8:32 am
February 16, 2013
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Some have even raised the daily limit to $10K but rely on per transaction authentication methods.
Yes, I recently tried to avail the increased interac limits with CIBC. I recall trying to send about $5,000 and was unable to do so. Eventually I figured out that I had to send in two tranches - one for $3,000 and the second for $2,000.
9:42 am
August 8, 2022
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Per the useful comment by @rakitoon, I can attest to a truly annoying waste of time chasing the claims of e-transfer for Oaken. Finally I deduced (as probably is known to other users of this forum) that the use of the term refers simply to the electronic nature of a funds transfer to or from an Oaken account. Oaken does not offer an electronic transfer by Interac. Thus I wasn't able to transfer my Oaken $$ directly to another institution via my email: I had to wait for their hold time on the pull to expire. Oh well, live and learn.
9:59 am
April 6, 2013
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savemoresaveoften said
…. Which is why the daily limit is set low at $3000 and I was told its set by Interac not the bank. …
Interac has a system wide limit of $25,000 per e-Transfer. All the other limits are set by the banks.
If a bank is comfortable with the risk, it can allow $25,000 per e-Transfer and something like $200,000 of outgoing e-Transfers per day.
RBC will allow a higher daily limit (up to $10,000 per day) if one is willing to use their RBC Mobile app, instead of their RBC Online Banking web site, to originate the Interac e-Transfers.
11:06 am
April 6, 2013
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Y.S. said
Per the useful comment by @rakitoon, I can attest to a truly annoying waste of time chasing the claims of e-transfer for Oaken. Finally I deduced (as probably is known to other users of this forum) that the use of the term refers simply to the electronic nature of a funds transfer to or from an Oaken account. Oaken does not offer an electronic transfer by Interac. …
Those transfers, by paperless direct deposit or pre-authorized debit, are called Automated Funds Transfers (AFT). Some credit unions call them Me-to-Me Transfers.
Banks offer them to their business banking clients as Customer Automated Funds Transfers (CAFT).
2:22 pm
March 26, 2026
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This sparked more of a convo than I anticipated.
Thank you Norman, and all of you. I am confident now in my understanding of the transfer policies of the institutions listed on the HISA/GIC rates page here.
5:33 pm
March 30, 2017
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Norman1 said
savemoresaveoften said
…. Which is why the daily limit is set low at $3000 and I was told its set by Interac not the bank. …Interac has a system wide limit of $25,000 per e-Transfer. All the other limits are set by the banks.
If a bank is comfortable with the risk, it can allow $25,000 per e-Transfer and something like $200,000 of outgoing e-Transfers per day.
RBC will allow a higher daily limit (up to $10,000 per day) if one is willing to use their RBC Mobile app, instead of their RBC Online Banking web site, to originate the Interac e-Transfers.
speaking of comfort level, slightly off topic but BMO only allow a mobile deposit daily max of $5000, any cheque beyond that amount can only be deposited at a branch or thru the ATM. Yet they encourage their new customer to start using the account immediately and make it the main bank to use, yet making it so difficult to someone making a deposit at the same time.....
7:25 pm
September 29, 2017
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Norman1 said
savemoresaveoften said
…. Which is why the daily limit is set low at $3000 and I was told its set by Interac not the bank. …Interac has a system wide limit of $25,000 per e-Transfer. All the other limits are set by the banks.
If a bank is comfortable with the risk, it can allow $25,000 per e-Transfer and something like $200,000 of outgoing e-Transfers per day.
RBC will allow a higher daily limit (up to $10,000 per day) if one is willing to use their RBC Mobile app, instead of their RBC Online Banking web site, to originate the Interac e-Transfers.
They are in the process of rolling out this new limit to all customers for online banking too. It comes with a lower limit to be authenticated, at $1,500/day.
