Why is DUCA GIC rate not in the GIC chart? | GIC discussions | Discussion forum

I can appreciate your western perspective, Doug. But your logic suggests that every FI that doesn't serve QC should be excluded I don't agree with that, and I don't imagine you do either.

It seems to me, we all have "short lists" of FIs we are willing to deal with. Our criteria differ. Some FIs exclude themselves from our personal list on the basis of geography (they don't serve us or maybe we don't feel confident about the economy of that province). Others are excluded for poor rates, bad service, etc etc.

To be honest, I find the GIC chart next to useless. I rarely look at it.
The main problem is that it's not comprehensive. It doesn't include all the rates that are relevant to me. This could include odd-month rates, promos, rates only available in Ontario, etc. It effectively excludes most of the best rates. that I can access. Yes, I know the promos can be found but not in the format I want. Yes, the info can be found somewhere on the Forum, but it's not always easy to find. I want them all lined up together in order for it to be useful to me.

I keep my own lists, both a longer one which includes all the rates which could conceivably be relevant; and another short list which includes all the ones I consider "hot".
It requires a fair bit of maintenance. Peter may not want to do that kind of maintenance or may find it unmanageable. As far as I know, there is no site that provides what I really need.

Anyway, I would certainly argue for including GICs from places like DUCA. If Hubert can have an indicator of "N/A QC", then surely DUCA can have one that says "ON only".

One's perspective probably depends on where one lives.

The problem is, it's the outliers that we are typically very interested in!!

I find myself looking at the GIC chart all the time.

It is a valuable comparison tool and I am very, very grateful to Peter for creating it.

Including every last little podunk CU from across the country on the chart probably isn't very realistic (unfortunately) from a time and accuracy standpoint.

I do wish the PROMOS page was more prominent though. I forget it is there sometimes and miss out on the occasional deal.

Koogie said
Including every last little podunk CU from across the country on the chart probably isn't very realistic (unfortunately) from a time and accuracy standpoint.

I agree with you that the GIC chart is very time consuming to reasonably and reliably update with including so many FIs in it, but it's appreciated (and Peter is appreciated for his efforts) in the limited form that exists. 🙂

On the "promos," page, Peter, I see you've now started including a prior year promos page. Is this necessary!? Most of these promo pages have been deleted; all that exists is the forum thread, which is easily searchable via Google Custom Search located on this message board. It just adds to the webpage clutter. I recommend keeping the current, non-expired promos (I like that you've added some sub-headings) and possibly keeping the current year expired promos and an expired promos page from the immediately preceding calendar year. All other expired promo links should be deleted.

Cheers,
Doug

JenE said
gicjunkie - your posts always have value and good common sense.  

Agreed, especially that last point gicjunkie made. It's something I've tried to say as well, many times, but he/she has done so very concisely.

Unless you need the funds within a few months, you should instead look to put your funds into a GIC ladder of some type.

Cheers,
Doug

davidgeorge said
For Tandia, do we have to go to a branch to open an account? Can we do all fund transfers online?  

I had to. Wasn't so bad. A pretty efficient CU with decent customer service.

I bought ours back in January... can't imagine that special will last to much longer.

I have no problem with adding province-specific credit union promos to the "promos" page, but we should continue to apply the same HISA inclusion criteria to the "GIC chart." We should, however, create a footnote on the "promos" page indicating that Ontario residency is required to establish a membership with that specific credit union.

One thing I intend to ask DUCA about is why they apparently added an Ontario residency requirement to open a HISA account but if you click on "join now" on their GIC page, they don't specify that requirement? It's bizarre. Ontario CU legislation allows them to solicit new out of province members - they just can't operate bricks & mortar branches outside of Ontario.

Cheers,
Doug