Accelerate Financial Reduces GIC Rates | GIC discussions | Discussion forum

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Same *&^%$# at Hubert . . .

➡ https://www.highinterestsavings.ca/forum/hubert-financial/all-gic-rates-decrease/

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And I assume Accelerate customers got No prior notice, either.

Dean

Question: Can a FI change a rate of fixed GIC before maturity?

Exactly

rodeworthy said
What part of "Guaranteed", "fixed", "term" is not being understood here?

Are we down to rewriting the English language?  

But isn't rewriting the English language what lawyers specialise in doing?

cgouimet said
Has anyone ever had a financial institution change the terms and conditions of a Guaranteed Investment Certificate during the term of that GIC?  

NEVER. Banks may be "evil" to some people, but banks just cant do something like that unilaterally.

On the other hand, investors are able to, under certain situations, such as Wyze getting bot out, the CIBC GIC agreement change, and Meridian's raise the rate GIC. Banking regulation in genaral are skewed to protect the depositors, for the obvious reason.

In the 2008-ish "Great Recession" era, Vancouver City Savings Credit Union's board made some bad decisions investing in Asset-Backed Securities and found themselves in trouble. Needing cash, they sold off their insurance and deposit-taking* Citizens Bank businesses and asked holders of certain contracts to voluntarily renegotiate in favour of the credit union.

(This is long ago enough that I have been unable to get footnotes on the web so far.)

This led to some lively AGMs. Members were understandably and justly outraged. When members get in trouble, they don't get better terms by bringing sob stories to their creditors. And those with fixed investments were counting on their income stream.

VanCity reversed their decision (I never found out if those who agreed to the losses were also reversed) and I'm not aware of any such attempts, much less involuntary changes, since.

So far, I have not seen any documented attempts to force inferior terms on any other Canadian financial institutions. Let's be sure to report any to CISA here.

I think this was what triggered reforms in British Columbia legislation about co-ops, and most of the socially-prioritizing directors were either ousted or quit. One hopes they have managed to clean their brown pants since.

Since then, VanCity has been aggressively marketing themselves on the social agenda and not offering much by the way of attractive deals save their non-guaranteed shares. The recent brief "Jumpstart" promotion was a rare exception, and careful choice of products and balances can still make them a good low-fee option for daily banking. I still use them but with limited balances.
RetirEd

*Citizens Bank continues with lending business still owned by VanCity, as I understand the latest news.