Oaken Vancouver | Oaken Financial | Discussion forum

You can do everything at the Oaken office in Toronto, so I'm sure you can do the same in Van. Staff are courteous, efficient, well-informed in my experience - and can even do some calculations in their heads, a rare feat these days!

When you take out a GIC, they give you the option of having it roll over at maturity or of the money being returned to the bank on which it was drawn. Then they actually follow the instructions! I'm sure you could change your mind at any point. The last time I had one mature, I had opted for it to be sent back to the originating bank. It arrived a few days before it had officially matured, with all the interest intact. When I remarked on this, they said they send them out two weeks before maturity.
Most FIs do auto-rollovers and conveniently (for them) don't tell you this.

I am also concerned about the need for a savings account option, but have come to slightly different conclusions than kanaka.
I would just stick with Oaken. Their customer service is far superior to Peoples Trust and inspires more confidence. Neither Oaken nor Peoples charge transfer-out fees (at least not yet), which gives you more flexibility than most. And I am more comfortable with the fact that Oaken is a publicly traded company (Home Capital Group) and therefore more can be known about it than Peoples Trust which is privately held, primarily by the Edmonton family which also owns the West Edmonton Mall, Mall of America etc.
If your parents are the least bit suspicious of the new breed of banks, they will find Oaken more reassuring. If the GICs are to be in a TFSA, the best time to buy them is in late December, if at Oaken. Then, when they mature, they could simply be cashed and then reinvested the following January without penalty in whatever they felt was the best arrangement at that time. They could also choose the slightly lower rate for regular payouts to be part of their income plan if they want.

I am not arguing with kanaka, just have a different opinion.
I don't think Oaken has any black eyes. I am aware of the issues that have been raised about some of their dealings but don't think they are significant overall. There is another thread about that if anyone wants to look into it.

It's up to the individual whether the ownership of a financial institution matters to them. It probably matters to a minority of people, but it matters to me.

Yes, I agree that it appears that Oaken does not want to permit additional withdrawals from RIFs. I am not sure if you can set it at a higher rate when you take out the GIC, but some GICs will straddle RSP and RIF and there could be a problem there. I suppose, if they don't allow you to specify the amount. I also don't know what other FIs do about this as I've not had to deal with it yet

However, with regards to moneys needed to top up tax brackets etc., I think the only solution is to plan ahead and figure out how much you are likely to need each year, more or less, and make sure you have that available annually in an RIF/RSP savings account. This may mean that you need to transfer a portion from each maturing GIC and put it in a registered savings account elsewhere. For that, I recommend Alterna Bank as it offers the highest rate at 1.95%. However, Alterna Bank is not available in bricks and mortar in BC yet, and neither PT nor Oaken offer it, so someone who doesn't do online banking may need to keep that in a conventional bank at next to zero interest.

Sorry to hear you had a negative phone call with Oaken, kanaka. I have not yet had a bad experience either on phone or in person (2 visits, multiple GICs). In fact, they seemed much more on the ball than the rest. I may not like their policy of not wanting to release extra RIF money, but that's their policy and it won't be a surprise. With PT, I had to beg them for a successor beneficiary form, which was very amateurish. And then there was their security breach, from which I am still suffering. They seem amateurish to me, but not as bad as Luminus.

It looks to me like Oaken intends to continue to try to offer some of the best available rates. They have been fairly consistent on this and have not instituted transfer fees. On the other side, they don't normally bargain for rates. What you see is what you get. I think registered savings accounts don't fit into their thinking at this time because they don't need or want them. They want to know how much money they've got to play with and not have to worry about it departing unexpectedly. This stability may make it possible for them to offer better interest rates to savers more consistently. This may give them a more solid footing than those institutions (and we all know who they are!) that are constantly playing with rates and seeing large amounts of money come and go.
In short, I like the way Oaken is running their business. Offering the same products at the same rates under two labels is brilliant - I don't think any other FI does this. I have no problem with going to the CDIC limit with both of them, but have not done it yet for other reasons. I don't necessarily find every policy the best one for me, but I know what I'm dealing with.