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It's nice, but they don't seem to support external account links ? unless they provide the FI#, Branch#, Acc# and use that to push/pull fund from another FI.

Great FI, love their CSRs , but the only way to get funds in is either pushing from another FI as mentioned before, or through mailing in a cheque, or depositing a cheque at an Acculink ATM, but the easiest way is cheque deposit through their mobile app.

lhsaid said

What would happen if you push more then $10k from another FI ? Would they reject it ?  

Quite possibly, but I don't know the answer for sure because I've never tried flouting their stated limitations. Why bother.

FWIW I recently had occasion to push about $40K from LBC into ACU to fund my wife's TFSA, so I split the transfer up into 4 pieces and sent the first 2 on Day 1 and the rest on Day 2. No big hardship, just a few extra clicks.

Since the rules exist I imagine they're prepared to enforce them, otherwise why have a policy in the first place

lhsaid said

I just spoke to them, there is no limit when you push or pull from another FI. Limits only apply to e-transfers (interac). So, next time you don't have to split your funds.  

I doubt that information is correct. The transfer limits I quoted are not Interac limits, they are ACU's limits as transcribed from a chat session with an ACU CSR. Whoever you spoke to today must have misunderstood the question, or is unaware of their own incoming transfer policies as distinct from Interac limitations which are industry-wide.

Interac limits are quite puny in comparison, and commonly allow only $3K maximum per Interac transfer which is additionally capped at $10K per week regardless of the FI, although the odd bank (e.g. HSBC) will allow a single $5K transfer subject to the same weekly maximum. They're great for sending the babysitter $50 but not very useful for moving more serious money around. You have to be able to push or pull by EFT to accomplish that

lhsaid said
I'm going to do it pretty soon and let you know how it goes.

Please do report back, because after you read the rest of this post, I'd very much like to know if I got screwed around since it has interest credit implications.

lhsaid said

It's not clear to me why a chat session would be more accurate then a phone call

Only because a chat transcription creates a written record that isn't subject to people's memory of what was said, or in what context. It's equivalent to recording your phone calls, which I also do when dealing with brokers and lawyers and banks if not using chat.

And don't be offended, it's not that I don't believe that someone told you there are no transfer restrictions, I'm questioning the facts as presented by different ACU reps. Obviously they both can't be right.

For the record, here is exactly what I was told verbatim on Dec 17, 2019...

Me
I completed my application yesterday using a Tangerine cheque as my initial deposit -- will my new ACU acount automatically be linked to that Tangerine account once my application is approved and my account is open?

Emily
The accounts can not be linked, as Tangerine and ACU are separate Financial Institutions. If you need to transfer funds in between Tangerine and ACU once your ACU account is open, then you can do that by e-Transfer.

Me
Maybe I wasn't clear -- I understand etransfers -- what I'm trying to establish is whether I will need to file a bunch of paper to set up Tangerine as an external link at ACU, or whether that external link automatically gets set up by default at your end since that's where my initial deposit came from

15:10
Emily
We are not affiliated with any other financial institution and thus can not set up external links to other accounts.

15:13
Me
So how do I get more money into my ACU account? Presumably Interac works for small amounts, but what about larger figures?

Emily
The e-Transfer limits which are as follows for receiving funds:
$10,000 Per transaction
$20,000 Daily
$70,000 Weekly
$300,000 Monthly
In the event the amount you want to transfer exceeds this, you can also write yourself a cheque or send a Wire Transfer.

Me
15:23
OK, I didn't realize that things were so restrictive. Thanks for the info

FWIW, it seems to me like you may both be correct. I think it's Emily who is confused. Nobody asked her whether ACU was "affiliated" with other FIs; she assumed that was the underlying question, but it's not

Seems to me the question is whether you can set up a link to ACU at Tangerine. I don't see why not, as long as you don't exceed their number of allowed links. Tang may require a chequing account at ACU though for this link (not sure). ACU has no say in this.

Once you've done that, you should be able to pull and push from the Tangerine end to and from ACU. Emily may not be aware of this or understand it.

My accounts at the big banks have no links established in the sense of logging into them and making external transfers because these accounts don't permit it. However, I use them regularly to move money by initiating the transfer externally. I'm sure many of us do this. And it sounds like you could do the same thing with ACU, with ACU being in the same passive position as the big banks accounts

lhsaid said
I went through your chat, I don't see where it talks about limits when pushing/pulling from another FI ?

Really? It's quiet here on a Sunday afternoon, so let me give it another go.

We both already know that you can't set up external links at ACU, so the whole pull discussion is moot. Agreed? But this part of the chat (correctly or otherwise) expressly states that they do have a cap on the size of any pushes in they will accept from another FI --

Emily
The e-Transfer limits which are as follows for receiving funds:
$10,000 Per transaction
$20,000 Daily
$70,000 Weekly
$300,000 Monthly
In the event the amount you want to transfer exceeds this, you can also write yourself a cheque or send a Wire Transfer.

Basically there are 2 different types of what I will call DIY electronic transfer systems:
(1) you can send money by the Interac system, which works for smaller amounts, and for which Interac has its own set of rules for size/frequency;
(2) you can push/pull between FIs by EFT, the amounts of which are governed by each FI individually. When it comes to pushes out (which you would have to do to get money into ACU), some FIs have $50K per transaction limits, some have $100K daily limits, and some have no limits at all, it depends on the outgoing FI.

And to be additionally clear, this also isn't about whether you can create an EFT link to ACU at another FI to facilitate pushing funds into ACU, because of course you can. That's what I did to push my $40K into ACU from LBC over 2 days last month, because using Interac to do it would have taken 4 weeks.

So we know in the chat session that Polly is clearly not talking about Interac limitations, which are much lower. Apparently she's referring to an internal ACU policy (perhaps imaginary on her part) limiting the allowable size of EFTs being pushed in from another FI.

While ACU is the first FI I've encountered claiming to have a limit on the size of incoming EFT pushes it is prepared to receive, it didn't occur to me to argue the point when she brought it up. I did think it was a bit odd, but I chalked it up to ACU being so small that they might feel a need to try to control the amounts of their incoming deposits due to the difficulties of quickly redeploying them locally. But who knows the real reason, or if the policy even truly exists.

When I find the time on Monday or Tuesday when they're open, I'm going to contact them again and get to the bottom of it