Snags in funding the account | Saven Financial | Discussion forum

HaHa...

Even worse, they only have a small amount of banks they deal with so I asked them how I could get money from Motive to them. They said cheque only and I asked them what the deposit limits were.

They said none so I said I would start the account of with a couple hundred thousand to try it out. No No she said, the maximum cheque I can deposit is 25,000 so I would have to deposit 8 cheques.

Seriously????? - I pretty well stopped dead in my tracks.

How do I get it back into motive if I decide to write 8 cheques.... well you have to transfer to another bank thats on the list like simplii and then to motive.

Really.... WOW

One a good note, I used the chat feature and got right through, she was actually a nice lady. That was the only plus other than setting up the account was super easy.

I did get to speak to a very nice lady at Saven (she was actually with First Ontario CU) dealing with feedback from Saven customers and providing assistance if she could.
I went over the snags I ran into re funding my Saven acct. She agreed the manner of showing in process transfers is not useful when it looks like your funds are in limbo (in the cloud?) not showing anywhere not even as "in process" until the funds ultimately show up in your account about a week later. We had a good conversation about the APP function for depositing cheques. She acknowledged that the Saven APP does not accept a number of other FI cheques and that the functionality is not as good as with some other FIs I mentioned eg Simplii, Tangerine, EQ, & Big Banks. She will be presenting my points (as well as input she is receiving from others) to the applicable unit(s) at Saven/First Ontario CU - she was honest and said the issues may or may not get rectified or it may take a long time. I was honest and said I was patient and will give it time and will decide at one point whether I will maintain the account at Saven or close it.
When I decided to sign up with Saven, I was looking for a user-friendly, state of the art, online digital account with a attractive interest rate. (Objectives not fully met!)
Competence of the FI related to its HISA product was first on my "expectation list".
P.S. The ethics of the CU was a non-issue as a criterion in my selection of Saven's HISA. As with most of the posters/readers in this blog, it was the better than avg interest rate that attracted me.

COIN said
"until the funds ultimately show up in your account about a week later."

A week is a really long time. Do you earn interest during the "in transit"period?

Canadian Tire Bank credits your account the same day regardless of when the funds actually arrive.

With Manulife Bank, you can actually deposit a cheque to your savings account at an ATM so it is credited real time.  

I don't know as yet if one earns interest during the in-transit period. I initiated my first electronic transfer on Aug 8 - once it arrives into my Saven acct I will look to see if it is dated the date I initiated the transfer (Aug 8) or the date it enters my Saven acct (Aug 14/15) and also compare to what date it shows as coming out of the linked external account. Then I will see if there is a lag in the dates and an actual loss of interest.

Yes - most FIs do credit your account the date u deposit a cheque or initiate an electronic transfer. But I am not sure yet if Saven operates that way since I was unable to deposit a cheque using the APP as I have detailed earlier.

Since Saven is only online/digital there is no ability to deposit a cheque by ATM - so you cannot compare Saven to Manulife. I have dealt with Manulife Advantage Acct and it works very well - as u say, you can deposit a cheque by ATM and have your acct updated immediately. Manulife also has a dependable/efficient APP for cheque deposits. (I like the Manulife Advantage Acct - a combined chequing and savings acct - but the downside is the interest rate is low - on the other hand there are no service charges if you keep $1K on deposit.) It is obvious that the Saven acct has some glitches that may or may not get corrected. So, once my electronic transfer come through, and I compare the dates re deposit to Saven and withdrawal date from the external acct (to see if there a loss of interest) then I will know if I want to keep this acct.

COIN said
If it takes 7 days for the inbound credit to show up in your Saven account that is 7 days of lost interest. The next question is how long does it take to get money out (hopefully a lot sooner than 7 or more days)? 

My incoming transfer to Saven has shown up today Aug 12. It was initiated Aug 8 so that took 5 days if you count initiation day and arrival day. The funds came out of the linked external acct today also - so there was really no lost interest since the incoming entry and the outgoing entry are the same. However, the incoming transfer at Saven is now subject to a 7 day HOLD. (interest will be earned during the hold period.) So you have to be prepared not to need your newly transferred funds for about a week and a half if it takes 5 days for the money to move in and then is frozen by the hold for another week. When you decide to make a transfer out of Saven it will similarly take 4/5 days before you will see the funds in your external linked acct.

COIN said

Was your linked external account interest bearing or was it a non-interest bearing chequing account?  

That linked external acct was interest bearing. The second linked acct I have set up is non-interest chequing acct.

COIN said
1. Does that mean it is possible to link from Saven to an external interest bearing savings account?
2. The next question is how long does it take to move money out of Saven to an external account?  

1. Yes - you can link from Saven to an external savings acct.
2. I understand it takes approx 5 days from initiation to when u see it in your external acct - same as the transfer time for incoming funds transfers from external acct to Saven.