EQ Bank now offers unlimited Interac e-Transfers | EQ Bank | Discussion forum

Thanks for posting the update, Peter.

It's funny, I was just checking out the EQ Bank website and reviewing their parent company's 2018 audited financial statements & MD&A this weekend, and noticed they still only provided five (5) free Interac e-Transfers. With Alterna Bank, Simplii Financial, Motus Bank, and Motive Financial now all offering unlimited, free Interac e-Transfers, it seemed like the natural, easy next step. In fact, I had sort of predicted they would do this - the timing is just coincidental.

Additionally, it's also worth noting that, as far as I know, the "Big 5" banks all offer unlimited free Interac e-Transfers now, though they don't offer a free chequing account to each person-yet. They're resisting that - it'd be nice to know exactly how much they derive from personal banking chequing account monthly fees each year. I suspect it's a very modest sum relative to their annual revenues of ~$40 billion (albeit still probably in the $50-100 million range). HSBC Bank Canada also added unlimited free Interac e-Transfers a couple years ago, but last year lowered the qualification criteria to its HSBC Advance banking proposition to a mere $5,000 in deposits or investments, which effectively makes it competitive with free chequing accounts.

Is it just me or did EQ Bank slightly change their website, or at least their home page, a bit? The navigation menu looks different and the white space around the logo, perhaps the logo size, also look different.

Cheers,
Doug

Doug said
Additionally, it's also worth noting that, as far as I know, the "Big 5" banks all offer unlimited free Interac e-Transfers now, though they don't offer a free chequing account to each person-yet.
Doug  

It depends on the type of accounts one has. I have a joint chequing account with Scotia with my spouse that pays a bit of daily interest and there is a $1 charge for every Interac e-transfer. I also have a personal chequing account at Scotia that pays no interest and has free Interac e-transfers. Neither of these accounts have monthly fees but that may because of other factors, e.g. seniors, amount of investments with Scotia companies, etc.

Bruford said
Kind of like stepping on the gas and the brakes at the same time.  

I wouldn't say that. I believe there may be caps on the daily and weekly limits set by the central Interac Corp. (which, last year, was able to reorganize from a non-profit membership association and separate private company handling the technology development into a single for-profit corporation following their release from a Consent Agreement with the Competition Bureau).

Cheers,
Doug

CHUCK 21:
I’LL TRY TO HELP. SIGN IN, TAP ON PAY AND TRANSFER, TAKES YOU TO ANOTHER PAGE WHERE YOU WILL SEE BILL PAYMENTS AND TRANSFERS. THIS TAKES YOU TO “PAY AND TRANSFER”.
TAP IN THE “TO” BRACKET AND IMMEDIATELY YOUR NAME, OTHER BANK LINKS AND “SEND INTERACT” IS VISIBLE. CLICK ON THIS AND YOU WILL BE TAKEN TO ANOTHER PAGE WHERE YOU WILL BE ABLE TO COMPLETE YOUR TRANSFER.

GOOD LUCK!

As a bank that pets itself on its back for no fees, I wonder if Tangerine will ever join others in free Interac eTransfers? It's kind of ironic that RBC has free eTransfers and Tangerine doesn't. They are so convinced that their complicated EMT is the best thing ever, that they refuse to realize its a pain in the butt for the recipient, who has to dig out all the account info that no-one ever has handy, enter it manually, answer the security question ... and then wait for 2 days for the EMT to go though. Talk about backward banking! It's so awkward and embarrassing to send someone a Tangerine EMT that now I transfer funds to Simplii and then emit eTransfer from there.

Peseta said
As a bank that pets itself on its back for no fees, I wonder if Tangerine will ever join others in free Interac eTransfers? It's kind of ironic that RBC has free eTransfers and Tangerine doesn't. They are so convinced that their complicated EMT is the best thing ever, that they refuse to realize its a pain in the butt for the recipient, who has to dig out all the account info that no-one ever has handy, enter it manually, answer the security question ... and then wait for 2 days for the EMT to go though. Talk about backward banking! It's so awkward and embarrassing to send someone a Tangerine EMT that now I transfer funds to Simplii and then emit eTransfer from there.  

Agreed, and I'd just add that a time when banks and credit unions all or mostly charged for Interac e-Transfers, Tangerine's (then known as ING DIRECT Canada's) Email Money Transfers system was innovative and refreshing in that it was free, even if a bit inconvenient for non-Tangerine (then known as ING DIRECT Canada) recipients. However, with Motus Bank, Canadian Western Bank's Motive Financial virtual banking branch operation, Alterna Bank, HSBC Bank Canada, EQ Bank, various provincially-regulated credit unions, and the "Big 5" banks all now offering free and unlimited Interac e-Transfers, they need to realize this and at least offer it as a companion option. They can still keep Tangerine Email Money Transfers until such time as its usage has dropped off significantly and they can quietly phase it out of their system.

It's one of the reasons I find Tangerine frustrating (the other other two being the lack of sufficient transaction narrative detail with respect to ATM transactions and the inability to opt out of their personal finance tracking tool).

Cheers,
Doug