Promotions with direct deposit | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

The banks make money though accepting direct deposits by making it that much harder to close that account and move one's banking elsewhere.

To shutdown one's $15.95/month RBC Signature No Limit Banking account after accepting their Apple AirPods offer, one would have to go through the hassle of redirecting one's payroll direct deposit and at least two pre-authorized monthly bill debits.

For each month one procrastinates, RBC collects $15.95.

Norman's answer is quite correct.

They also plan to make even more money off you in the future, after first collecting all your data and probably checking your credit rating.

Now that they know all about you, and because you found it too much trouble to close the account, they will now try to market to you other "products" - credit card, mortgage, car loan, line of credit, RSP loan, investments, additional accounts, GICs, etc.

In addition, a significant number of people will open the account but will never get the ipod because they don't get all the deposits lined up correctly in time. But they now have an account anyway and they are a marketing target for RBC.

To close an RBC account without paying a fee, you have to go into a branch. That is an opportunity for RBC to sell you on something else.

Not all of you will bite on additional products etc., but there will be enough of you to make all those ipods worth their while. They buy them in bulk, wholesale, anyway.
That's why they do it.

It's a lot like "loss leaders" at the grocery store. They advertise one or two products at a price where they will lose money, but the point was not to sell you cheap watermelons. The point was to get you in the store, where most of you will buy other stuff as well.