Access Credit Union, Fusion Credit Union, Niverville Credit Union, and Rosenort Credit Union add all-digital membership openings to all Canadians | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

Briguy said
Thanks for all your hard work , Doug !

Took a quick look at Niverville GIC rates- I like the way their 1 yr cashable GIC and HISA rates are the same (2.6%), so if you are worried that interest rates are going up or down, you can put money in a GIC and take it out if you need it or if you want to reinvest it.  

Good point. I hate when FIs make their 1-year GIC rate lower than their HISA rate.

And you're over 59-60 so you can open up a seniors' chequing account and not have to worry about the $0.55 per item debit transaction fee. That's the only downside - would be wonderful if they gave people at least 1 free debit per month. Mind you, if you're earning 2.60% on a HISA or in a GIC and have to pay 1-2 x $0.55 transaction fees per year, that's not too bad, I guess. 😉

Cheers,
Doug

Briguy said
Why is it that Manitoba has all the high interest paying credit unions and Saskatchewan has none? At least in Ontario we get good GIC specials at our credit unions (eg. Duca and Meridian ) and we now have Motus, Eq and Alterna Banks with pretty good rates year round.  

Saskatchewan does seem to have some good GIC rates and, interestingly, their legislation does permit them to passively accept out of province residents (like Ontario and Manitoba). However, all their credit unions except for Innovation Credit Union haven't either (a) amended their bond of association to permit any Canadian to join or (b) they haven't fully digitized their membership opening process. Conexus and Cornerstone have digital membership opening processes, but require you to certify that you're a Saskatchewan resident. I don't want to test it, but I wonder if you could still get the account opened even if you said you're a Saskatchewan resident but used your actual out of province address as your residency/mailing address.

British Columbia credit unions occasionally have some decent GIC rates, but they tend to be the smaller ones and only North Peace Savings and Credit Union has an all-digital account opening process. The downside, though, is B.C. doesn't permit out of province residents to join its credit unions. It'd be nice if they'd change that, and maybe they could stem provincial credit unions from considering federal continuance. 😉

As for Manitoba, though, I suspect they're smart and realized that with rural residents increasingly moving to urban areas, to maintain their survival, they had to try and look elsewhere for deposits, so they could try and keep as many branches open as they can.

Ontario, meanwhile, is kind of like Saskatchewan actually in that only Meridian Credit Union has amended their bond of association in 2015 to allow out of province residents to join. DUCA used to, but then changed back. Libro, technically, does if you declare yourself to be a potentially "future Ontario resident". However, I've never tested if that would work or not.

Cheers,
Doug

Briguy said
Very interesting observations Doug. One exception in BC-Peoples Trust is a privately owned CDIC insured trust company in BC that has a completely digital account opening process and accepts out of province clients. I found they originally had really good rates, then they drifted down, and now they are back up again.

A long time ago I used to belong to a trust company in Ontario called Victoria and Grey who amalgamated with National Trust to form National Victoria and Grey, who then got bought out by Scotiabank. That is how I ended up with Scotiabank. I miss the old days when I was with a trust company, I imagine it's the same feeling that one gets with credit unions these days. I'm not sure if there are many trust companies left.  

Right, but trust companies are an interesting exception in that they can be both provincially incorporated (and non-deposit taking) or federally incorporated but regulated provincially. That's partially why Equitable Bank has yet to launch its Equitable Trust GIC and/or HISA issuer because they have to obtain provincial approvals in each province.

In the case of Peoples Trust Company, though, they're federally incorporated so can take deposits as a CDIC issuer and they've obtained their provincial clearances so they can serve as trustee for certain registered plans and the like.

I remember when Scotiabank bought out National Trust and then they bought out the larger Montreal Trust. For a time, Scotiabank branch exterior signage would say "Scotiabank & Trust" on them. Montreal Trust even had a Kelowna branch on Bernard Avenue in what would later become the MCC Thrift Store and which is now home, at least upstairs, to the Downtown Kelowna Association business improvement area association. You can still book National Trust GICs through investment dealers (i.e., discount brokerages), if you have an affinity for them. 😉

There's still a few trust companies around, some with branches and some with "stores" (accounts domiciled centrally under one transit, but you can access your accounts from their stores). Some notable examples include Peace Hills Trust, which is owned by the Samson Cree First Nation of Alberta and which has a retail branch here on Westbank First Nation lands, and Home Trust Company. Home Trust operates as Oaken Financial and has storefronts, but are very much a trust company (Home Bank is their subsidiary and dual issuer).

Peoples Trust even has a retail branch on the main floor of their Vancouver office and their staff seem quite friendly. Equitable Trust will start taking deposits soon, but Equitable doesn't have retail storefronts.

Perhaps the best known, and largest, trust company was Canada Trust Company prior to its merger with TD Bank. They were quite large out west and fully half (or more) of their current branches in the Okanagan were Canada Trust (only a few were TD Bank).

Cheers,
Doug

Briguy said
I've had an account with Access Credit Union since July 2018 opened digitally, and I live in Ontario, so it's nothing new with them.

Fusion alone of the the four doesn't look like it has great interest rates so I wouldn't include that on the site's list.  

Fusion is comparable to the other Manitoba CUs (within 20 bps) in terms of GIC rates and on HISAs, they're still 2% or better. The criteria for inclusion is to offer a "competitive" rate and they certainly exceed that, besting Canadian Tire Bank and Manulife Bank (not yet on the chart, but Peter will likely add in a couple weeks). They're tied with Peoples Trust in fact on HISA rates.

We have always not discriminated in terms of adding new HISAs to the chart if they meet the three or four criterion and I don't think we should start, don't you? Having said that, one idea Peter may want to consider is creating a separate chart for provincial credit unions (say /cu-chart/) and then have /chart be for banks, federal credit unions, and trust companies. An advantage to this is it would reduce the growing "chart bulk" and we could also eliminate the "CU" column because we could specify that the deposit insurance is through either CDIC for the main chart or thru provincial deposit insurer for provincial CUs. What do you think?

That's good to know you discovered Access Credit Union and opened an account last year. I'm surprised you never mentioned them! They could've been on the chart already. 😉

They do seem quite good - 1 or more free debits per month and rates are comparable.

Cheers,
Doug

Briguy said
With Access, you need to get 2 accounts to make it practical:
1)Plan 24: 5 free withdrawals per month. 0.5% interest non-registered, for me2me transfers or bill pay
2)Platinum Savings (2.55%) or TFSA (2.85%) as "deep savings"

I have found Access Credit Union staff very pleasant to deal with.

Double checked the savings accounts at the other 3:
Fusion is only 2.25% and Niverville 2.0%.
Rosenort is 2.6% and as mentioned, Access is 2.55%.

So it looks to me like Rosenort and Access are the winners for HISA, but I guess even 2 and 2.25% makes Fusion and Niverville worthy for inclusion 🙂  

Yeah, we really should be fair. I agree they'd be near the bottom (for Rosenort, would likely have to go with the lowest balance rate to qualify). Fusion is the same as Motus Bank, but since they use MemberDirect for online banking and presumably either a Fiserv or Celero core banking system, their EFT processing times will be way faster (comparable to Hubert and Implicity) than Meridian/Motus.

That's true you'd need to have the two accounts with Access, but only if you need to do more than debit per month. For me, I could work with only 1 debit per month and just wouldn't use them for day-to-day transactions.

I also liked Niverville's redeemable 1-year GIC rate, too. Very compelling! And, many of them offer 2.6% on their registered RSP and TFSA Variable Savings accounts, so that in itself puts them near the top of the chart.

Cheers,
Doug