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Interest rate dropped: Advantage Account
July 27, 2019
5:50 am
Loonie
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I think the title of this thread is confusing.
If the point is to discuss the change in the rate of the previous offer, then it should specify and provide a link to the previous thread.

However, what ManuLife is offering now, which MapleOne's link (#12 above) clarifies if you follow through its links, is different $ terms, on the same model as the previous ones, with a starting rate of 2.85%. this new arrangement goes from July 26 to Sept 10 and is good for 5 months but completely subject to change in rates.

It seems to me that the rate promise is a joke. In reality, it's a variable rate just like any other savings account, and they will change it whenever it suits them - just like any other FI.

The T & C of this new "offer" are here:
https://repsourcepublic.manulife.com/wps/wcm/connect/2553e7d7-d371-443e-aaa4-60ef697cff8b/bnk_adv_dgbaug2019offerterms.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=ROOTWORKSPACE-2553e7d7-d371-443e-aaa4-60ef697cff8b-mMBrpH8
but they are next to useless as ManuLife has not committed itself to anything except offering a savings account. This reads, in part, "All rates are as at July 26, 2019 and subject to change without notice." ALL would include both the base rate and the Promotional part.

I am unclear whether the people who took the previous offer (which expired July 15 and started at 3.25 or 3.35 and dropped to 3.0 or 3.1) are also being demoted to 2.85%, but, if I had one of these accounts, then I would continue to monitor it frequently and would expect the rate to fall again.

A couple of years ago, some credible members of this forum were hurrying as fast as they could to dump ManuLife and their ManuLife advisors.
I predict that those of you have this savings account, especially with large sums, will soon be courted by ManuLife agents. Be careful! It's not really your savings account that they want. They want to manage all your money. This offer is a marketing and recruitment campaign.
The tactics at play now are consistent with why so many people were so anxious to get rid of ManuLife earlier. Some of you will remember kanaka, among others, in this regard.

July 27, 2019
5:58 am
hwyc
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According to the original Offer text, the "Promotional Interest" is to be calculated daily and paid monthly beginning on the date of application. There will soon be evidence if the "Promotional rate" is increased to make up the "Regular Rate" dropped, or not.

... no need to wait till the end like the other FI

July 27, 2019
7:40 am
Norman1
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So far, the evidence is that the bonus portion, the "Promotional Rate" of 1.60% in the current offer Loonie referenced and 1.85% in the previous offer, won't change.

So, the drop in Regular Rate from 1.50% to 1.25% will result in a ¼% drop in return.

It is essentially a regular+1.6% or regular+1.85% offer and not a fixed rate offer.

I think Rogers had a similar fiasco many years ago. Rogers was offering a fixed discount contract. But, their sloppy agents pushed it as a fixed price contract. Customers were quite upset next year when their monthly charges increased on their multi-year "fixed price" contract when Rogers increased the regular prices!

July 27, 2019
4:42 pm
Loonie
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Norman, how can you say that any portion of these rates won't change? It says very clearly that ALL rates are subject to change.

We've been Rogers customers for years and have never actually seen a contract, even if we ask for it.
That's not the only fiasco that we had at Rogers. Remember "negative billing", at least I think that's what it was called, where they would charge you for things you didn't agree to? The joker who was in charge of Rogers at that time is now the mayor of Toronto and continues his sleight of hand, telling us he's not increasing taxes while putting in fees all over the place and reducing services. I'd rather pay the taxes.
Not that Bell is any better.

July 27, 2019
5:11 pm
Norman1
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It says "All rates … subject to change without notice." My thought is that there would be no notice necessary of any rate changes. It doesn't seem to mean all of the rates could change.

The latest 2.85% offer (for group benefits members) also does not apply to Advantage Accounts opened before July 26:

Manulife Bank’s 2.85% Personal Advantage Account Interest Offer (the “Offer”) is available to Manulife Bank Advantage Account clients (“Eligible Account Owner(s)”) who open a new personal non-registered Canadian-dollar Advantage Account (“Eligible Account”) between July 26, 2019 and September 10, 2019 (the “Offer Period”) using an exclusive URL or applying through an authorized Manulife Bank representative.

July 27, 2019
6:34 pm
Loonie
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I can't agree with your interpretation. If they'd wanted to say a certain rate could change and not another, then they could have said so.
The "without notice" part has to refer to the first part of the sentence.
Grammatical parsing may not be a favoured activity these days, but in my day the part after the verb was called the "subjective completion", which is to say it completed the subject, i.e. "rates", modified by "all".
Whether they in fact make such changes is aniother matter.

July 27, 2019
8:53 pm
Inxses
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I closed my manulife and simplii accounts and came pretty close to closing my tangerine accounts because of these types of 'incentives'. For the potential of a few more dollars it's not worth it to try to figure out whether or not you're going to be paid what their latest offers are. They have a mandate and to try to interpret it just isn't worth the effort.

July 28, 2019
5:31 am
for interest sake
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Since the promotional rate has an end date, I expected it to be a fixed amount which would remain in effect until then. It hasn't.

July 28, 2019
8:19 am
Norman1
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for interest sake said
Since the promotional rate has an end date, I expected it to be a fixed amount which would remain in effect until then. It hasn't.

The terms of the two June 18 offers say the net "Promotional Interest" of 3.25% or 3.35% will change should the "Regular Rate" on the Advantage Account change. A specific example is mentioned to illustrate that:

Manulife Bank’s 3.25% Advantage Account Promotional Offer, which is currently 3.25% (“Promotional Interest”) is made up of the regular posted variable annual interest rate of 1.50% (“Regular Rate”) and the variable annual promotional rate of 1.75% (“Promotional Rate”). Any change to the Regular Rate will result in a corresponding change to the Promotional Interest. For example, if the Regular Rate of 1.50% were to decrease to 1.40% the Promotional Interest would decrease to 3.15%. …

Manulife Bank’s 3.35% Personal Advantage Account Interest Offer, which is currently 3.35% (“Promotional Interest”) is made up of the regular posted variable annual interest rate of 1.50% (“Regular Rate”) and the variable annual promotional rate of 1.85% (“Promotional Rate”). Any change to the Regular Rate will result in a corresponding change to the Promotional Interest. For example, if the Regular Rate of 1.50% were to decrease to 1.40% the Promotional Interest would decrease to 3.25%. …

What is fixed is the "Promotional Rate" of 1.75% or 1.85%. That is consistent with what Canadianbull reported:

Canadianbull said

When I open my account below rates were showing..

Interest rate 1.500%
Promotional rate 1.850%

Today below rates are showing

Interest rate 1.250%
Promotional rate 1.850%

July 28, 2019
6:10 pm
Norman1
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Loonie said
I can't agree with your interpretation. If they'd wanted to say a certain rate could change and not another, then they could have said so.

I agree: Manulife Bank could have said something to that effect.

However, if Manulife Bank did intend to change the "Promotional Rate" arbitrarily during the offer period and not to offset a change in the "Regular Rate", then there really is no offer. I don't think that was their intention.

I think they intended to offer a fixed top up to the "Regular Rate" and they didn't quite capture that in their wording.

Same with this in the previous paragraph:

… Manulife Bank also reserves the right to, without prior notice, cancel this Offer and/or modify or vary these terms and conditions, in whole or in part, at any time if the offer becomes commercially unviable or for any other reason at its absolute discretion. …

Did they really mean any of the terms? Perhaps, they just meant the end of the "Offer Period" (September 10), to stop further new accounts from qualifying in case their budget for the offer was exceeded.

July 28, 2019
8:32 pm
Loonie
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I think you're being too kind to ManuLife, Norman.
These things are written by lawyers. The intention is to give ManuLife lots of wiggle room to do whatever they want. Otherwise, they would have been more specific, which lawyers are eminently capable of doing. This set of T & C is one of the worst we have seen in that regard, as has been previously noted.
Whether they use this freedom is another issue, but I think the language is clear as to the potential.
I think this is not a promotional offer in the way that many have been. It's a variable rate offer. The only thing that makes it a promo is that the rate is likely to remain higher than the "regular" rate because it is composed of two rates added together.

Look at it this way.. IF ManuLife decided to lower both rates and you as customer challenged this on the basis of these T & C, you would likely lose if it went to court because of the wording which permits it. ManuLife's lawyer would be eager to point this out, and what judge could disagree?

July 29, 2019
10:17 am
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They lowered the interest rate after the Bank of Canada came out on Thursday.

Checked on Friday July 26,19 still was showing 1.50% plus bonus of 1.75%.

Now it is showing 1.25% regular rate and bonus of 1.75% total is 3.00%

They picked up a lot of deposits the past few months also.

Nothing is guaranteed unless you take a term deposit.

Keep the account because my promotion runs tell November 21,19.Then will see what happens.

July 29, 2019
10:20 am
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If a customer does not like what a institution does they always have the option of closing the account.

3% is still better then most .And similar to other promotions.

Tangerine gave me a 2.75% offer.

July 30, 2019
6:33 am
savemoresaveoften
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The "total" interest rate is NEVER guaranteed for the high interest savings account at any bank or CU. They are all "subject to change and without notice". For those that thinks it should be "communicated", does your big 5 banks ever communicate a rate drop on your savings acct to u...
If anything, a 25bps drop is quite acceptable as they are still the highest rate payer for a non-locked in account. I believe since they are now saturated and cant lower max amount to less than 100k, lowering the rate is the next natural step.
If one wants a guaranteed rate, GICs are for that purpose. You gain on the certainty on rates received, at the expense of losing your flexibility. Gain some, lose some...

July 30, 2019
8:15 am
smayer97
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Not entirely true. There have been offers from other banks when rate was guaranteed even if underlying rate changed, but not lately.

July 30, 2019
10:03 am
Nehpets
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savemoresaveoften said
The "total" interest rate is NEVER guaranteed for the high interest savings account at any bank or CU.   

Promo by DUCA guarantees the rate until January 2020, as they have done in previous promos to my recollection. Meridian has done the same, though they have downgraded the rate for new applicants only after a certain date.

It seems CU's may have a bit more integrity in this regard than banks.

Anyone who read the terms of Manulife would have seen right through their thinly veiled promo rate.

Stephen

July 30, 2019
1:14 pm
Loonie
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So far so good with DUCA. I am on my second promo with them .

However, Meridian really did lower the rate last winter. We had closed our two single accounts in favour of a joint one to reduce account clutter since they are no use as savings accounts anyway. Our staff member at Meridian said we would get the bonus rate for a new account on the joint account for X months, which we hadn't realized we'd get. At the time, it was 3.15, and we did get that rate for a while. However, before the X months were up, it had been quietly reduced to 3.05. Those are the numbers I recall. I may have slightly mis-remembered but the rate did drop during the period in question.

When giving themselves permission to change rates during a promo, some FIs put it in terms of "unforeseen circumstances" etc. I find that language more acceptable and decent. ManuLife just gives themselves carte blanche. They don't need a reason. A whim will do. Such arrogance does not speak well for them.

July 30, 2019
2:59 pm
rk
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Loonie said
...However, Meridian really did lower the rate last winter...  

I can confirm that. I and my wife opened separate accounts with Meridian and got a promotional rate of 3.25% for 4 months. One or two months in, they lowered it by .1%. Another month and they lowered it another .1%, so we ended up getting 3.05% for the remainder of the promotion, instead of the 3.25% for which we had signed up. After 3 months we decided to transfer the money out. Because they were TFSA accounts, paperwork needed to be involved. Although everything was perfectly fine with the paperwork, it took about 5 weeks until my wife's funds were transferred out. My transfer out went better, at under 2 weeks.

August 1, 2019
12:40 am
Canadianbull
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Received 2 separate deposits

Average 3.25%

SmartSelect_20190801-013722_Chrome.jpg

August 1, 2019
7:19 am
Doug
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Canadianbull said
Received 2 separate deposits

Average 3.25%

SmartSelect_20190801-013722_Chrome.jpg  

Nice to see that they pay the bonus interest on the same day rather than next day (in contrast to others, including Tangerine). I wonder if Simplii Financial pays bonus interest the same day as regular interest (like Manulife Bank) or next day (like Tangerine et al.)? 😉

Cheers,
Doug

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