fellow Canadians: which bank do you use and why?
Posted Sep 1, 2011, 7:55 PM UTC
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BMO. They had a really good airmiles incentive when I first registered, (and it was free as a unviersity student) other than cheques if I ever have to order them, it's free for me now because I keep $2,000 in my chequing account at all times. (otherwise it's $8.50/month)
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I use ING for savings. For my bricks & mortar banking, I use a CIBC line of credit as a chequing account so there are no fees. I just make sure to always keep my balance above zero. Free cheques (with the fancy duplicates included), no overdraft fees and low interest rate (if I do go below zero). My SO uses PC financial.
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what is bricks and mortar banking?
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banking at an actual physical location, instead of online. for things like bank drafts/certified cheques/depositing change that you need to do in person with a teller.
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I use TD and PC Financial.
TD Select Service account (It's free when I keep $5000 in it).
- Free cheques, bank drafts, credit card annual fee waived. Doesn't charge extra for non-TD atms. Branches are everywhere.
- The opportunity cost for keep $5000 in my account is about $100/year (if I would have invested it in a 2% account). Given that the $120 annual fee is waived for my credit card, and I use $20-$30 worth of bank drafts per year, this is worth it for me.
TD First Class Travel:
- 1.5% travel cash back on everything, 4.5% cashback on travel booked on the site, free insurance perks.
- I travel for work and expense about $40-$50k annually on this card every year.
- I travel enough that I don't have problems claiming the money (I called them yesterday and had $1900 credited to my account after they glanced at my statement and saw all the eligible travel. No problem.
- I've used baggage delay insurance and got credited over $200 before.
- The only thing that sucks is that you need to book travel on the site 24 hours ahead of time or else call them during business hours. I end up booking travel at the last minute a lot, so I need to use other sites and only get 1.5% back.
TD Investments:
- I use TD e-series index funds to max out my TFSA, especially since savings accounts have such shitty interest. The MER on these is 0.52% or less.
PC Financial:
- I have a high interest account that I keep money in and never look at.
I am looking into getting the MBNA Smart Cash card for the 3% back on gas + groceries.
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Savings: ING
Credit Card: PC
Bank: currently BMO (the free student thing) although I may switch. I have horrible bank loyalty and switch it up every couple of years.
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We switched to Scotiabank after having a falling out with the Royal Bank. When we sold our 2nd home and bought our 3rd house we needed bridge financing because the closing date of our purchase was about 2 weeks before the closing date of our sale. After being a RB customer for over 15 years they refused to give us bridge financing even though I had qualified for the full mortgage amount if the sale fell through. After vising Scotiabank they just gave us a larger open mortgage and then we paid it down after two weeks and switched it to a closed mortgage. It was no big deal to them. We have been using Scotiabank for about 15 years now and they have been great.
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Pc financial. 'cos it's free!
This, and the mastercard lets you get free groceries, which pretty much rules.
PC Financial for sure. Went from paying $250+/year in service charges to zero! I still keep my old account with a minimal amount of money in case I need services of a brick and mortar bank (like for a bank draft or something). Changed the account to one that has one free transaction a month, so I pay nothing for that either.
ING Direct also has free chequing accounts in Canada now, but I can't vouch for those.
Free + no min. balance like most other banks!