2.5% for 9 months with pension direct deposit plus $100 one time bonus | Tangerine Bank | Discussion forum

hwyc said
Now I see the $200 per month deposit threshold! It's much lower than the other one I know of.  

hwyc:

As it turns out the interest rate is no longer competitive 2.50% versus 3.00%. The maximum balance of $25k was always pretty lame. The low de minimis amount of $200 was much better than other players. I am still miffed at EQ Bank as they originally had an exception to their $1,500/month de minimis rule. Then, after a few months they changed their mind and said it was too much work to administer the exceptions (demonstration that you were depositing the entire entitlement of your government payment) and instead of grandfathering existing exceptions they morally breached (I suspect legally they had the ability to do so) the contract and terminated my interest rate promotion.

So, now I have little to do with EQ Bank, and little motivation to ever do anything with them again. I do maintain accounts there as they have higher than average Interac limits and it is relatively easy to fund from linked accounts. Sometimes having multiple large Interac limits allows movements of significant cash in short order. So, I have the ability with one fintech and other FIs of daily moving $25K, $12K $5K, $4K, $3K, $3K. One obviously needs some advance notice to fund these accounts, but this is the only reason I maintain accounts at EQ Bank. I have used this functionality probably 3 or 4 times in the last year. So, it is more than hypothetical benefit to me.

I even changed my direct deposit from EQ to Tangerine and once the Tang promo pays out, I suspect I will make a more permanent change to my direct deposit instructions (which will not involve EQ). For context, I have have the same direct deposit instructions at the CRA for as long as I can remember. I need an incentive to change such instructions. EQ Bank was the first example of this. I jumped through more hoops to get the Alberta Energy Rebate than I did to change my direct deposit instructions from EQ Bank to Tangerine.

I think that Manulife has finally figured out that many customers want a longer term promotional offer with an above average interest rate and clarity of CDIC insurance (no games like Wealthsimple). Thus, even though I could be acquiring many lottery tickets at Wealthsimple right now, all of my surplus cash is parked at Manulife (a reward for their promo offer duration and no interest rate tiers and a decent back office).

I did receive my CPP payment early this morning at Tang. A day earlier than the Government of Canada represents as the payment date (3rd last business day of the month, except for December). I have already redeployed this payment to Manulife.

This recent (many years now) of short term promotional interest rate offers has altered my view of cash management. I have consciously decided to go up the risk curve to park my surplus cash in bonds/debentures of a short term nature (up to 4 years) and based upon some forum members on this site also used brokerage HISAs and some short term bond ETFs. This has the effect of reducing how much cash I have available for bank/fintech HISAs. I have enough short term investments that have pregnant capital gains that I have more economic security to go up the risk curve. Due to the short term nature, barring a negative credit event, the worst case is that they will revert to their face amount at maturity. In my case this reduction has been significant. I no longer am willing to park 6 figure sums in bank/fintech HISAs for prolonged periods. If I have surplus cash from a brokerage event, then I will now consider short term parking at Manulife, given the visibility and then take a little more time to redeploy the assets within the brokerage universe. If I was more disciplined I should have Plan B and Plan C already in my head and avoid this intermediary step.