Availability outside of Ontario | DUCA Credit Union | Discussion forum

Peter said
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One of the criteria for being included in the chart is that the bank is accessible to people in all provinces and territories. If Quebec is excluded, this is noted in the chart.
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It seems that the chart is not showing the right information regarding Quebec+Ideal:

(ref: https://idealsavings.ca/extras/faqs/#open-account )
Who can open an Ideal Savings Account?

We would be happy to open an account for you, if you:
1.are 18 years of age or older and currently reside in Canada, excluding Quebec
2.have a valid Social Insurance Number (SIN)
3.are able to deposit a personalized cheque in Canadian funds from a Canadian financial institution
4.have a valid email address

Peter said
The topic of DUCA being listed in our comparison chart was brought up in the Tangerine Q4 2017 promo thread.

One of the criteria for being included in the chart is that the bank is accessible to people in all provinces and territories. If Quebec is excluded, this is noted in the chart.

There is no direct reference to DUCA's availability outside of Ontario on their website. I contacted DUCA customer support, and the answer is that DUCA is not permitted to operate or solicit outside of Ontario, although their by-laws state this:

2.01 Membership in the Credit Union shall be limited to:

(a) Persons who, if individuals, whether minors or adults, reside or are employed in any province or territory of Canada;

So, it sounds like anybody can open a DUCA account, but DUCA is not allowed to publicly say so.  

I emailed them this;

Hello,

I seem to be reading conflicting information on the internet and was unable to locate a definite answer on your website.
Is your credit union only open to residents of Ontario or do you in fact accept residents of other provinces of Canada? I am not an Ontario Resident

Also when you open chequing and savings accounts - do you do a hard inquiry or a soft credit inquiry? Thanks

AND got the following reply;

Good Afternoon,

Thank you for contacting DUCA. Unfortunately we do not have any reference on our website. DUCA is not permitted to operate or solicit outside of Ontario, however our by-lays state the following:

2.01 Membership in the Credit Union shall be limited to:
(a) Persons who, if individuals, whether minors or adults, reside or are employed in any
province or territory of Canada;

All new account applications are subject to a hard credit bureau inquiry.

Should you require any further assistance, please call our Member Connect department at 1-866-900-3822 or 416-223-8502 between the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday to Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays.

Thank you,

Loonie said

I think it's very annoying though that they would insist on a hard credit check when no borrowing is asked for.  

There is some credit extended to the DUCA member if he or she can deposit cheques into the accounts.

The credit covers the time after the regular deposit hold expires until the cheque can no longer be returned by the financial institution it is drawn on. That could be quite long depending on the reason for the return.

According to section 6 of Payments Canada Rule A4, a clearing item can be returned up to 90 calendar days later if the reason is "Material Alteration" in the cheque details. It is up to six years, if the reason is "Forged Endorsement".

There is now a move afoot among some Ontario CUs, to get permission to call their activities "banking". I know that Meridian is part of this effort, but not sure where it's at.
I understand where they're coming from, as "bank" is, to some extent, a generic word in everyday speech, but I'd like to see them take more pride in their existence as CUs as they are always trying to tell us they are better than banks. The message, in the end, is confusing.

AltaRed said
As long as CUs can never use the word 'bank' as a noun, I would agree they should be able to use the term 'banking' as in 'do your banking with us'. Don't know what else they can call themselves other than perhaps a 'savings and loan' which has a very negative connotation stateside due to the huge bailout decades ago. Overall though, there is nothing wrong with our local insitutions here with names like 'Coast Capital', 'Interior Savings', etc. without the word 'bank' in them. They are readily identifiable by their brand.  

Whatever happened to the use of the word "Trust" Was there some sort of legislative change to get rid of it or just a drop in usage. When I was a kid in Ontario, all the little financial institutions we now call CU were called Trusts. My first bank account as a little kid was with "Victoria and Grey Trust" It got swallowed up several times and eventually became part of BNS.
The last "Trust" I can recall was Canada Trust which was eaten by TD.

Loonie said
There is a subtle but important difference between between inability to "solicit" or "operate" versus open to all "persons who reside in Canada".

DUCA can't "operate" in other provinces, i.e. have offices or address there, because it is a provincially regulated organization. It has no legal right to operate elsewhere as a financial institution. Similarly, it can't advertise ("solicit") outside of Ontario.
However, it can passively accept accounts from people who live elsewhere in Canada - as per by-laws.

As I recall, the situation is the same for the MB CUs. There is a reason why they don't advertise in Ontario, but Ontarians can and do have accounts there.

I think it's very annoying though that they would insist on a hard credit check when no borrowing is asked for.  

The Manitoba CUs also do Hard Credit Inquiries when opening accounts as well, I opened accounts at Achieva, and Ideal recently and they both did hard credit inquiries.

I just wonder why the Manitoba Credit Unions chose to operate separately named companies, whereas the Ontario Credit Unions seem to just use the same brand.

Manitoba (Credit Union = Online Version available outside Manitoba)
Assiniboine Credit Union (ACU) = Outlook Financial
Cambrian Credit Union = Achieva Financial
Westoba Credit Union = Maxa Financial
Entegra Credit Union = Implicity Financial
Crosstown Civic Credit Union (CCCU) = Accelerate Financial
Carpathia Credit Union = Ideal Savings
Sunova Credit Union = Hubert Financial
Steinbach Credit Union (I have heard will open accounts, as they have no online branch yet)

Yet, I don't think people outside of Manitoba can apply directly to the credit unions, with the exception of Steinbach, which I believe on RFD they have opened accounts (but I could be wrong)

In Ontario, there seems to be a couple of credit unions who will open accounts and they don't have online branches like DUCA. Did the Manitoba Credit Unions just choose to do it this way, and why haven't other provinces done the same? I wish some of the BC Credit Unions would start doing this.

In other words "Trust" has ceased to be a marketing term as they become bank subsidiaries.

I do agree the CU moniker is not entirely indicative of that groups current status and offerings. The Union portion would be a particularly outdated term as it implies they are still closed entities only available to their union members when generally they are open to the investing public now.

Loonie said
I remember my grandmother having an account with Vic and Grey, and I also had accounts with Canada Trust. In fact, my old cheques, which I rarely use,still l say that and are generally accepted. …

Canada Trust is still around. TD Bank changed the branch signs. But, TD Bank didn't shut down Canada Trust after they bought it. Canada Trust is still a CDIC member. This is from the last page of the TD Canada Trust fee schedule:

… Any accounts opened at Canada Trust prior to conversion to TD Canada Trust are issued by The Canada Trust Company.

Same with Royal Trust. Royal Bank rebranded the Royal Trust branches. But, the monthly statements of those former Royal Trust accounts still say the account is issued by CDIC member Royal Trust Corporation of Canada and not Royal Bank of Canada.

Norman1 said

Koogie said
In other words "Trust" has ceased to be a marketing term as they become bank subsidiaries.
…

Not in all cases. After TD Bank bought Canada Trust, it decided to rebrand both its TD Bank branches and the Canada Trust branches to TD Canada Trust.  

Okay, sure, but that is one instance. There used to be a lot of retail "Trusts" everywhere and it was a much more common marketing term than it is now.

Koogie said
In other words "Trust" has ceased to be a marketing term as they become bank subsidiaries.

I do agree the CU moniker is not entirely indicative of that groups current status and offerings. The Union portion would be a particularly outdated term as it implies they are still closed entities only available to their union members when generally they are open to the investing public now.  

I'm not sure what you (or other people) understand by the use of the word "union" in this context.

It has always referred to a group of people united for the mutual provision of financial services. It still means this in the sense that some members deposit and others borrow, and the funds mostly remain internally circulated in that way.

The issue of who gets to belong to a particular credit union is decided by "each one's by-laws etc. Some are "open bond', which means anyone can join, subject to provincial regulations. Others are "closed bond", which means you have to belong to a particular group of people who have bonded together to create the credit "union". The closed bond may be based on ethnicity, workplace affiliation, geography, etc. but has no particular relationship to unions as bargaining units.

In my opinion, the CUs could do a lot o more to educate people abut their operations. This is not likely to happen as long as they are focused on emulating banks, using that name, and creating banks as subsidiaries (e.g. Alterna).