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Yes, Briguy, I am aware of that thread. There were a few others around the same time dealing with other FIs as I recall.

As I said earlier, I would have no problem with BMO or any of the large banks; I just wouldn't use them in the first place.

Motive, CWB, Peoples, etc have no retail banking branches in Ontario.
I don't know how virtual banks would line up, but don't want to deal with what i can't be sure of.

Norman1 said
Earlier, I found that the Bank Act and the federal Trust and Loan Companies Act says that a deposit in a bank or federal trust company is located where the branch of the deposit is. That's not necessarily the head office of the bank or trust company.

So, a deposit at a Bank of Montreal branch in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan is subject to Saskatchewan property laws and probate laws. It is not subject to the provincial probate laws of Québec where the Bank of Montreal has its head office.  

Interesting- I guess you would have to phone a virtual bank to find out that info on which branch your money is at. Although it probably is in Alberta for Motive and Ontario for Motus. That wording of legislation isn't very relevant in today's day and age since some banks have head offices and no branches. The federal government should change bank act to say that a federally regulated bank must follow legislation of province where the account holder resides.

Norman1 said
Earlier, I found that the Bank Act and the federal Trust and Loan Companies Act says that a deposit in a bank or federal trust company is located where the branch of the deposit is. That's not necessarily the head office of the bank or trust company.

So, a deposit at a Bank of Montreal branch in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan is subject to Saskatchewan property laws and probate laws. It is not subject to the provincial probate laws of Québec where the Bank of Montreal has its head office.  

Thanks, Norman, I recall you participating in a forum thread on that subject. I may have even participated in that thread, too. 🙂

Cheers,
Doug

Briguy said
Interesting- I guess you would have to phone a virtual bank to find out that info on which branch your money is at. Although it probably is in Alberta for Motive and Ontario for Motus. That wording of legislation isn't very relevant in today's day and age since some banks have head offices and no branches. The federal government should change bank act to say that a federally regulated bank must follow legislation of province where the account holder resides.  

Thanks again, Norman, for pointing out that thread on the lack of relevancy of head office or regional office location. Regardless of what legislation may say, I will say that I think there would be no issues to dealing with Motive Financial despite the lack of a branch of account being in Ontario. (If they wanted to get around that legislation from a legal point of view, they could create one Motive Financial transit for each province and automatically domicile people to that provincial transit based on their province of residence.) I suspect, what you could do, if you wanted to be absolutely certain, is to ask each FI in writing whether they'll accept a grant of probate issued by an out of province court when you pass away. Make sure you state that your executor(trix) would either deliver it in person or have the copy notarized by a notary public or lawyer. They certainly have that option, as I've demonstrated with my HSBC example. 🙂

Besides, think of all the people that move cross-country and are told, consistently, by the banks themselves, "you do not need to transfer your account to this branch. We can fully service your accounts just the same as the other branch can." The fact that you remain domiciled at a transit in another branch seems to me to be more of a technicality and likely a reason why the legislation is out of date. I've never heard of a Canadian bank, in my years of banking industry experience, requiring an executor(trix) to go to the province of the domiciled account to get probate. With respect, I think we're focusing too much on the nuances of arguably out of date legislation instead of the practicality of what the banks allow to happen.

Also, I'm kind of surprised that Loonie is even keeping his or her Hubert non-registered/TFSA accounts considering they're in Manitoba and have no Ontario presence.

Cheers,
Doug

Loonie said
I did explain earlier why I'm dealing with Hubert.

This thread has become quite long. Can you briefly refresh my memory?

As regards opening the RIFs, an RIF is unlike any other account in that it can only be opened by transfer, either external or internal. So, in that sense, it may be fine that they don't provide for opening one per se. But what I do expect is a page that tells you how you can open one and provides a form to do so. Some FIs require you to first open a shell into which the plan can be transferred, with its own account number. I don't know how motus handles that.

Agreed that I think it would be helpful for Motus Bank to at least provide their RRIF application, beneficiary designation, and related forms online. Perhaps instead of a "contact us" or "apply now" link, Motus could have a link that says "Download application" or something like that, which took you to a RRIF application page with related forms and the method(s) by which to submit them (i.e., scan & e-mail, fax, snail mail, etc.)?

I do appreciate your sharing your thoughts on the account opening process, Loonie. Am I correct in thinking that you opted to just open a non-registered savings account to start, so you could request the RRIF application forms from Motus?

Thanks to Norman for clarifications. Alterna has always been an Ontario business, so I wouldn't find the branch in Gatineau to be misleading. To me, that branch is more of a curiosity. However, if I lived in QC, I suppose I might want to look into it since QC has a legal system that is unique among the provinces.

The Alterna Bank website lists other branch locations, which I assume are specific Alterna Savings credit union branch locations that are especially set up to provide Alterna Bank customer service (i.e., application forms, ID verification, maintenance forms, etc.) but not necessarily to transact.

I remain unconvinced by Doug's views on Motive, which has no retail branches for personal banking in Ontario as far as I have ever seen or heard of.  

How come? Don't you think you and others might be parsing and relying on the legalese too much? Why is it that the Big 5 Canadian banks do not require out of province court probate for accounts domiciled in another province?

I tend to think, though a bank could require out of province court probate if they wanted to be sticky about it, that given how "branch of account" doesn't really matter much practically speaking, it's not an issue. You could always get it in writing that they'd accept, on an institution by institution basis, probate from the province in which the customer dies, not where their branch of account is. They certainly have that right to do (and they are already doing that). They could well change this policy in the future, but as you pointed out in another thread (or this one), so, too, could our laws change. We can't predict every possibility.

Cheers,
Doug

Loonie said
I'm tired of this topic and all the repetition and have devoted enough time to it. Let's move on.  

Fair enough. 🙂

Cheers,
Doug

Loonie said
Update on account opening process:

I phoned Motus and they say that they have no record of the bank statement I uploaded yesterday from TD for linking.

Thanks for the update, Loonie!

Ugh, this sounds like an experience someone had recently with Motive Financial and their application apparently getting lost in the shuffle. I hate then things like this happen. This doesn't give me a lot of confidence, especially since, you uploaded it through their online banking facility!? It should be, literally, right there in some sort of dropbox.

It's good that they take bank e-Statements, though, but I honestly thought with their digital operation, they'd have an all-digital linking process similar to Tangerine/EQ Bank and now Oaken Financial. 🙁

I've now sent it again, albeit by a different route on their site, through "Messages".
They also say that there is a problem with TD. I didn't really understand what she was saying about that as it seemed contradictory, but it's possible that even if they agree that they have received the statement, that it will not link yet.
She said it would take about 15 minutes for the link to go through but it did not happen in that time frame. in a way that I could identify. It does show the message sent by me, however (excl attachment)
I can't do anything about the RIF until the link goes through, presumably for verification.  

They won't even let you submit the RIF application and they can process that in tandem?

I'm wondering how they're "verifying" your TD bank account. Either it's a manual verification (i.e., person views your TDCT bank e-Statement and verifies your name, address, branch name & address and/or transit number, and your account number) or it's automated and they verify via micro-deposits to your TDCT account or some sort of electronic transfer they can verify (i.e., Interac e-Transfer). If it's manual, what's the problem with TD versus other banks? Is it because TD has a "branch number" as the first four digits of your account number? That part can be confusing, but all they should care about is just make sure they enter, in the transit number field, the five digit transit number that precedes the three digit institution number and then enter the 4 digit branch number and 7 digit account number as part of one, combined account number. It's not rocket science, or shouldn't be. I never had these kind of problems setting up EFTs for customers when I worked at HSBC.

Cheers,
Doug

Thanks for the reply, Loonie...I like that at least they're honest, with their public estimation that the automated, electronic verification process works ~85% of the time. You might be right on those ~15% being TDCT customers.

If it is a problem with verifying TDCT bank accounts (a little confused from your description how it's supposed to work...do you do an e-Transfer for $1.00 from TDCT, or do you sign-in to your TDCT EasyWeb online banking?), have you thought of using your Meridian Credit Union account for the purposes of verification (could also use Oaken, or any other online bank account, potentially) and then just adding the TDCT account when they work out the kinks?

You don't need the TDCT link immediately from the sounds of it...you just want a Motus Savings (or Chequing) account to set up your RRIF.

Didn't realize your RRIF was at Oaken. Too bad Oaken didn't offer less than 1-year GICs in a RRIF. Does Oaken have a RRIF Savings account you could throw those funds in for an extra 30-60 days until the RRIF transfer to Motus goes thru?

PM me if you prefer to discuss privately, too. Alternatively, you can e-mail me if you like. I'm 'dmehus' and have a certain 'outlook' dot 'com'. 😉

Cheers,
Doug

Loonie said
I did mention in the previous post that I am considering linking other accounts to see if I can get one through at least. Not sure how you could have missed that as the second last paragraph was devoted entirely to it.

Sorry, Loonie. I see that now. That's the one paragraph from your post I didn't look at too closely or only skimmed over, at best. My apologies.

Hadn't thought of specifically trying Meridian though. Then they couldn't blame the other party! - at least in theory.

Yeah, exactly. They should be familiar with Meridian's transit and institution numbers (hopefully!). Or at least know to talk to (maybe!). 😉

I would be doing the transfers from the Motus end, not from TD. I don't use online banking with TD.

Oh, how do they do the link then? Is it not via signing in to online banking?

Oaken doesn't offer anything at all less than a year for RIF, as has been mentioned numerous times in various threads.

Thanks for the offer but I will decline for now.  

Aww, that's too bad...I didn't realize they didn't offer at least a RIF Savings account. Too bad. I guess you could potentially renew your Oaken RIF GIC for 1 more year, at 2.85%, which wouldn't be ideal as you'd hoped to move over to Motus. On the bright side, at least Home Trust/Home Bank is based in or has offices in Ontario. And, you have, for the most part, found them quite helpful and easy to deal with (notwithstanding their lack of options in terms of shorter term RIF GICs and/or a savings account).

Let me know if you ever need some input via PM. Can still be completely anonymous input/suggestions.

Cheers,
Doug

Benjames35 said
Just recently signed up, can't believe how easy it was to link my Simplii Financial Bank Account. Took less then 3 minutes online with no paperwork. Now moving my TFSA from Canadian Tire Financial to Motus and they said they would pay $50.00 of the transfer fee. Goodbye Canadian Tire with your uncompetitive rates!  

That's nice they'll reimburse you the Canadian Tire Bank transfer fee.

That said, there are a few things that are keeping me away from Motus Bank until they fix it.

Apparently, according to RFD, they do not have access to deposited funds limits to anyone, including those with excellent credit profiles and scores. They're literally following the bare minimum they can legally get away with under the federal Access to Funds Regulations by applying Section 6 exceptions to the first $100 availability next day not kicking in until after 90 days. Many banks will do this for those with poor credit histories, but I've never seen any Canadian bank or federally-regulated credit union do this for those of a very, very low credit risk. Tangerine, Simplii, Scotiabank, TDCT, RBC, BMO, CIBC, Coast Capital Savings, HSBC, and Motive Financial (and others) all provide the first $100 immediately to those with very good or excellent credit scores and most also offer access to funds limits that range from $200 to upwards of $10,000.

With each of Tangerine and Coast, if I make a deposit via pulled EFT or cheque, I can access up to $5,000 right away. With Scotiabank, I think it's $2,500. With HSBC, anyone with a 680-720 or higher beacon score automatically qualified for no holds.

My point is, they're being overly strict here. This is, after all, a day-to-day banking account. What if someone had their employer that paid them by cheque instead of direct deposit? I realize that for those with, say, beacon scores less than 600, they might not be able to offer this right away, if ever, or at least until an established track is established, but in virtual banks it's vitally important to be able to provide this essential service. With a bricks-and-mortar FI, the person can at least attend a bank branch in-person and have the bank call & verify the cheque for funds, holds, stops, etc.

Cheers,
Doug