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Email this6:38 am
March 15, 2019
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Does anyone remember when and why financial institutions started this weird practice of "targeted" promos. Isn't this a form of discriminaion?
(Hope grocery stores never adopt such a weird practice.)
7:45 am
March 14, 2023
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I've seen targeted offers for about 10 years from Tangerine. They are much less frequent now than they once were. Why do they target? It seems that they like to play around with different types of offers to see what happens. Maybe they act as Scotiabank's testing lab.
Who would they be discriminating against? To me it seems more of a random thing; when banks offer new customers better rates, that's discriminating.
Grocery stores (and others) already do targeted deals through their loyalty programs. I know it's not quite the same thing because the grocery stores are rewarding loyalty, but they are a much more transactional commodity business.
8:19 am
April 27, 2017
Online
Depends how you define the word “discrimination”. Obviously a loaded term.
To me, if promos use your race, gender, etc as a basis for picking candidates then it is discrimination. If they are using your banking history, loyalty tiers, geography or randomness vs any of the protected characteristics then I would call it “market segmentation”. There has never been a time when some version of this wasn’t used by market participants. And thats a good thing for competition.
8:48 am
January 12, 2019
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.
Even TD has recently played around with the idea of short-term Targeted Promotions.
Last year (for the first time in 30+ years) TD offered me ~4.5% on my TD SA for four months. I bit ... filled my TD SA with all the cash I had from several sources, and rode out the lucrative four months until the end.
After the end of the promotion period, I drained my TD SA (now earning 0.05%) back down to ~$1.50, and I haven't heard back from them since.
I'm guessing the whole idea was just a TD 'Flash-In-The-Pan'. 
- Dean
" Live Long, Healthy ... And Prosper! "
9:20 am
September 11, 2013
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No need to define, Canada already has a legal definition of "discrimination". As mordko indicates it's unfair treatment due to one's "personal characteristics", Canada Human Right Act lists 13.
I'm amused that these promos might be considered discrimination by some but I'm old and clued out about today's more finely-tuned sensibilities.
