[Expired] 4-Month HISA 4.50% | Omnia Direct | Discussion forum

I’m thinking of using this promo. Has anyone signed on for it and if so are you happy?

I'm using this promo; I went through WFCU. I chose this promo tentatively viewing it as an open-term 120D GIC as I'm not eligible for other slightly-higher-yielding promos elsewhere at this moment.

The account setup process is rather involved since it is not automated: you have to speak with a customer service representative; I chose to go in for a face-to-face meeting. They get super-high marks for friendliness.

I set up both a 4.5% HISA and a chequing account (to facilitate funding transfers from/to external financial institutions and incidental payments during the 120 days). I have a couple of early observations regarding quirks when funding the 4.5% HISA:

1) Though you can transfer funds to WFCU via their chequing account, you have to call them to have those funds transferred to the 4.5% HISA account: you can certainly set up the transfer on WFCU's online system but it ultimately gives an error and tells you to call them. An WFCU phone agent explained that the reason they have to intervene in the transfer is because they consider the 4.5% HISA to be an investment account and not "a regular savings account". You'd expect that if such a transfer between WFCU accounts was not allowed that the online system would not present it as an option, only to give an error at the last step. Just a quirky inconvenience.

2) This quirk is a bit strange. The WFCU phone agent that assisted in making the transfer from my WFCU chequing to the 4.5% HISA said that they can only do such transfers on the day that money hits the chequing account (and not afterwards); that is, if you deposited money in chequing on a Monday, you'd have to call them to transfer it to the 4.5% HISA on Monday (and not wait until, say, Friday). The agent explained that this was to ensure that only "new money" was transferred to the 4.5% HISA account though I didn't really follow the logic. I can appreciate that the 4.5% HISA promo may have a "new money" condition (which is irrelevant for my case) but having to call in on the same day that a chequing account deposit is made (if you want to transfer to the 4.5% HISA) seems odd; it suggests that they haven't implemented an automated way of identifying "new money". I haven't confirmed this with another agent but it 's easy to comply with if it's compeletely true (and not a miscommunication and/or misunderstanding). To complicate this peculiarity, WFCU's system may not always reliably reflect transfers into WFCU chequing from an externally-linked financial institution. For one such transfer the WFCU system apparently showed the transferred funds already in my WFCU chequing account but the WFCU phone agent discovered that they couldn't actually transfer those funds to my 4.5% HISA account as the funds actually hadn't yet been transferred by the external financial institution; but the agent said they would keep an eye on things and do the transfer as soon as possible. That's very good service but it's unfortunate that such vigilance is necessary to compensate for what appears to be system limitations.

On a final note let me repeat that everyone I've dealt with at WFCU have been extremely personable and patient. None of the quirks noted above have yet adversely affected me but I thought I'd share my experience about bumps in the road with others considering this promo.

Loonie said
This offer has now ended.  

Good to see your posting here, Loonie. You have been missed for a while. Hope all is well.

Loonie said
This offer has now ended.  

Good to see you back. Was concerned you might have retired to Tahiti with no internet!

Hope you're well.

Stephen