Free Canadian chequing accounts with no minimum balance | General comparisons | Discussion forum

Loonie said
I would like to see AlternaBank added to this chart.

https://www.alternabank.ca/Personal/EverydayBanking/Accounts/eChequing/  

I second that request 🙂

I'm wondering if implicity financial should be on this list. It looks like they offer free withdrawals at bank machines and they have preauthorized debits and direct deposits. The only thing they don't seem to have is overdraft protection.

I didn't notice debits were a dollar. I agree with you in not listing the account as free debit is standard. Too bad as i was interested 🙁

Doug said
In a long overdue update, I have completed another significant update to the "free chequing" accounts comparison chart.

Highlighted below are a summary of the updates, which were performed over this weekend (Saturday, April 20, 2019, to be precise). In sequence, I will first describe general updates (i.e., updates to structure or organization, non-institution-specific changes, etc.), identify new products and/or organizations, and then itemize, alphabetically in ascending order by institution, institution-specific changes.

What's New as of Saturday, April 20, 2019:
Summary of General and Non-Institution-Specific Changes

• Restructured the first 6-8 columns, by removing credit union-specific columns on residency limitations and whether accounts could be opened entirely online. Instead, this will apply to both credit unions (provincially- and federally-regulated) and banks. I've also renamed them to shorten up the column names. Note, too, that the newly-renamed "Residency Limitation(s)" column refers to either legislative or regulatory impediments prohibiting out of province residency but also to internal credit union rules and policies. For example, the province of Manitoba permits out of province residency and, indeed, Cambrian Credit Union has a virtual banking branch/division called Achieva Financial that permits non-Manitoba residents yet to open an account with the "parent" institution, their internal policies are such that Manitoba residency is required
• Similarly, since many banks and credit unions have either myriad regional branded "divisions", branches, wholly- and/or majority-owned subsidiaries, the "institution" column was getting pretty wordy in many cases with so many "... a division of x" qualifiers. So, a new column, to the immediate right, called "Type of Organization" has been added. Additionally, in tandem with that change, "Institution" was renamed "Organization," reflecting the fact that some organizations themselves are not separate legal entities and "institution" implies that level of formality. As such, a new "Parent Company" column appears and will be filled in if applicable. For greater clarity and certainty, if the organization is itself the parent company, that column will be blank.
• Also, the "Originating Location / Jurisdication" column has simply been renamed to a shortened "Scope," which reflects, primarily, the organization's geographic target market. Note that if an organization does not accept Quebec residents, continuing current practice, this continues to be noted in a parenthetical qualifier in the "Scope" column, not in the "Residency Limitation(s)" column since an an organization may have no other limitations as to residency requirements.
• If no specific cost is specified, simplified the wording that cheques are available at "standard cost" instead of an approximate cost range. Less need to regularly update this.
• Finally, in order to standardize the verbiage in the "Type of Organization," "Residency Limitation(s)," "Electronic Account Opening for NTB Customers/Members," and "Surcharge-free ATM Network(s)" columns, you will note a second sheet "cell data," particularly if loading the comparison chart in a new browser window/tab. There are currently seven (7) organization types, which include the following: chartered bank; chartered trust or loan company (we currently don't have any of those yet in this chart unless Oaken Financial and EQ Bank were to launch a fee-free chequing account, but this was included for future use); federal credit union; provincial credit union; branch of a chartered bank, trust, or loan company; branch of a federal or provincial credit union; and, regional brand of a provincial credit union. Options for the "Residency Limitation(s)" column include the country of Canada, Canada's ten provinces and its three territories. Options for "Electronic Account Opening for NTB Customers/Members" include either a "yes" or "no". Finally, options for "Surcharge-free ATM Network(s)" include either of Acculink ("ding-free™"), The Exchange, Acculink + The Exchange, CIBC, or Scotiabank + Global ATM Alliance. On that later point, since only one organization uses that ATM network (Tangerine), in order to remove some unnecessary word bloat, I've stopped itemizing all the partner members of the Global ATM Alliance. Further information on its members and geographic scope are available from Tangerine's website.

New Products and/or Organizations

• Added Motive Financial's new Cha-Ching Chequing Account, the first time we now have two, no-fee chequing accounts from a single organization
• Added Motus Bank and its No-fee Chequing Account
• Added North Peace Savings & Credit Union and its B.Free Personal chequing account which, although geographically limited by provincial legislation and regulation to B.C. residents, can now be opened entirely online using their OpenAnywhere™ technology

Summary of Institution-Specific Changes, by Organization

• Cambrian Credit Union
  - Updated "Residency Limitation(s)" to Manitoba to reflect the credit union's internal policies prohibiting out of province residency from joining the parent organization
• Coast Capital Savings Federal Credit Union
  - Updated organization name from Coast Capital Savings Credit Union reflecting its federal continuance effective November 1, 2018. Related to this, under "Additional Note(s)," have added a note of the federal continuance effective date and a second note noting that although there are no institution-specific or legislative/regulatory prohibitions as to residency, they're currently not set up to accept out of province residents in terms of their website yet
  - At the "Drawbacks" column, added a note that they don't yet offer self-to-self, bank-to-bank transfers yet
  - Updated "Product link" (which was also renamed as a column name) URL following a further website relaunch
• Cornerstone Credit Union
  - Updated product name to "No-Fee Personal Chequing Account" reflecting a further product name change from No-Fee Account and added an additional note reflecting this
  - Added that they have resumed offering free and unlimited Interac e-Transfers on this account again, with an added additional note to reflect this, too
• CS Alterna Bank
  - For the purposes of standards and consistency within this existing comparison chart, have updated the "Organization" name to reflect its legal name CS Alterna Bank, even though it does business and markets itself as Alterna Bank
  - Added parent company, dropping the "Ltd" corporation type to the new "Parent Company" column
  - Updated the fact that they now offer free and unlimited Interac e-Transfers, instead of only three (3) for free
• DUCA Financial Services Credit Union
  
  - Updated "Scope" and "Residency Limitation(s)" to reflect that (a) they're now only targeting, passively and actively, Ontario residents and that (b) their corporate internal policies have been updated so as to make mandatory Ontario residency
• Enderby and District Financial
  - Other than updates to reflect the new columns or standardized cheque cost verbiage, no other updates
• Envision Financial
  - Other than updates to reflect the new columns or standardized cheque cost verbiage, added as a "drawback" that self-to-self, bank-to-bank transfers cost $1.00 each. (However, if Peter, who, I think, has an account with them can confirm if indeed Me-to-Me Transfers are free, that'd be helpful and would mean their service fee schedule is out of date.)
• First Calgary Financial
  - Other than updates to reflect the new columns or standardized cheque cost verbiage, updated "Product link" URL to reflect a major website relaunch
• FirstOntario Credit Union
  - Other than updates to reflect the new columns or standardized cheque cost verbiage, updated "Product link" URL to reflect a major website relaunch
  - Also, updated that NTB ("new-to-bank") memberships can appear to be opened entirely online now, possibly in tandem with the major website relaunch, even though Ontario residency is still required due to their internal company policies and/or rules
• Innovation Credit Union
  - Other than updates to reflect the new columns or standardized cheque cost verbiage, updated product name to the "No-Fee Bank Account" from the former No-Fee Account, with an additional note reflecting this, too
• Island Savings
  - Other than updates to reflect the new columns or standardized cheque cost verbiage, added as a "drawback" that self-to-self, bank-to-bank transfers cost $1.00 each. (However, if Peter, who, I think, has an account with Envision Financial can confirm if indeed Me-to-Me Transfers are free, that'd be helpful and would mean that Island Savings likely does not also charge such fees and that, in turn, its service fee schedule is also out of date.)
• Motive Financial
  - Other than updates to reflect the new columns, standardized cheque cost verbiage, or updates that have which previously been mentioned (i.e., new product), added to the "Motive Chequing Account" product two additional additional notes that reflect (a) that the banking service was formerly branded as Canadian Direct Financial and that (b) the "Motive Chequing Account" was formerly branded as the "KeyDirect Chequing Account"
• Simplii Financial
  - Other than updates to reflect the new columns or standardized cheque cost verbiage, no other updates
• Tangerine Bank
  - Other than updates to reflect the new columns, standardized cheque cost verbiage, or updates that have which previously been mentioned (i.e., surcharge-free ATM network(s) verbiage), added two additional notes to reflect their previous company name (ING Bank of Canada) and no-fee daily chequing account product name (THRiVE Chequing Account)
• Valley First
  - Other than updates to reflect the new columns or standardized cheque cost verbiage, no other updates

Despite a few removals of no-fee chequing accounts (including early pioneer Citizens Bank of Canada, which is now known as Vancity Community Investment Bank), we now have 19 product offerings from 18 different organizations (15 different legal entities since First West Credit Union operates four regional branded "divisions"), of varying geographic scope, offering no-fee chequing accounts to residents age 18+ of every region of Canada.

With EQ Bank offering free and unlimited bill payments and Interac e-Transfers, I'm contemplating adding their EQ Savings Account to this chart since, essentially, it can do everything a chequing account can except write cheques, make ATM deposits/withdrawals, or Interac point-of-sale purchases. Since most people use their credit cards for point-of-sale purchases and rarely write cheques, I'd be curious to know what the community's thoughts are on that. Should it be added, or no? If it were to be added, we would still be justified in not adding Implicity Financial's account since it does not offer bill payments and free & unlimited Interac e-Transfers, in addition to free & unlimited Interac point-of-sale purchases.

Similarly, while HSBC Bank Canada has also lowered its HSBC Advance Total Relationship Balance qualification criteria to only $5,000 (from $25,000), should it, too, be added? We would need only to modify the inclusion criteria for this chart. Note that the reason to add it would be the fact that the qualification criteria does not dictate holding the funds in a chequing account, like so many "Big 5" banks do (it can be held in mutual funds, in a self-directed discount brokerage account, in a RRIF, or even in a GIC/term deposit).

With that, I am to finish my major revision and update to the "Services" chart in the next week or two, after I get my income tax filing done.

Cheers,
Doug  

Great job Doug !
Is it possible to add a column for FI's that offer at least initial order of free cheques (Motus, Motive,Simplii) ? And maybe a column for those institutions that will automatically transfer funds into your chequing from savings according to your settings? ( Motive and Motus )

In my opinion it's worthwhile to start a new chart of free all-in-one accounts that DON'T include chequing, but do include free e-transfers, free bill pay,free auto debit, free Me2Me ( I think EQ bank, Motus, Alterna ).

I don't think HSBC should be included in free chequing since you do need the 5000 dollars deposited

Just my 2cents.

Doug said
Thanks for the feedback and comments, Briguy!

In terms of the free initial order of cheques, the chart does already state this in the "cheques" column. To me, since most of them provide at least a starter batch for free, it will state something like "free 1st batch of cheques (approx. 20-25 leaves)" or "free 1st batch of cheques (50 leaves)", as applicable. I'm not sure that the starter batch needs another column, though, no?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by your second suggestion of automatic transfers from chequing to savings. All of the listed free chequing accounts offer the ability to set up scheduled, recurring and automatic transfers from chequing to savings or from savings to chequing (through online banking, at a minimum, or optionally, by paper-based form in some cases). I haven't itemized that feature because it comes standards with all accounts. Or, do you mean like First West's BigChange™ feature whereby your point-of-sale purchases are automatically rounded up to the nearest dollar or $5.00 and the difference transferred to your designated savings account? We could add that, if it was felt that there would be a demand for that feature in the chart. Alternatively, it could also go in the "Services chart," which I'm going to revise and update next. Or, it could go in both.

I will talk to Peter what he thinks about creating a free day-to-day banking account chart, but my only concern is we'd end up with a lot of free chequing accounts also in the free day-to-day banking account chart. So, that's why I was thinking about including EQ Bank's Savings Account in the "free chequing" chart. Perhaps, then, in a future iteration, we could look at renaming the "free chequing" chart to a "free day-to-day banking" chart and then add that second column you mentioned about cheques with the existing "cheques" column being a simple "yes" or "no" as to whether they can be used or not and the new column pertaining to "cheque orders"?

Thanks for your feedback on HSBC Advance...I'd be fine with including it, since the $5,000 can be held elsewhere (i.e., in a savings account) and does not involve holding it in a non-interest bearing chequing account. However, my reason for wanting not to include it is because of HSBC's parent company's boycott of financing future Alberta oilsands projects.

Cheers,
Doug  

I think the other FI's have a way of automating a recurrent transfer between chequing and savings, but not in keeping your chequing account at an exact balance, the way Motus and Meridian do. eg. You can keep all your money in your savings account besides 500.00 and tell Motus and Meridian to top up your chequing account each day to 500.00 .

I didn't see the column about the free cheques as I didn't scroll over- sorry !!

I like your idea to rename your chart as free day to day banking accounts and then have one section for free savings account and the other section for free chequing accounts. One column at the end of the table could summarize for that bank if a chequing account is only needed if you need to write a cheque,is not available, or is needed along with the free savings account to get every feature for free.