Tangerine and others are Simplii shadows of who they were. | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

I was a big fan of Ally Bank when they were in Canada, then RBC came along in 2013 and bought them out and shut down their HISA business to eliminate the competition

If you want to crank the way-back machine a few decades...was not happy when HSBC took over the Bank of BC. Ally was a disappointment, ING takeover was the end of a era.
Don't think it's fair to call out Motive...they kept their rate higher sooner and longer than I expected. Still near the top of the pack with their HISA account. Just a victim of the times. Despite their shortcomings...still my go-to FI
Simplii is just a clone of Tang with their offers...just seem a little sleazier to me.
Given up signing on to every new kid on the block with enticing intro rates (LBC B2B etc). EQ was the last one to pull the bait and switch on me.

So, what you are saying, Norman, is that, from a consumer-saver point of view, there is not "real need" for these banks to exist. I am doing my part to make sure they don't as I treat them the way they treat me. When I am superfluous to them, they are superfluous to me.

This sort of thing will continue to happen, but, so far, there have also always been new opportunities.

Norman1 said
The issue with being owned by Scotiabank or Royal Bank is that one now has access to funding at a much lower rate.

Royal Bank has a DBRS debt rating of AA(high). Bank of Nova Scotia has a rating of AA. Those ratings are up there with the provincial governments and allows them to issue bonds at provincial government bond rates.

So, there is no real need for a subsidiary like Tangerine Bank or the former Ally Financial to pay high rates for deposits, except for marketing purposes.  

Except it is my view that the big banks know the big digital tsunami is coming and having the likes of Tangerine and Simplii around are a way to have toes in the water and boots on the ground to 'feel' what is going on. Dont think they are expecting much else from these online offerings at the moment.

My sons, who are with big banks, know banking will be very different within 10 years but no one is really clear on what that looks like in retail banking. An even bigger question is in small business banking when many businesses have barely graduated from the abacus.

So the fintechs will always be somewhat fringe players? Good for the retail consumer like folks here trying to pick away for a few extra bucks but this would suggest even the fintechs will have to continue to consolidate to remain profitable/survive.

Except the fintechs do not have scale to make much of a dent. Margins are no doubt razor thin.

Which is why so many of them have poor customer service, amateur websites and limited offerings. They are storefront operations maybe run out of a garage.

Yes, I think this is a niche market on the fringes.

It is easily seen through the Desjardins attempt with Zag. Desjardins has the scale, yet they shut Zag down. They probably couldn’t make enough profit off the deposits to cover the costs to operate. And any loans or mortgages that could perhaps have been acquired, could just have been done through the regular channels that already existed. In other words, they don’t need to offer high interest, it’s the small operations and start-ups that want your deposits.

Hence, this wonderful site to display them for us.

We will get better rates with more competition, so consolidation would most likely lower rates.