Considering Peoples Trust GIC | Peoples Trust | Discussion forum

The short answer, in my view, is that sometimes one decides to hold one's nose and make an investment because the rate is worth it even if other things are annoying or objectionable. I don't like Peoples Trust, but, for a simple GIC, it should be fine. Like you say, it's insured.

I do draw the line where there are more serious problems, e.g. seriously misleading info being given by employees of the financial institution, unwillingness to provide necessary documents, etc. In that case, I won't deal with them again.

That said, Oaken offers the same rate, and I find them much better to deal with. They will send you an actual GIC certificate, they will give you the option at time of purchase of auto-renewal or not, and they will send you the cash on maturity before the maturity date. They are also very clear about compounding versus payouts.

The rates in the newspaper cannot be relied upon and are often out of date. My understanding is that they depend on regular submissions from the financial institutions in question to rate brokers and these are often slow in coming.

Don't forget, too, that with any savings account, however attractive the rate, it is not guaranteed to be the same next week.

Archibald you bare my fathers name. I use both P.T. and Oaken and both have issues if you want to get picky. . When you look at Oaken they usually have the best rates then P.T. Either are ok......just don't go over the CDIC limit.

I find Accelerate, Hubert and Implicity to have almost as good rates and each in their own way have great service.

Use each for "your use" and think twice about "having to being loyal".

Keep in mind what other features you need like:
Do they have cheques
Do they offer online transfer of funds FI to FI
Do they have associated savings acccount for your GIC type ie. non registered, TFSA, RRIF or RRSP. As some don't.
Do they offer upfront to not rollover GIC at maturity
Do they have beneficiary assignment forms for your account type.
Do they offer ATM deposits and withdrawals
Can you phone in a GIC
Can you do and online order for a GIC
How competitive are their savings account rates
Do they remind you of upcoming maturities
Do they mail statements...and what frequency
Do they offer only online statements...and what frequency
Do they offer a mailed copy of a GIC certificate
Can you make your own paper copy GIC certificate
Lastly can I use for day to day banking and what are the service fees

I use this one for rates
Or better yet look at the comparison chart on this site and then check rates at each bank or CU. That will always be more accurate.

Personally, I am phasing out of Peoples in favour of Oaken.

Oaken has held their rates as well as any and better than most. Also, they have 2 equal CDIC-insured financial entities offering the same rates, so that it's no problem to have twice as much money insured, which makes life simpler. Between regular savings, TFSA and RRSP, a couple could hold up to $1 million there, fully insured, if they so chose. It's the best bet, in my opinion, for people who want to minimize the number of financial institutions that they deal with but still allow for insured growth. However, their savings account rate is not the greatest, so you might want a higher-rate account elsewhere, although all of those have issues of one sort or another (Alterna - low withdrawal limits; EQ - only offers single-person accounts and not available to Quebec, I think; PC and Tang - rates unreliable).
I agree, Tang is a PITA, only useful for occasional good offers, if you happen to have the cash available at the time and don't mind dealing with their bizarre rate system..

It seems that there is a new bank every year or so. The landscape is always changing. So, even if you settle on on a couple right now, it may not be forever. Meridian credit union, for example, is starting a new online bank next year (or perhaps the year after).

I have considered oaken but it seems pretty annoying they don't have a tfsa savings account. Choosing whether you want to auto renew would definitely be nice.

If eq ever drops their rate again, i think i would consolidate at oaken. I feel like i shouldn't support peoples because of the security breach.

A couple of other things to consider before "dumping" Oaken or P.T.

Be it TFSA, RRIF, RRSP or Non Registered you might not want to go over $100,000 including interest at maturity. Realizing you have seperate CDIC coverages that allows more than $100,000.....remember the old saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket".

To keep it simple with multiple FI's consider setting up external transfers to be able to, over a period of time, move all funds to one or two FI's.

Another reason to not bank at peoples trust is they lack an online security guarantee. Oaken financial and eq bank both have them.

Do people find they get a lot of direct marketing emails from oaken financial? It says right in their privacy code you are consenting to receive marketing. It does say you can opt out though.

Thanks. Can you open multiple nicknamed savings accounts at oaken like you can at peoples and eq?

Also, to respond to the OP question, I wouldn't hesitate to buy a GIC from PT.

I was a long time TFSA holder there when they had their 3%-ish rate days and I always found them fine to deal with. Their online system is fine and shows you all the details you need to monitor your investment (security breach notwithstanding).

Also, for a 2 year GIC you are going to have to deal with them twice. That's it. Once to open, once to close/renew. Even the worst financial institution I deal with (and I have dealt with about 15) would be tolerable if I only had to deal with them twice in 2 years.

I am not here to agree or disagree with any ones comments. And I don't expect the latter for my comments. I like to learn, share and take any comments, upon my verification, to help with my DIY investing. And once again and I thank everyone for sharing....and your comments. I will rarely defend my comments or push them down your throats, so to speak. Hopefully I can pass on comments that are helpful due to my age and actual occurences observed over my lifetime.

When there is lots of competition out there for somewhat crappy rates why would you buy $100,000 in GICs at one FI and run the risk of loosing 5 years of interest? 5 years of interest you will never recoup.....and in hindsight you will say; why didn't I use some common sense?

I won't comment on common sense. Too many politicians have claimed it already.

However, there are several other standards other than retention of capital that one could apply to this kind of situation. Net after inflation and taxes as well as cost-to-me-in-effort -and-time would be the ones that matters most to me, and I would want to both insure and ensure that to the best of my abilities. In that sense, the principal is only a starting point, not the goal. And if keeping a bit more money in one FI than is insured allowed me to have one less account, I'd do it, and have done so.
However, we all have different ways of approaching the problem, and different criteria or standards for success, and different levels of risk that we are willing to take.