Bill said
... today's more finely-tuned sensibilities.  

Yes, there are A LOT of those "sensibilities", to put it mildly.

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.

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

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.

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.

(Hope grocery stores never adopt such a weird practice.)

RetirEd said

I'd suggest keeping at least one relationship with a full-service bank or credit union, ideally one with a local branch and either no fees or avoidable fees . . .

As usual ... sound advice from RetirEd ⬆️

That's what I did too.

Dean

"b. Are registered for the offer via the campaign registration form at a TD Branch by April 30, 2026"

With only online banks, it can be slow or frustrating to do things in a timely manner. You don't have to keep a lot of cash in the full-service option.

matthis said

'Moving away from big banks'

That reminds me of myself, about 8-9 years ago.

Good Hunting❗

Dean

matthis said
I’ve got about 80k in GICs maturing at big 5 banks, and I’m thinking of moving the money to an online bank for the no fees and better savings rates.
Right now, Tangerine and Simplii have some pretty solid promo rates for the first 5 months, so I’m considering starting there. After that, I might move the money again to somewhere like Saven or Oaken for a non-promo higher rate.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks a lot!  

Do both new client offers at Tangerine and Simplii, start with Tangerine first as their external account linking process is superior to Simplii's. If you're lucky, you'll get ongoing offers from both allowing you to shift your funds back and forth.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks a lot!

COIN said
Good questions. If one deposits $500,000 for 90 days the annualized rate is 4%. Any "normal" interest (if any) would be on top of that.  

Hmm, the " Cash Offer " is non-taxable ( not officially ) as TD apparently doesn't send out T5 slips for this type of promotion. That needs to be taken into consideration, as well as any potential " normal " interest. The additional variable is individual tax brackets if one were to consider the non-taxable nature of the offer. Depositing $10k seems to offer the highest return at 8%, anything more returns 4% as you mentioned.
I'm not a big fan of the delayed payout occurring up to 12 weeks after the offer period ends.

JohnnyCash said
What's the offer work out to if it were an interest rate and is the payout taxable?  

Good questions. If one deposits $500,000 for 90 days the annualized rate is 4%. Any "normal" interest (if any) would be on top of that.