Hi,

I am moving to Canada in the new year on an IEC visa.

I just want to know what Banks are better than others, what schemes some may run and affordability of each.

Is there a Canadian Bank comparison website/tool around ?

Thanks

Have you spotted and read this in the BE wiki section? Seems to address your question.

Banking-Canada : British Expat Wiki

Brilliant. Thanks

https://www.ratesupermarket.ca/

Don't use HSBC. It may be the 7th largest bank in the world but in Canada that don't mean sheet.

We switched to Tangerine last year and have never been happier. Had I done that in 2007 I could have saved myself $1,200 in fees over the 10 years I banked with HSBC Canada.

If you have not moved to Canada yet, I would suggest opening an account with https://revolut.com/ a new FinTech company in the UK. You will be able to transfer money from £ to Can$ at the official Bank rate with no charges. I have just opened a REVOLUT account online and will check the services out when we are on our reccy visit to Ontario in September.

If you just want standard stuff, try President's Choice.

Free banking AND interest.

Just got my daughter an account with them. I'm still with Scotiabank.

It is possible to get 'free' banking from the 'High Street' banks, but often it involves having a sizeable balance in your current account that does not earn interest (in the case of my TD Trust account, $5,000).

Go to the local Credit Union, comrade.

+1 for Tangerine and/or PC Financial.

I agree about HSBC. We just closed our Canadian accounts with them. They made too many mistakes and we dealt with so much incompetance.

Just opening an account with PC - offer the same interest rate as my RBC 'high interest' (LOL) saving account, with no fee.

Don't bother with EQ savings account - best rate, but they demand an invasive amount of info, and then say fulfilling their demands doesn't meet their requirements, so you can't lend them your money until you have extra docs in at least a year.

Alterna @ 1.9% was easy to open.

I joined PC financial when I first moved over, the free banking appealed to me as was pretty shocked how expensive bank fees are in Canada. And I was shocked when I moved to Oz, banks charged fees compared to the UK.

One downside I found with PCF, if you do not have Canadian ID in my case they wanted a drivers license I was only allowed to open the chequing account, and no savings account.

Plus side, if you use No Frills, Lowlaws, Canadian Superstore and join there points scheme. When you pay for the transaction with you debit card, you gain extra points.

A little down the line, I had to get a money order for the rental property. Free banking means you pay extra for anything else.

A colleague at work, with TD trust said he would do it as he gets them free with a number of other things. I also joined TD trust, newcomers package not long after that. Got access to cheque, savings and CC albeit, secured and stupidly low limit.

I use Alterna for my TFSA - no problems so far and best savings rate you can get without investing in something like Capital Direct's funds, which could be risky...