Contemplating opening account - pros & cons? | Oaken Financial | Discussion forum

I've used Oaken for many, many years, but mainly for their high GIC rates--usually at the top of the heap. I have an online savings account with them--mainly to park money that matures from the GICs. I think that their interest rate is high on the savings account and your can easily set up other institutions to switch your money back and forth.

I have opened my account few years ago physically at a branch back at the time, so cant comment on their online application process.
I use them almost 100% GIC only and have no issues whether its the app or the web site, link to external FI works well too.
Like dentgal said, make sure you have a savings account open as well, it will be used as the source to fund ur GIC purchase and where to send int / principal when GIC matures. You have full control (self serve, no need to call in) regarding interest and maturity instruction.
The only minor complaint is whenever one buys a new GIC, their setup is almost like you opening a new account, so a few unnecessary questions / steps for an existing customer in my mind.

savemoresaveoften said
I have opened my account few years ago physically at a branch back at the time, so cant comment on their online application process.
I use them almost 100% GIC only and have no issues whether its the app or the web site, link to external FI works well too.
Like dentgal said, make sure you have a savings account open as well, it will be used as the source to fund ur GIC purchase and where to send int / principal when GIC matures. You have full control (self serve, no need to call in) regarding interest and maturity instruction.
The only minor complaint is whenever one buys a new GIC, their setup is almost like you opening a new account, so a few unnecessary questions / steps for an existing customer in my mind.  

Forgot to mention while they may be slow to "process" the GIC purchase, it does show up exactly the way you order it (esp online, less chance for verbal error.) And the fact they automatically go back 1 week if rates goes up is a big plus in my mind. You will be lucky if other banks will honor only within 2 days max I believed.
Having said that, I do limit it to $100k per name Trust vs Bank.

Not sure that GIC purchase delay would be bad.

GIC is backdated to the request date. Should the funds not be debited from the funding account until three weeks later, then one earned interest on the funds at two places!

For RRSP's, Oaken does offer some of their short-term GIC's:

Short-term GICs are non-redeemable and require a minimum deposit of $1,000. Interest is compounded annually and paid at maturity. Also available as RSP from 90 days, with a minimum deposit of $2,500.

No mention of the same for TFSA's.

HermanH said
Another potential (temporary?) Con:

I was speaking to a broker for GIC Direct and she told me that they had decided to discontinue offering any Oaken (Home Trust/Bank) GIC due to their long delays in processing requests. She thought that it might be a staffing problem and hoped that it would change in the future.  

It could be Oaken decided to keep that business in house and just offer the higher rate direct, instead of paying it away to a broker. Not surprised if other CU / FIs may consider doing the same, esp as they build up their digital presence and capabilities.

savemoresaveoften said

I just checked on my recent purchase and you are right !! Easy double dipping lol  

Y'all sure about that? There's this paragraph in the application ...

"For your convenience, we have entered the issue and maturity dates based on the choice(s) you made above; the actual issue date will be the date we receive your funds."

savemoresaveoften said

It could be Oaken decided to keep that business in house and just offer the higher rate direct, instead of paying it away to a broker.

Sorry for the confusion, my words were not clear. The brokerage firm told me that they were the ones who decided against offering Oaken (Home Trust/Bank) products, for the time being, and suspended/discontinued the agreement.

With my experience, I can confirm that:

1. Oaken only does direct credit/debit transfers they originate. You can't link from another institution.

2. They have real service issues and long phone waits. I prefer to do things in person, but one has to do the phone wait to get an appointment. Not being able to walk into a branch and get service right away is a royal pain.

Like some others, I use them only for GIC deposits.
RetirEd

Norman1 said
One will need to do calculate the interest paid to confirm any double dipping.

Some people had reported apparent double dipping with Simplii, for example. But, I did the calculations and found no double dipping actually occurred with my accounts.

It looks like double dipping because Simplii shows the posting date of transactions on their online banking site. But, the posting date is not always the effective date of a transaction. The monthly statements show the effective dates and it is the effective dates that are used for interest calculation.

That preauthorized debit posted December 27 could actually been exchanged through Payments Canada systems on December 24 and be effective December 24.  

I'll test this in April