2.6% interest until June 30, 2015 for new deposits made by May 15, 2015 | Simplii Financial | Discussion forum

The terms and conditions for this offer currently (11:48 am EST April 1) listed at http://www.banking.pcfinancial.....ng-en.html have an error. Section 4 lists $500,000 as the max, while section 6 lists $250,000. PCF has confirmed by phone that the correct amount for this offer is $500,000.

4. The Offer applies to all net new deposits made during the Enrolment Period to Eligible Accounts, not to exceed the lesser of (i) $500,000 in the aggregate, across all of an account holder's Eligible Accounts; and (ii) the aggregate net new deposits to Eligible Accounts made during the Enrolment Period, and is calculated based on the portion of the Eligible Account's average daily closing balance during the Offer Period that exceeds the closing balance as at March 31, 2015 (the "Additional Balance"). The daily closing balance in any Eligible Account opened during the Enrolment Period will be deemed to be $0.00 until the date a deposit is made in the Eligible Account. If an Eligible Account is overdrawn as at March 31, 2015, the March 31, 2015 closing balance is deemed to be $0.00. Promotional Interest will not be paid on funds that are transferred from an existing Eligible Account to another existing or new Eligible Account.

6. Offer is non-transferable and cannot be combined with other promotional rate offers. The provider of President's Choice Financial personal banking services (the direct banking division of CIBC), reserves the right to cancel or change the terms of the Offer at any time, and revoke the Offer for any customer who appears to be manipulating or abusing the Offer, or is engaged in any suspicious/fraudulent activity.7. Promotional Interest will not be earned on any Additional Balances on a primary account holder's Eligible Account(s) in excess of $250,000 in the aggregate, across all of an account holder's Eligible Accounts, during the Offer Period.

howiemandel said
hmm 50 bps higher than Tangerine but you gotta wait the period out to get your bonus
whereas, Tangerine pays your bonus at the month end/open...thus giving you a chance to compound earn.

I've seen the assertion made here a few times that missing out on compound interest during these promotional offers is significant. Unfortunately these statements are not backed up with any hard numbers. Let me do it for you. $500,000 fully compounded at 2.6% on a monthly basis, while completely ignoring that deposits must be made by May 15th or that the interest pushes the balance above $500K, would earn ~$3257 by June 30th. Without compounding on any of the 2.6% interest one would earn ~$3250. That's a difference of $7. Compounding makes a big difference over long periods of time, not over three months.

howiemandel said

So it would appear (correct me if i am wrong), you would get paid the 1.05% interest monthly and you would not get your total bonus (the additional 1.55%) for the period until June 30, 2015 until July 2015.

"5. The Promotional Interest will be paid in July 2015 into a single Eligible Account held by a primary account holder. Promotional Interest will not be paid unless at least one of the primary account holder's Eligible Accounts is active and in good standing as at June 30, 2015. If a primary account holder holds more than one Eligible Account, Promotional Interest will be paid to an Eligible Account in the following priority sequence:"

hmm 50 bps higher than Tangerine but you gotta wait the period out to get your bonus
whereas, Tangerine pays your bonus at the month end/open...thus giving you a chance to compound earn.

That is the way PCF always does it. As said, compounding effect over 3 months is meaningless. Who cares about waiting until early July for the extra interest?

Fair enough. nothing wrong in pointing it out.

I think it's a seasonal thing. People tend to invest in RRSPs and TFSA earlier in the year, so first they go after that market. Now it has cooled so they are going after regular accounts.

SlowPoke said

Has anyone else received an email notification or notified about the offering when logging into PCF?

Accepting it when logging in is preferred since they don't make their offers automatic for everyone

When I logged in this morning, there was no opportunity to enrol so I phoned in. I was asked if I wanted a confirmation email and said Yes. In a few minutes, the email arrived.

It's been prominently displayed on their account log-in page for a few days. I called April 1 to register my accounts for promo rate, got confirming email a few minutes later.

SlowPoke said

While this or other offers "May" appear on the sign in page. The issue is that after signing in it is still not presented as an offer that can be accepted. Having to phone in to enroll is pretty sad for an "Online" bank.

It's never as straightforward as it may seem, and may have nothing to do with the efficiency of online banking. It would be cheaper for them for it to be automatic, and they are certainly capable of programming it that way, but they WANT you to talk to a rep.

There could be several reasons for this. Market research may have shown them, for instance, that getting customers to talk to reps increases the likelihood of more money coming into and staying in the account. In fact, the extra interest you get may even be warranted from their point of view simply because of it increases deposits overall.

It may also be that they want to make sure you jump through an extra hoop because they know that most people won't bother and therefore PC can get away with making the offer without having to always make good on it. The latter just annoys people and I don't think it contributes to customer loyalty, but their stats may show otherwise. I'm sure a lot of people simply forget that they thought they were going to get more interest or assume it has been credited without bothering to figure it out. People who belong to this forum and watch every penny are the minority.