OUTLOOK cuts gic rates | Outlook Financial | Discussion forum

GICinvestor said
I have $6 there TIL March 2020...then bye bye.  

They let you book a $6 GIC? Surprising...usually banks will have a $500, or even $100, minimum on a GIC. Or do you just mean you're not closing your HISA with them until next year (to give them time to see if rates improve)?

Cheers,
Doug

GICinvestor said
You are over analyzing!

All in HISA.  

Oh, thanks for clarifying. Was just confused why you stated till March 2020. If only $6 in a HISA, why wait 8-9 more months if you are dissatisfied with their rates? Wouldn't it possibly make sense to withdraw that small balance and close out the accounts sooner?

Cheers,
Doug

GICinvestor said
Because they screwed up my TFSA deposits and withdrawals and did not show correctly on "My Account". I had chase them for months until they did a "resubmit". So I want to still appear to be a customer until I see that my TFSA transactions have been done properly.  

Ah, that makes sense. So, it could be sooner than March, if your 2019 TFSA transaction data has been submitted to and posted by CRA before March (in January).

In fairness, TFSA transactions are notorious for errors. Banks often cobble them on to existing banking systems - in HSBC's case, it's a drop-down box next to the debit or credit account in the "transfer" screen or in the "deposit" or "withdrawal" screens. It's very easy to accidentally post as a "TFSA transfer" or "TFSA contribution" in error. The correction, meanwhile, is a nightmare and, I believe, had to be done in the back-end, green-and-black DOS-based two-colour banking system (called HUB, for HSBC Universal Banking). There were procedures for TFSA corrections...thankfully, I never had to do any as I still couldn't wrap my head around it. That said, if a bank accidentally reported your TFSA transaction as a transfer instead of a contribution, would you (or anyone else) get that corrected or treat that as a one-time luck of the draw artificial increase to your TFSA contribution room? (Your balance could've grown by that amount easy, in terms of growth of capital, and the process is automated. Unless it was a huge, six-figure growth in your TFSA balance, it likely wouldn't come across CRA's screens for audit vis-a-vis TFSA balance YoY growth.)

In short, if one has, say, $60,000 in a TFSA and it grew to $70-80,000 the next year, that wouldn't raise any flags with CRA unless the number of transactions or trades within it (i.e., brokerage account) were more than 4-5 every two weeks (you could be contributing to 4-5 ETFs every pay period, for example).

Cheers,
Doug