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Email this7:40 pm
December 12, 2009
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Thanks to msl, Andrew and Donny for their input. msl, indeed that's what I was told (I believe his name was Lawrence, but not positive) in regards to a "deposit inquiry" being performed. I hadn't heard that terminology yet hence my confusion.
I think Donny's answer may be definitive on the subject, that CDF was not indeed lying to us when they said they do a "soft deposit inquiry". Sounds like a "soft check" is performed, not a "hard" one but curious to know the status of the Equifax report. Do share with us!
Andrew, from the sounds of it, CIBC's CreditSmart alert service does notify you of both "soft" and "hard" hits, if msl and Donny's information is to be believed (and I have no reason to doubt them).
msl, did you use one of your new PCF cheques to open the CDF account?
Cheers,
Doug
10:11 am
September 11, 2010
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UPDATE!:
I finally got my Equifax report straightened out (what a PITA that was, 1 phone call yesterday and 2 today spending over 90 minutes in total on hold to overseas call centres). But anyway, the interesting thing to note is that CDF DOES show up as a hard credit inquiry. I'm not sure why that discrepancy exists between it and TransUnion's report...but there you have it, folks.
Just thought I'd throw in that I also used my PCF cheque to open the account with CDF...I've been a customer with PCF for over a decade, and it's a fantastic product for my needs. I used to have all my regular savings, TFSA and RRSP with them...but unfortunately the rates just haven't been up to par in the past 2 years, hence the move to CDF. I'm looking forward to continuing business with CDF, though I'm planning on just parking the money and leaving it there for the next little while so I imagine it should be fairly hassle-free from here on.
I still have my RRSP with PCF but I need to decide if I want to take the riskier self-directed route, or if I also want to move it to CDF's RRSP GIC with a laddered strategy. Problem is, I don't know if I want to tie it up for that long if I decide to buy a house or go back to school in the next 5 years...my employment/location is a bit up in the air right now.
I also have the majority of my non-registered savings with Ally since May 2010 and have no complaints so far, but I'll save that for the Ally section of the forum.
Well, enough of my personal finance babble...hope the info on CDF helps!
Edit: also a question to anyone else who has obtained a report from either/both, is any of your banking (savings, chequing account) information listed there? Mine shows up as completely blank, even though I have active accounts with PCF, CDF and Ally as I mentioned above. Or does that section of the report only list occurrences of cheques bouncing or NSF, etc.? If that's the case, I guess no news is good news. Hmmm...
10:41 pm
hi doug! yes, i used my PCF checks to open my CDF account.
4:13 pm
hi donny:
to answer your question,
..."a question to anyone else who has obtained a report from either/both, is any of your banking (savings, chequing account) information listed there? Mine shows up as completely blank, even though I have active accounts with PCF, CDF and Ally as I mentioned above. Or does that section of the report only list occurrences of cheques bouncing or NSF, etc.?..."
i just got my [the free version] credit report from Equifax.
and my answer is NOPE. it is not there.
however, these are the companies that had made credit inquiries on my file:
(latest first)
-ING Bank of Canada (when i opened my thrive checking account for sure)
-Bell Mobilicity (crap, even my mobile phone company checked mine)
-CDF (when i opened an account with them for sure)
-PCF (same)
-Vancity (same)
-Scotiabank (same)
-Coast Capital (same)
--- and some more banks .... and that's the end.
whether those inquiries are HARD or SOFT, i dont know.
5:39 pm
All banks, including Canadian Direct, or any other virtual financial institution will run a credit check prior to opening a new account...any institution that says they don't is misleading. Always look in their account opening terms and conditions.
5:44 pm
December 12, 2009
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It's a question of them being "hard" or "soft", though.
msl, on your TransUnion report (since I find it easier to read), do they show as "credit-related inquiries" (hard) or "non-credit related inquiries" (soft)? Certain types of companies like landlords, property managers, prepaid cellphones and some financial institutions offering basic savings and chequing accounts will often do so-called "soft" inquiries while others (i.e., any of the "Big Five", HSBC, National Bank, most credit unions, postpaid cellphones and any credit-granting institution) will do so-called "hard" inquiries. "Soft" inquiries supposedly have no impact on your credit and beacon score while "hard" ones do, but it's generally no more than a few points so long as you don't do more than two or three every six months and the score does bounce back fairly quickly, apparently.
Donny, your bank accounts generally won't show on your credit report, unless you have/had a line of credit or overdraft facility attached to it. However, if it's within the last three years since you opened the accounts or you've have had less than five "hard" inquiries in the last three years, they will show under one of the two aforementioned sections.
Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Doug
7:22 pm
hi Doug, the only credit report i have so far is from Equifax and the report did not state "credit-related inquiries" or "non-credit related inquiries" it basically lists all the companies that made an inquiry on my file. anyway, im gonna try Transunion also and check it out since you said, you find TransUnion report easier to read.
4:27 pm
December 12, 2009
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I believe on Equifax's report, so-called "hard" inquires will show up under "credit inquiries on your file" whereas "soft" inquires show up under the same section but below the "hard" hits under a subsection with the following verbage:
"The following inquiries are for your information only and are not displayed to others. They include requests from authorized parties to update their records regarding your existing account with them."
(Source: http://www.fcac.gc.ca/eng/publ.....rt-eng.asp)
Hope that clarifies,
Doug
7:17 pm
December 12, 2009
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No problem, msl.
How do your inquiries show up, msl?
Cheers,
Doug
6:38 pm
oh well, here is my report.
all of them made a "hard" credit inquiry basing it on the criteria:
"credit inquiries on your file" via equifax and supported by
Doug's weblink http://www.fcac.gc.ca/eng/publ.....rt-eng.asp
-ING
-BELL MOBILICITY
-CDN DIRECT FINANCIAL
-PC FINANCIAL
-VANCITY SAVINGS
-SCOTIABANK
-COAST CAPITAL
-PRESIDENTS CHOICE MASTERCARD
the only soft inquiries are the following:
-ME! (when i called for an address change)
-BNS VISA
11:51 am
December 12, 2009
Offline
The only one that surprised me is ING. Did you apply for an ING savings account first or the new chequing account? For me, inquiries from ING show up as "soft" but maybe that's because I opened a savings account first then the chequing account. If I'd started with just a chequing account, they might've done a hard inquiry.
I'm planning on applying for a Visa credit limit increase (it's only $1000 and I've had it for six years but it does make it somewhat challenging for large purchases and I'm not a fan of overpaying your credit card to artificially inflate your available credit limit for use). More available credit actually helps your credit score since you're utilizing less percentage of your total available credit, which looks good. I will get an updated credit bureau from the bank at that time and inform everyone as to what are hard and what are soft inquiries.
For me, basically everything showed up as a "soft" inquiry" except my initial BNS VISA application in 2005 and my HSBC account opening in 2008. The Ally, ING, Telus Mobility pre-paid (post-paid would be a "hard" inquiry) and BC Lottery Corp and my own requests for free credit reports were all considered "soft" inquiries.
Cheers,
Doug
8:43 pm
hi Doug, i applied for the ING Thrive Chequing. This is my first and only account at ING.
9:54 pm
This is an update for the CDF TFSA account deposit and withdrawal timeline:
I deposited $500 to my CDF's TFSA and it took a total of one(1) month to get the whole thing done, as in done. Of course my daycount may be a little skewed because of non-business days included but you will get the idea. For example, note that if you deposit to a CIBC ABM past 6pm the transaction will considered be part of the next day.
FEB 27-I deposited $500 cash to PC Financial (my linked account)
-I waited about 7 days before the hold is gone (its not 5 days guys...
more or less its actually 7 days)
MAR 05-Mailed check deposit(via CanadaPost) to CDF in their Alberta Office.
MAR 16-A PC Financial "view check" feature shows the check was recieved in Alberta
by Canadian Western Bank (mother company of CDF) stamp
MAR 17-CIBC Toronto Processing Centre stamp (what is this?)
MAR 18-By this time, the money is already gone in my PC Financial account and it is
already in my CDF account but it is still under "hold"
MAR 27-Money clear. No more holds!
So in short, it took about one(1) month approximate to deposit using the method
of depositing cash to PCFinancial, then writing and mailing a check to CDF.
Of course there are other methods like, depositing cash using the Exchange network ABMS directly to CDF savings then moving that money to CDF TFSA and this would surely be faster than the method I used.
Anyway, I will now withdraw that $500 from CDF and make a note:
Q:How long does it takes for CDF to process a withdrawal from their TFSA?
Wait for my next update guys...
6:06 pm
December 12, 2009
Offline
CIBC Toronto Processing Centre is the clearing centre which proofed, scanned, sorted and cleared the PC Financial cheque. There are usually two clearing centre datestamps on the back of the cheque, the one on the back left hand side is the place that clears the cheque through your account and the one on the right is the place that receives it as a deposit to the recipient's account where the recipient's account is held.
If both the drawer (you) and the payee (CDF) have the same FI or both their FIs use the same clearing institution, then you will only see one datestamp on the left hand side of the reverse of the cheque.
In your case, you should see CIBC Toronto Processing Centre as your FI's clearing centre on the left hand side because PC Financial is the direct banking division of CIBC and CIBC uses Intria Items Inc (a wholly-owned subsidiary of CIBC) as its clearing and cheque processing facility. All of the other banks use Symcor (owned jointly by BMO/RBC/TD and their datestamps will show up with the individual bank's name).
Hope that clarifies,
Doug
1:01 am
my thanks to you Doug for clarifying that CIBC stamp.
into my other update, it would take a very short time to do a withdrawal with a CDF account. it would take less than a day. maybe even less an hour if you're near an ABM. i just logged online, transferred my CDF TFSA money to my CDF Savings. And after that, i went out of the house to a near ABM machine (i used a coast capital ABM) and withdraw the $500. got it in a hurry. note that, i have a max limit of $500/day. Also CDF only allows 1 free withdrawal per month. you withdraw more than day and you will pay $1.00
another i want to share is that of large withdrawals. because my example is just based on my daily withdrawal limit, what if you have $10,000 in your account and then decided to go on a spending spree and you want lots of cash say you want to have $5000 in your wallet, then this will be a different scenario. i made an email about this to CDF and the answer is:
"...To withdraw from your TFSA savings account, you would need to complete and submit the attached form. Indicate on the form that you want the funds deposited to your KeyRate savings account.From there you can log on and transfer them back to your linked Financial Institution. The form can be faxed, mailed or emailed in..."
thats it...
by the way, here are the stats of how many days a bank holds my cash deposit before it becomes "live." note that this is just my experience (so it may vary) depositing via ABMs:
deposit to coastcapital account using coastcapital ABM..- still on hold after 3 days
deposit to scotiabank using scotiabank ABM............. - 2 business total
deposit to CDF account using coast capital ABM......... - 7 business days
deposit to PC Financial using CIBC ABM................. - still on hold after 4 days
deposit to ING Direct account using coast capital ABM.. - 8 business days
10:59 pm
This is a continuation of the experience of Prag about Canadian Direct Financial.
Since, Im gonna make this bank as my main TFSA holder because mainly of their high rate, I have been experimenting with the banking of my deposits to CDF and documented it. I opened my account with CDF last January of this year. My main report is about how many days does it takes CDF to get my money? Online banking does have its own delays. The number of days reported here means the money is no longer on hold.
The most common way is to deposit your cash on any Exchange Network ABM, here in BC I have used the ABM of Coast Capital Savings and Vancity. Coincidence or not, it took 8 business days for both credit union ABMs. Note that, this deposit is only for the Savings Account not the TFSA. In order to deposit it into your TFSA, you have to transfer internally your money online [Basic Savings -> TFSA] which is another process but would only take minutes. I tried doing that right now so I can complete the total time but I kept having this message on my CDF screen:
"Temporarily unable to process transaction. Please try again in 15 minutes.
For 24 hour Technical Assistance Call 1-888-273-3488 toll free. Or Email Technical Support."
(I was able to have this transaction completed after trying a few times.)
(I am transferring again another money from my basic savings account to my TFSA and i am recieving again the same error message above)
I also tried the snail mail approach. Wrote a ING check and mailed in my deposit (using CDF's postage paid deposit envelopes) and it took 12 days total. I'm waiting for CDF to mail me my additional postage paid deposit envelopes but with Canada Post employees looming on strike, that may not be the case right now.
So for the depositing on Savings Account, the faster method is obviously the Exchange ABM approach. But Im going to do the EFT as well.
But what about the direct TFSA deposit? No more depositing to savings then doing the internal transfer to TFSA online. Well, one way is to write them a check and using their "TFSA ADDITIONAL INVESTMENTS/RENEWALS/WITHDRAWALS FOR EXISTING TFSA CONTRACTS ONLY" .pdf form, but you will incur a minor expense of $0.59 for the postage stamp! Their goes your interest! Total count of days for this approach is 14 business days! (Actually 20 days total in my case) You will actually wonder if your money actually arrived at Alberta. (LOL) Because its really a long wait! I dont like this at all.
The free way simply is to deposit your cash on an Exchange ABM, then after the hold is released, transfer that money internally [online] to your TFSA. Again, I did this before, I am trying doing it again on their website but it is not working.
***
I just made a successful EFT transfer and this is by far the fastest method to date with CDF. Total days is 5 business days. From June 2 to June 9. I used my workpay money from ING (via direct deposit) and transferred that to my CDF savings account via ETF.
Acutally the EFT event goes like this:
June 2 -- EFT of $xxx initiated via ING Direct
June 6 -- Money is already gone in my ING balance
June 6 -- Money is shown later in my CDF account (but on hold status)
June 9 -- Money has no more hold status
***note that i was not charged any fee for this transaction by both banks.
So in summary, depositing statistics into your KeyReach Savings Account:
Bank to Bank EFT ------------ 5 Business days
Exchange ABM --------------- 8 Business days
Snail Mail (check inside)------ 12 Business days + $.59 postage stamps
(assuming not using CDF's postage paid deposit envelopes)
and for the TFSA:
Snail Mail (direct to TFSA)----- 14 Business days + $.59 postage stamps
6:43 pm
Hi msl,
How did you set up the free EFT from ING to CDF Savings? I thought ING could only link to a chequing account.
Thanks,
Andrew
8:23 pm
Hello Andrew,
To answer your question, it is CDF who initiated the EFT not ING. But I also tried an ING to PC Financial EFT and works okay too and is also free. Anyway going back to your question, the first step that I did was to sign the EFT Agreement from the CDF website plus I included a void check (from my ING Direct Thrive account) and mailed it to CDF [to there Alberta office]. Note that I have only the following accounts:
a. ING Direct Thrive Checking
b. CDF Keyreach Savings Account and CDF Keyreach TFSA
After a few weeks, CDF sent me an email with the subject line: "CDF EFT Agreement on file." The email basically said that they received my completed EFT Agreement and that I can able to perform electronic fund transfers with CDF and my bank account at ING.
When I finally had my work pay deposited at my ING Direct Thrive Checking account
I visited the Canadian Direct Financial website and chose a menu from the online banking options; "Electronic Funds Transfer Authorization (Bank to Bank Transfers)"
From thereon, pls follow onscreen instructions...
You will then receive another email from CDF giving information about EFT transfer.
This is only a note. You are not needed to reply. They have a survey if you want to provide some input how to better their service.
Wait for some days to pass and you will notice that the money you want to transfer from your ING account (for example) will be gone, with the description: "EFT To CDN WESTERN BAN" and then when money is finally at your CDF account, the description reads: "EFT PYMT"
---End of File---
9:15 pm
Thanks for the info msl! I'm curious about one more thing though:
msl said:
***note that i was not charged any fee for this transaction by both banks.
I found this statement interesting because you had previously said in this post (https://www.highinterestsavings.ca/forum/general-financial-discussion/link-an-online-account-with-another-online-bank/#p4307) and it shows on CDF's website (https://www.canadiandirectfinancial.com/Personal/BecomingACustomer/ServiceFees/) that it costs $2.50 to do an EFT.
Please write your comments in the forum.