Goodbye MAXA Financial, likely effective on or shortly thereafter January 1, 2025 | MAXA Financial | Discussion forum

This thread led me to check my records from MAXA, and I can confirm that no further announcement following the vote to amalgamate has been made to members.

All of my statements show "business as usual" and make no mention of upcoming changes.

Perhaps waiting for an official announcement of MAXA's integration into the new amalgamated entity would be appropriate before disappearing it from the HISA and GIC charts?

I'm not familiar with the Implicity amalgamation, but I do know what happened with Hubert's integration into Access Credit Union. That amalgamation took over a year, with advance notice given months ahead of the much lamented decommissioning of the Hubert web site and its transition to the inferior Access system. There were no surprises in that process.

Another reason that a sudden transition is less likely is the commitment to make the new amalgamation fully bilingual, which was made prior to the vote on integration. I expect that will add time to the amalgamation efforts.

MAXA still offers some very good rates, and even if an extra $5 membership was purchased to take advantage of them, the financial advantage being offered could be material.

I did some math for my investments in 2022 since MAXA has relatively higher fees for cheques and registered investment transfers compared to other FIs tracked on this site. I found that the thousands in higher income over a 5 year GIC more than made up for the extra hundred dollars in fees down the road.

I don't have any skin in this game but based on the posts, I think it is wise to leave things as they are telegraphed accordingly.

I believe that Implicty was moved there as well a few years ago. Gobbled up by Outlook.

doug said

Rail Baron said
Somebody sure seems in a hurry to get MAXA Financial off this site.

I humbly suggest keeping them in place until the integration is actually completed.

Right now, that is proposed to be mid-October of 2026. What's the hurry to boot them now?

Those that are already MAXA Financial members will receive e-mail notifications of GIC promotions. You can count on two hands or less the number of HighInterestSavings.ca users who have current/active MAXA Financial memberships.

A member migration of this nature is very disputive, requiring new membership numbers, new debit cards, new online banking credentials, and the like.

Since the main purpose of this site is for new-to-FI membership sign-ups, there is zero compelling reason for maintaining confirmed "walk of death financial institutions" on the comparison charts.

Anyone that wants to sign up for a Manitoba CU account would be just as well, if not better served by going with Achieva Financial, Outlook Financial, or Hubert Financial.

However, given Outlook is ending support for Me 2 Me Transfers and Hubert EFT transfers are only available via telephone with a CSR, whose hours aren't great for those west of Saskatchewan, I would submit there's really only one viable Manitoba CU now, and that's Achieva Financial (which is also the original one). All others are absolute trash at this point. 🙂  

Hubert Financial is still a strong contender due to their excellent customer service and quarterly one year term GIC paying 3.3 percent. If you need to be liquid, that rate is higher than any HISA besides short term promotion HISAs.

Achieva is a great credit union, but doesn't have that quarterly GIC. A personal redeemable 24 month GIC at Scotiabank for eg. only pays 2.55 percent, so the Hubert quarterly GIC is much higher.

doug said

Quarterly GIC isn't that essential anymore. EQ Bank's Notice Savings Account offers comparable rates to a 1-year quarterly GIC, with less lock-in risk / greater liquidity.   

EQ 30 day notice pays only 2.75 percent and 10 day notice only pays 2.35 percent. So if you have 100K for example that you want to keep liquid, but it turns out you didn't need it for the year, you would earn 550.00 more with Hubert compared to the 30 day notice and 950.00 more compared to the 10 day notice. If you direct deposit your pay into EQ Bank you would earn 2.75 percent and don't even need the notice accounts.

One only earns 2.2 percent on a Scotiabank Series F ISA, and around the same for a Money Market ETF like PSA or CASH , so I think the Hubert quarterly GIC still makes sense if you are trying to maximize your interest rate while keeping funds fairly liquid.

I still use Hubert as my extended emergency fund... l keep about a months worth of expenses liquid in HISAs, and I have about a years worth of expenses in a Hubert quarterly redeemable GIC. I find it comforting that I can redeem it anytime and have the funds in just days, yet still earn interest just below the top earning fixed GIC's (at other FI's) that I have laddered for long term expenses. It uniquely meets this need the best.

What keeps me from investing significantly with Hubert (& other Manitoba CU's) is that they are backed by the DGCM rather than CDIC. If things really went to heck and the DGCM's funds were depleted, there is probably little incentive for the Manitoba government to step in and cover my deposits, since I do not reside (or vote) there.

Welcome to enshittification.