TFSA transfer time | EQ Bank | Discussion forum

Donald_Trump said
I was going to open a tfsa at EQ

but on their chat with the welcome it say it takes 6 to 8 weeks to transfer tfsa . After chat with them it seems I might not get int interest on my money from any one for the 8 weeks . Is this true ?

I do not recall any registered transfer taking 8 weeks .

Is their tfsa worth it ?  

The 8 weeks is just a warning that it could hypothetically take that long, especially at this time of the year when lots of transfers are being requested. EQ has to follow the antiquated government rules for transferring registered money just like everybody else. I actually find their candor refreshing.

And don't be too quick to blame EQ (or any receiving bank for that matter) if there are inordinate delays. Unless you filled out the 1033 forms wrong and have made an invalid transfer request, it's almost always the remitting institution that's responsible for slow processing because they're the ones sending the funds. If the remitting institution lets your transfer request gather dust, there isn't much the receiving institution can do about it.

All the more reason to choose your carriers wisely and maybe use the December Manoevre for TFSA movements instead of using 1033 transfers.

I should add that if your existing TFSA is in cash, it will continue to earn interest until the transferring FI closes your account and cuts a cheque for the balance and mails it to the new carrier. There will consequently be a period of time before your funds get re-deposited in your new account, during which you will not earn any interest. That won't be anywhere near 8 weeks unless the cheque gets lost, which although unlikely, it isn't impossible, and mail delays have become more frequent due to COVID breakouts at postal sorting facilities. It is what it is.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I'll clarify my experience further. I retrieved the date that the cheque was mailed by the remitting institution so the delay was definitely by EQ, unless there was an extremely long delay (or lost in the mail) with the postal service. I would ask EQ this, but they haven't responded to my complaints. I was initially told someone would be in contact within a few days and nobody called. I got back into contact with them and someone sent me an email saying they would be in touch in a few days and that was about a month ago.

It's interesting that they agreed to hold the rate for you, as they refused to do this for me. I asked for a manager and nobody got back to me. They also refused to move funds into my GIC because they had a hold on them. I'll be coming up on 8 weeks transfer time for my last transfer, in a few days.

I've been busy but I may follow up with the banking ombudsman.

Speedwagen, I would argue if you had to file a complaint to get them to follow up, that is evidence of them not caring. In my daily work, if I waited until somebody filed a complaint to help them, or if someone needed to speak to my manager to get me to do things properly, I would consider that poor service.

I will be happy to update this thread if I do hear back from EQ and they are able to make things right.

I have/had quite a few transfers from other FIs to EqBank. A couple TFSA transfers back in Nov/Dec went faster than expected (from Hubert) - a couple of weeks. A couple of TFSA transfers in January from PT took a bit longer (3-4 weeks). The one that is taking really long is an RRSP transfer from Tangerine. After more than a month since I initiated it, the funds are still in my Tangerine account. Someone said that usually the FI transferring out will take their time, but not in this case. It took almost two weeks for EqBank to fax the transfer form (compare that to Hubert/Meridian/etc... they did it in one day in my experience). Something went wrong and Tangerine did not receive it (I have no idea why, maybe there was a technical glitch). I called Eq repeatedly to ask them to resend the form. I talked to several CSRs who all told me that they will resend it asap ... but that did not happen until I talked to a supervisor (I had to call and ask twice before they called me back). Once I talked to the supervisor and he found out that Tangerine has never received the original fax, he acted immediately and the problem was solved the next business day. To summarize, it took a month for Eq to successfully fax the transfer form and for Tangerine to receive it. Now the ball is in Tangerine's court. Somebody said that the funds are still receiving interest before they leave the other FI. That is true, they are earning 0.1% - therefore I have been loosing 2.2% for more than a month - so far - because of the delay. That is on top of the transfer fee. So yes, this particular transfer is very costly for me.