Gift from Oaken | Page 3 | Oaken Financial | Discussion forum

rodeworthy said
Quote:
The last few postings have nothing to do with the topic of this thread "Gift from Oaken". 

Fair enough, and I am very appreciative of the nice touch of the gift of very fine chocolate and it was an unexpected surprise to receive a gift card for coffee on my birthday. I also appreciate the very polite and helpful people I have dealt with at Oaken and I have been appreciative of the fact they have been a leader in rates during my time with them. I was pleased to place our RIF and unregistered funds with them in a series of GICs. I looked forward to a long relationship with them.

Despite the candy and respectful treatment described above I am disappointed to say we are going to have to take our registered funds elsewhere. What I have gone through in the last week trying to get documented information and transparency during an attempt to have our 2018 mandatory minimum RIF payouts brought forward is enough to overcome the goodwill that Oaken has built.

This is the place to discuss gifts and things so I will not elaborate here. I will consider the possibility of posting details on a new thread but for now I will simply say that the negativity that has arisen could have been avoided entirely if Oaken had cash savings accounts associated with our RIF accounts. Others have advocated for this and my experience has hammered that concept home for me.

I have no problem with the unregistered funds placed with Oaken and intend to keep and possibly increase my investments in this area to replace the RIF investments that will be removed. So I look forward to more fine chocolate in our future. MMmmmm.....  

I liked your tongue in cheek reference to getting off topic 🙂 I think you and Loonie are in agreement that it's very hard to have a RRIF with an institution that doesn't also have HISA RRIFs that you can park money in temporarily as you decide when to withdraw your money. It doesn't mean Oaken isn't great for younger investors. I don't have any accounts with them but my son does, and he likes dealing with Oaken.

Briguy said

That's a good point, but the wording of "extreme" financial hardship means they are very unlikely to cash for you. I'm not sure if other institutions would be as sticky. There are a couple of institutions who give good interest rates for cashable GICs:

Hubert 1 yr GIC is cashable on a quarterly basis and pays 3.1 % .
Outlook Financial GIC's are cashable and pay 2.85% on a 1 yr GIC, but any portion you withdraw early only earns 1% from date of deposit.

Other financial institution will be just as strict on their regular non-cashable GIC's. That is part of the GIC agreement, that the issuer doesn't need to pay back the principal until maturity.

Oaken does offer cashable one-year GIC's. The cashability comes at a price. The one-year, cashable after 90 days, GIC is 2.30%. The regular one-year GIC is 3.10%.

As Loonie mentioned, death is not a general justification to end an agreement unless the agreement provides for it. For example, if someone purchases some CIBC Capital Trust 10¼% Tier 1 Notes, that mature June 30, 2108, there is no obligation for the issuer to redeem them should the purchaser pass way in the next 89 years.