All GIC rates decrease | Hubert Financial | Discussion forum

not a fan that they no longer give you a heads up before they change rates

phrank said
not a fan that they no longer give you a heads up before they change rates  

I agree, last couple of times I had to call them for something I asked about this and if there was a way to request that they bring back the advance email notice. Both reps I spoke with said they would pass this request along to their manager(s). One of them said the more people ask about this the more inclined the higher-ups would be to bring it back, so it might help if more people bring this up whenever they happen to call them.

I'm doing the same. I should have just kept my money at Tang for 5%, but I foolishly bought the 1-yr quarterly at Hubert.

My message sent to Hubert this morning is below. Will it make a difference? It might if enough people follow suit, as Dean suggested above.

"As clients, I have to tell you how disappointed my wife and I are that you have abandoned your policy of sending out advance notice of rate changes. This is one of the things that made you stand out from the pack. Your management does not wake up in the morning and decide, "Let's change our rates today!". Rate changes are planned in advance. And that's when you should be telling your valued clients. Thank you..."

Without wanting to set off a stampede of withdrawals, I imagine that the most effective way of showing Access Credit Union that their new strategy for Hubert could benefit from some adjustment is for complaint letters to be reinforced by a net outflow of assets. I am planning to move some, but by no means all, of my money to higher interest GICs at other FIs (e.g., Peoples Bank), when the next 1 year term anniversary comes up later this month. I would have kept it at Hubert if the rates hadn't been cut back, and I might keep more funds there if I knew that they would give fair warning about rate changes.

I will speculate that Oaken's policies will change when Smith Financial completes the acquisition of HCG later this year and goes private.

cgouimet said

I used to get Hubert emails a few hours before. Now it's a few hours after.

Welcome to Access CU, bye bye Sunova.

cgouimet said
Oaken is usually 7 calendar days but their hold policy means you can't take advantage of it unless you have HISA $ there already.  

I've been successful with calling Oaken to book a GIC inside the 7 day notice period and get the higher rate without having any cash there (don't even have a HISA). My wife and I both did it in Dec and Jan. The funds were sent old school (mail a cheque) and via linked external account for different GICs. One of my wife's purchases via cheque didn't show up on Oaken's site for two or more weeks, but was back-dated to the purchase date with the higher rate.

I agree with AltaRed that the policies are likely to change. But I don't really care how they change, as I'm not planning on putting any more money in there.

Of course Hubert couldn't wait for 2 more weeks.. I'm off to Oaken.

Back in December, Hubert/Access dropped some of their rates when other FIs were still sticking with "higher for longer". That led me to move deposits over to Oaken and Peoples Trust when they were offering 5.39 and 5.4% respectively. Now, I'm looking at Peoples Bank to move proceeds of GICs that come due later this month. 5.3% looks better than 4.85%.