Which bank?
 

We are looking to open up a Canadian bank account, and wondered which bank any of you have found to be the best to bank with, in terms of getting a mortgage, cards etc. Are there any banks to avoid?

Thanks :)

Re: Which bank?
 

[QUOTE=luvmykids]We are looking to open up a Canadian bank account, and wondered which bank any of you have found to be the best to bank with, in terms of getting a mortgage, cards etc. Are there any banks to avoid?

Thanks :)[/QUOTE

We have gone with RBC who have been excellent, including coming up with a mortgage offer at short notice when we were let down by Scotia Bank.

Deborah

Re: Which bank?
 

I've had accounts with the TD forever. They're very expensive and rarely open so I'm gradually moving everything to PC Financial.

Re: Which bank?
 

I have opened a personal account with pcfinancial aswell, but they are possibly not ideal to start with and for initial mortgage, since you need to have SIN etc.

Deborah

Re: Which bank?
 

We started with Scotia because employer had an agreement with them so it was easy to set up an account whilst on temporary work visas.

We found them so irritating and slow and unhelpful though that we've since changed to TD. We have accounts, credit cards and mortgage with them and they are great! Quick helpful service both online and over the counter. And we got the mortgage with them whilst still on temp. visas.

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TD has the longest banking hours of any of the big banks and is open late on Saturday. The PC Financial bank is really the CIBC and they don't have any branches, except for the flunky who works at the grocery store kiosk. You bank with PCF online and by phone. I am not saying they are bad though. They have very low fees and you can earn points for groceries using their mastercard. My wife has a no fee chequing account there which she likes. You can also make deposits and withdrawls from PCF machines on your CIBC accounts.

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Oh, I meant to say I bank with TD too and pay less than $5 per month in fees. To avoid fees we use our credit card and make payments from the credit line and pay the credit line as a transfer from the chequing account. This way we avoid fees, earn ariline points and don't pay any interest.

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Yes. I know. Still their hours are pathetic compared with the hours of the PC bank. Granted the staff of Loblaws don't know much about banking but, really, do you think the staff of the TD know a lot about banking ?

Re: Which bank?
 

As you can see from the previous posts - all vary in input.

What is a definite though is -

If you are living in a small town - from a logistical point - use that local bank.
A definite in case you do work for any company or person who banks at that Bank (does not have to be that specific branch), if the case is that you get paid by cheque, one can cash it there then.

Unlike Banks in the UK, who make one wait while it clears into ones account.

Of course if you are in a big city, the logistics of driving to your branch, might not be an issue for you.

It was an issue for us, for one reason for coming to NB, was to live in a place that was scenic and could only be acquired in the UK for £5,000,000 plus.

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Good post. Our company has relocated employees from other countries. I make a phone call to the bank and smooth the way and there are no problems. One of our people came from south amercia and had an amount of USD to deposit in cash. I had a friendly phone call from the bank who was somewhat interested in what they should do. I dealt with it for them and the money was excepted.

Re: Which bank?
 

I bank with CIBC I think there awesome, there not open very late but who needs to go to the bank now with telephone and internet banking, I only go once a month for a money order. I pay $12 a month for an unlimited account.

I used to bank with TD but found them about as much help as t1ts on a bull. bad customer service, charges for everything and never wanted to help.

Going to CIBC was best move we ever made, even though i only go in once a month they always greet me by my name. very good customer service.

My freind is with PC Financial he says there great too.

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I cannot speak highly enough of ING Direct. Great interest - 3% on a savings account and an excellent web site which is very customer friendly. You do still need an account at a major bank which is used to transfer money into and out of ING. I highly recommend them.

Ozinca

Re: Which bank?
 

We bank with Community Savings - a credit union, always helpful and open when they need to be, no complaints and it's nice to talk to a person when you phone them and see the manager when you want to :D

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CIBC - no charges on current account if balance maintained @>$1500.

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I use a few different banks for diffferent purposes - I find some banks offer good services in x but not so good in y and visa-versa so I spread myself around: TD, BMO, Citizens and Citibank. Increases the junk mail though!

Re: Which bank?
 

The RBC will allow you to open an account from the UK with a deposit of $1500 to use either as a frequent visitor or as a new arrival. Also the HSBC will assist in setting up an account at one of its canadian branches whilst you are still in the uk, open an account here and start putting regular amounts in it or a lump sum if you have it and then contact there international department.

All this information available on the internet and or via email, we are using HSBC as i believe some banks in cananda need you to put on the application your date of arrival which unfortunately we do not know.

decide where you want to be and check out the local banks available to you, think about what you want and wether that bank can provide it,

good luck with your application, use the time wisely and research research and then research some more!!!!!!

Peter ;)

Re: Which bank?
 

I've opened an accaount with HSBC which also enables you to open a £ Sterling account paying around 2.8%. Benefit is you can have your cash in Canada locally ready to quickly transfer. Cash wise you'll lose the difference in interest rates, typically 1.75%.

Useful given the fact that the exchange isn't so good at the mo.

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have just had the HSBC offshore banking people on the phone quite literally 2 mins ago. they have told me if i open an offshore account with them with an opening balance of 5k they will open an account in cananda at a branch of HSBC of my choice. seems a lot to open an account with but as i do not know the merits of having an offshore account i need to research this a bit further. The balance has to be maintained at 5k minimum but it seems like an easy way to open an account, considering you could transfer the money over get them to open the account and do all the work thern use the account balance as towards the proof of landing funds i think this is posible to do, and legal too. I assume that if the offshore account was then closed the money could be transferred straight into your canandian account.

It could also be easier to come back the other way should things not work out or move somewhere else. HSBC can also assist in getting a mortgage out there credit cards etc etc,

i also have the account opening forms for the RBC for although I cannot work out how to attach them to a thread.if you need them drop me a line! :p

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Have found out how to attach stuff to the thread, here is the document i mentioned!

Re: Which bank?
 

God I hate that. Thats not free, its costing you at least 3% interest on $1500. Make your money work for you, not them!

Free is PC Financial. (Although not ideal for newcommers, move over as soon as you can is my advice)

Whats bizarre to me is that PC Financial is a division of CIBC, so if they can do it , and all the UK banks can do it without fees, why do the canadian public let the regular banks get away with this shit. They make more than enough money investing our money or lending it to others while it rests in their accounts :mad:

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South African banks used to have a great deal going.
They would charge you the usual exhorbitant rates for any outstanding balance on your credit cards, but if you had a positive balance on your card, you could get around 10 to 12% interest.
Never known it anywhere else.

BTW, 3% interest on $1500 aint gonna make you rich, Iain!! ;)

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No, but 3% interest on everyone with $1500+ will make the bank rich. Especially as that is on top of the monthly fees for a limited amount of "free" services such as withdrawals, extra fees for interac/debit, fees for seeing a teller, fees for using other machines, fees for cashing cheques...the list goes on.

Canadians are too complacent about this. I wish we would switch en masse to the fee-free banks like PC Financial and ING Direct to make the Big 5 banks change their ways. I used to be with RBC and got sick of their fees, so switched to PC Financial. RBC called me up to try to entice me back by offering a package with more "free" services - still for a monthly fee, of course. What part of "no-fee banking" don't they understand?!

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Its the principal.

Besides, its a case of beer :) :beer: , and as Anya says, its will make the bank rich.

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Free is PC Financial. (Although not ideal for newcomers, move over as soon as you can is my advice)

Iain - Not ideal for "newcomers". Why, pls advise.

Re: Which bank?
 

Hard to get credit or mortgage from them without established canadian credit history. Especially true if on a work permit or otherwise without a "standard" (non 9xx) SIN number, they may not even open an account for you (but its worth trying as I hear here that they are inconsistent about this)

But it may depend who you deal with on any given day...thats the downside to its branch free nature, the assistants at the kiosks are helpfull and knowledgable, but they dont make the decisions, so there is not the same personal connection you might get at a high street bank, where you can talk the manager around, or at least plonk a bunch of money in a GIC as a security deposit on a secured credit card to get you going if need be.

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My other half is a perpetual tourist in Canada. Nonetheless, we have a joint account with PC Financial and she has an account of her own. I don't know if this is policy or luck. We were in Loblaws, someone asked "would you like to open an account?", we had a vague intent to do so and, spurred by the inquiry, opened the joint one and, as part of the same conversation, the personal one. I may have been asked for a SIN but, obviously, my OH was not. We were asked for something showing our address, I remember having to rummage for a bill as my driver's license has the wrong one.

Re: Which bank?
 

On the subject of being asked for things, I am in email correspondence with an insurance broker in Toronto. The UK insurer my UK employers use won't cover me here so I have to make other arrangements. After several emails, I have just been asked to give details of what it is I do at Videotron.ca

My reply was less sarcastic than I would have liked it to be.

Re: Which bank?
 

We also opened a joint account with PC Financial before HB got his PR, SIN number, or any form of Canadian ID. My credit history and SIN number was all they needed, plus some ID from him for which his UK passport was fine. So I suspect that as long as one of you iss traceable, adding anyone else on to the account is no problem.

Re: Which bank?
 

That's interesting, I received the following email from HSBC Canada today

Dear J,

Yes, we do all that. We are the ONLY bank in Canada who would do that. If you are not a client now (why not??!?) then you need a reference letter from your current bank, stating that you have NO late payment on any borrowings, no NSF cheques, that your account is currently up to date, and state when did you open your account with them. Bring it along with your original IDs and have our HSBC staffs download the forms for you and have you fill it out. I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU CALL AHEAD BECAUSE THEY NEED TIME TO LOCATE THE FORMS!!! TRUST ME!!

In fact, I can pre-approve you a mortgage, credit card etc etc and so please feel free to contact me for anything.



Thanks for the RBC forms. PC financial sounds interesting, but it doesn't sound like an initial start off bank, something to swap to for once we've landed.