Hoops and Hoops and Hoops | Motive Financial | Discussion forum

MapleOne, your experience with Motive Financial is not typical. As a matter of course, Motive Financial accounts are normally opened and fully activated for use within 2-3 business days, based on the dozens of reports I've reviewed on this and RFD forums. Moreover, they use the OpenAnywhere™ technology from Central 1 Credit Union, as I understand it, that has you fund your new account by sending an Interac e-Transfer from your other bank account.

If your experience was slow, it could be because Motive has had to use an alternate, manual process of verifying you, possibly because you didn't answer the verification questions from your TransUnion soft credit check correctly, you have a fraud block on either of your TU or Equifax credit bureaus, or there was a mismatch in the information you supplied on your application form and the information on one or more credit bureaus.

Another user, Michael, reported that Motive Financial declined him, at least initially, due to him likely having not enough current information and tradelines (in the last 3 years) on his credit bureau. Since then, which was only a few months ago, Motive Financial has since been manually approving customers with similar credit bureau verification problems, but it takes time. They are a small, lean operation with a dozen (maybe two) staff total. Canadian Western Bank's contact centre services Motive Financial customers after hours with lost/stolen debit cards and forgotten PINs, but all other queries are handled by Motive Financial virtual branch staff. They just don't have the staffing to timely process new applications like a Simplii or a Tangerine.

Also, as for Motus Bank, their account opening system may be slick, but you will be adding 3-4 business days on your EFT and cheque transaction processing and, if you're ever transferring in a registered account (especially a RRIF), forget about it. @Loonie can share his/her experience with you, or refer you to the last 10-20 pages of the "motusbank has launched" thread on this forum. 😉

When I'm finished my program, Motive Financial, Alterna Bank, North Peace Savings and Credit Union, or Innovation Credit Union will be my new primary financial institution, displacing Coast Capital Savings.

Cheers,
Doug

MapleOne said

I don't need to brag, I'm simply stating facts.
With the amount I mentioned I got nowhere with the reps at Simplii.

This is a financial forum and using an alias I don't get any personal gratification out of quoting numbers.  

MapleOne, Unfortunately there is a lot of jealous pettiness on this site. Ignore it and just get the info you need.

MapleOne said
So I decided to open an account with Motive to take advantage of the 2.8%.
I figured I wanted to keep some cash liquid and I phoned them and was told one million was the limit so I decided to put in 975K so I could earn interest without worrying about going over the limit. Anything over 1 million you basically get squat.

So how was my experience?

OMG... insanely stupid., they use everything manual, it drove me nuts, two weeks and still waiting,. Here is the process.

1. Apply online
2. Wait over one week
3. Call and told to hold my horses
4. Get an email saying need more info
5. Asked me to electronically link my bank account
6. Wait another week
7. Email saying soon I will have account.
8. Email to fill out 3 more forms, link account form, tax form, signature form.
9. Asked me for blank cheque for linked account. Huh, I'm linking a savings account?
10. Download form from Simplii for direct deposit authorization for Motive.
11. Called motive and told them this is stupid I had already linked my account in step 5.
12. Got an email account is linked but I have to call in to manually log in with them first time and it must be from desktop.
13. They use only pass codes and account numbers for login and everything looks like it is designed in the 80's.
14. A number of attempts on phone and all logged in.
Tried to transfer funds and said account needs verification AGAIN!!! Holy crap.
15. Called and was told they will deposit two small amounts and I must call back to verify.
16. Waiting, waiting, and still waiting?

So, how was your day?  

Yes, I am with Motive and if I recall correctly I filled online application on Dec 9th and someone asked for more information on Jan 19th via email. Account was open around Jan25th ish.

As Doug has indicated, my experience with Motus is already documented.
However, I have not given up on Motus and continue to do business with them, aware of their weaknesses.

I have no problem with people disclosing their assets, although it could be annoying if repeated frequently for no obvious purpose. Here , I think the purpose was to show that even a very large amount would not budge Simplii. One person's "large amount" is not another's, so a financial range helps clarify. Sometimes, in order not to be so obvious, members will say something like "low six figures" etc. You might, accordingly, have said , "low 7 figures" if you thought the specifics might bother someone.

Personally, I choose not to share this information, and most here do not. Sometimes I think it would be very helpful to what I'm trying to communicate if I did, so I try to find workarounds.

@MapleOne, I don't know if you're going to find what you're looking for on this forum, i.e. people to discuss savings accounts for $3 million.
Nothing like that has come up in the 5+ years I've been here.
I think there are people who have financial assets in that range, but not that much in savings accounts.
If I had that much in savings accounts, I think I'd restrict myself to the financial institutions with the best credit ratings or unlimited deposit insurance. They would not necessarily pay the best rates, but my primary interest would be preserving what I had, secondary would be the rate. Hopping around to put 100K here or there to keep within insurance limits is a huge nuisance with that much money, and I wouldn't do it, but if you put more into some of the lower rated banks, you take more risk. The bank behind Oaken almost went belly-up a couple of years ago.

Norman1 can help you out with the credit ratings if you need that. The MB credit unions are usually the best for unlimited insurance and rates combination. Doug can help you out with assessing some of them, and there are various comments on the forum. I mentioned Steinbach and I think it's a good bet for you but haven't dealt with them personally.

If it were me, I think I'd put about half of it in 2 or 3 banks that had the best credit ratings, even if that meant the Big Five - I'd spread it out just in case one went rogue. You might consider some of the in-house offerings that are sort of mutual funds but not in the usual sense as they have defined rates and are insured - each big bank has them. At TD, they are numbered 8150 and following and were paying 1.6% as of June 30. AltaRed or someone else can help you find those. I believe these are only available with a brokerage account, but that's no big deal.
And I'd put the other half in Steinbach, getting their top tier rate. I'd sit back and just keep an eye on the rates at all these places in case remedial action is required. Rates change all the time in savings accounts.

MapleOne said
PS.... can anyone point me to the Oaken topic.
What happened and how did they recover?  

You can find a lot about it if you look at the Oaken threads. The parent organization is called Home Capital Group (HCG). They have Home Bank and Home Trust, and you can get double insurance that way through Oaken
Ultimately, it was bailed out by none other than Warren Buffett, who has since retreated with his massive profits intact. He basically wanted to control it but that wasn't allowed. They seem to have recovered fine although others can probably give you more details or you can look it up or ask your broker about it from a stock perspective.

There were a couple of managers who did things they shouldn't have. I forget all the details now, but they are long gone.
I've had investments there throughout and have never worried as mine are under insurance limits. When they were in trouble, they had to offer high rates, so I bought more but still within limits. Glad I did.

Generally, they are very good to deal with.

Be aware, if you're not, that Tangerine is owned by Scotia but is separate. There is no guarantee that Scotia would keep it or back it up if it went sour.

Simplii, on the other hand, is part and parcel of CIBC. They share the same single insurance limit.

With all that money and investments, I'm really surprised you would want to bother chasing these smaller banks with all their various limits and limitations.

Each one has its fans and its detractors.
I use a number of them, but like Hubert and Oaken the best. All have strengths and weaknesses. IMO, Tangerine would not be worth your while playing around with; they require too much babysitting for rates.

I think it's fair to say that, generally, big money like yours goes to big banks because they are more able to handle it. A small financial institution can't afford many people like you, so they have deposit limits. They can't afford for you to decide to up and take your money and put it somewhere else because it's too large a chunk of their business. They also need to diversify their customer base so that they can hope to sell additional products to those customers in future, which you probably won't buy.
In my opinion, the small banks are best suited to people who are only going to keep 100K or so there anyway (or perhaps 250 in the case of ONtario CUs.) I do think we're long overdue for increasing the CDIC limits, but, still, would only be maybe 200K, and very unlikely to happen any time soon.

I think I've told you all I can that is relevant. Look at Steinbach. I don't use it because it doesn't suit my needs and I don't think I would put 250+K in a MB CU, but I think it would suit yours. Steinbach is quite a wealthy community, so it makes sense for them to do what they do. At least once that I recall, they had the highest average incomes of any place in Canada.