General Satisfaction with Motive Financial | Motive Financial | Discussion forum

Hi - long time lurker, but created an account specifically to reply to this.

There a few things that I would encourage you to consider:

Motive is a "brand" of CWB, which means that CDIC coverage is aggregate. For example, let's say you have $75,000 in a CDIC-insured product (say, a GIC) at CWB, and $50,00 in a CDIC-insured product at Motive. Suddenly, Motive goes under (extremely unlikely, but that's what all victims say in the aftermath of a bank failure). In this case, you would only be covered at Motive for $25,000.

However, if you are fine with the (minimal but not zero) risk of Motive having issues, then there is another reason why I would strongly encourage you to look for other options: In my experience with Motive, their service is beyond dysfunctional.

What I mean, is that once you actually connect with someone, you will typically be able to implement your action or resolve your issue -- at least, that has been my experience.

BUT -- and this is the thing -- connecting with someone is a NIGHTMARE. You should expect to stay on hold for HOURS, and possibly across several calls/several days.

And their invitation to "leave a voicemail and we will call you back as soon as possible" is a cruel joke. Apparently, Motive Financial is located on a planet where "as soon as possible" means somewhere between a week and never.

The problem with Motive is simple: they are chronically under-staffed. And they evidently have no interest, incentive, or compulsion to fix this.

So, if you go with Motive, then be prepared to deal with this. If you are OK with that -- i.e. you are willing to trade a slightly higher rate for the frustration and waste of your time -- then go for it.

But if, like me, you come to the conclusion that earning an extra few hundred (at most) a year in interest vs. competitors isn't worth the pain, then keep looking.

Granted, online banks like Tangerine, Simplii, and EQ sometimes don't have great service. But at least they PROVIDE service. You may need to speak to 2 or 3 people and escalate an issue, but you will be able to speak with someone. Alarmingly and absurdly, this is not the case at Motive. Recently, it took me 4 calls on 4 separate days, over which I was on hold for more than 5 hours total, to finally speak with someone. I have since closed my account

Alexandre said
I consider Motive not worse than other online banks. My rule is never to call them, these are online banks for reason.

I respect your rule on this, but I have a categorically different one.

Yes, I think clients need to significantly lower their expectations when dealing with an online-only bank. Or to put it another way, clients need to understand that they are making a trade: in exchange for (often) higher rates, they are giving up service. It's kind of like if you go to Burger King. If you expect 'white glove' treatment, then you're the problem.

But in my view, simply providing basic, fundamental *coverage* in your customer service is table stakes for any financial institution. I'm not saying that the staff have to be highly experienced or knowledgeable. But I'm saying they need to EXIST.

I was never expecting to instantly speak with someone when calling Motive -- you can't even expect that with a big 5 bank. But staying on hold for HOURS and never getting a call back after leaving a voicemail? To me Motive is colouring way, way outside the lines when it comes to customer service. They are inventing a new category that goes beyond bad customer service: it is NO customer service.

To each their own, but again, in my view the minimal extra interest (which is taxed at marginal rates -- not Motive's fault but still a factor) is absolutely not worth the frustration and anxiety.

For example, if you buy a GIC and tell them at maturity you want the principal+interest to go into your savings account, then in my experience DO NOT expect this to happen. Some other FIs do the same annoying thing. Except you can call them and, at most, waste 30 minutes of your time. With Motive, expect to speak to someone in days -- not hours or minutes. And when they do eventually cancel the GIC that you didn't want renewed in the first place, they won't even dream of compensating you for the interest you lost (either at Motive or elsewhere had you transferred the funds out on the day of maturity).

Again, to each their own. Personally, I have very, very low expectations for service for all FIs -- and it's even lower for online-only FIs -- and Motive still consistently managed to fall below them. Glad that they are no longer on my roster.

I made a request by email on November 8, 2 weeks ago, with no response.
Yesterday, I waited an hour on the phone for the customer representative.
My previous phone calls were about 1/2 hour wait.

I will share my experience with buying GIC's.

1) Each GIC will auto-renew at the initial period. E.G, If you bought a GIC for 1 year, it automatically renew to another 1 year term. I do not want to auto-renew my GIC. Therefore, I need to contact a customer representative.

2) Each GIC will pay interest every year. I have some 2-year GIC which I want interest to be paid at maturity. Therefore I need to contact a customer representative.

3) Each GIC is purchased in your own name. I want my GIC to be joint with my spouse. Therefore, I need to contact a customer representative.

One nice thing about Motive GIC is that you can control the number of months of each GIC. E.g. Rather than a fixed 2 year or 3 year GIC, you can have a GIC between 24 and 36 months. Personally, I want some GIC to mature in January so as to delay my interest income taxes for another year.

P.S. Although the phone call wait was long, the customer representative was helpful.
I have spoken to several C.Rep and they were all helpful.

It did take some time to open an account (like two weeks or more).

Itellyouwutt, re your post #2, as Motive is a division of CWB it can't "go under", it is part of CWB. It would have to be CWB that goes under, taking Motive division with it, and you would be able to recover max $100K from all your CWB (including Motive) non-registered deposits.

I've been with Motive since day one, just for savings and sometimes short-term GICs, stretches of time with no money there at all, my customer service experience including calling them has been reasonable, not ever experienced the bad service some refer to here.

Actually, the relationship between CWB and Motive is exactly the same as CIBC and Simplii. In both cases, the latter is a division of the former and is insured under former's umbrella.

I've had HISA with Motive for a few years but haven't used it in recent times as I could always get a better deal elsewhere when I wanted one. Annoying as DUCA may be, 5.75 beats 4.1 any day, and one rate is not more reliable than the other.

Motive has an uneven history in regards to GIC rates. For several months they were changing their rates almost daily. Also, there have been long periods where they were not especially competitive .

That said, I've never had an issue with customer service yet. It may be that they are temporarily short-staffed due to the attraction of their current rates.

They have had a kind of promotion going recently, for (some?) existing customers.
We were invited to refer a new client, with $50 GC reward for each side after 3 months. I referred spouse, who completed the requirements Nov 14, but no peep yet from Motive about that or the gift cards. This should have been automated and may be taking up phone time if people are complaining.

Spouse was able to complete online account application without difficulty or unreasonable delay 3 months ago but we actually want a joint account and it seems we will have to phone about that so this has been delayed. A year or two ago, it looked like this could be done online but now not clear to us.
Phone call service was good when I used it, but that was a couple of years ago or so.

I regard Motive in the "back up" category, i.e. acceptable if there are no better alternatives. I prefer to keep my money in my own province as I think it will make it easier when one of us dies.

I have been with Motive for at least a decade... they used to be known as Canadian Direct Financial when I started. I haven't went for their GIC's, I just use their HISA account for my liquid savings (when there isn't a promo happening at Simplii or Tang) because their regular rate is the highest.

I cannot speak or services or requests because I haven't used any in years, pushing and pulling from Simplii and Tang (and EQ) has been quick and painless. It seems they are still manually based... they sent a letter saying I needed to fill out a CRA form or they would restrict my account, then they sent another letter apologizing that they forgot to send the form with the first letter . So I trust them with basic automated processes, but wouldn't put much faith in them for special requests.

I just got a call from Motive. They were returning the callback voicemail that I left them.

Just one little detail:

I left that voicemail on November 13.