SImplii Financial - 3.0% Interest on New Deposits until February 28, 2018 | Page 9 | Simplii Financial | Discussion forum

hank said

So Norman1 you are right, I'm wiping egg off my chin as I type this- I got lost in the math- thanks for pointing this out- do you see anything wrong with the original scenario, where you could put money into the plan for 2 months and not get any bonus interest?

I think this is the scenario you described:

so if you started with a balance of $10,000 [on October 31]. and added $10,000. in the first month [on November 1], but at the beginning of the third month [on January 1] you needed the $20,000 for a medical emergency, then at the end of 4 months your average daily [additional] balance would be zero ($10,000.+$10,000.-$10,000.-$10,000.) so you'd get no promotional interest for keeping [the additional] $10,000. in the account for 2 months i.e. you’d get your 1% for 2 months…

That is correct. I wrote about that consequence earlier.

A result of the average balance calculation for the promotional interest is that promotional interest (not regular interest) can be partially or fully "unearned" by days when the closing balance drops below the base closing balance of October 31.

The penalty for removing the $10,000, already on deposit at the start of the offer, for two months is losing the promotional interest on the additional $10,000 that was on deposit for two months.

It also works the other way. If I transfer in $500,000 on Day #5 and transfer it out on Day #6, then my average balance would be

(4 x $0 + 1 x $500,000 + 115 x $0)/120 = $4,166.6666

The promotional interest would be the same as if I kept $4,166.67 in the account for the full 120 days, eventhough I had no money in the account for 119 of the 120 days!

Rick said
I think the only way for sure to know how they are calculating is to wait until March and see what you get. 150 posts and there is still disagreement on how interest is paid. All I can say is there is no real reason to apply interest in such a manner except to try to pull the wool over your eyes. Good luck to all that have their savings with them. Hope you aren't disappointed.  

One could check the interest paid for the previous offer. CIBC has used the same average-balance wording in their previous offer, when the account was a PC Financial-branded account:

* How it works: Offer Period: May 1, 2017 – October 31, 2017. … The special annual interest rate of 2.5% is a combination of the regular annual interest rate on an Eligible Account balance (“Regular Interest”), plus promotional interest (“Promotional Interest”) that is calculated for the Offer Period on the Additional Balance (defined below). The Promotional Interest is calculated on the portion of the Eligible Account’s average daily closing balance during the Offer Period that exceeds the closing balance as at April 30, 2017 (the “Additional Balance”) to a maximum of $500,000 in Additional Balances aggregated across all of a primary account holder’s Eligible Accounts. Promotional Interest will not be paid on existing funds that were in a PC Financial Account as at April 30, 2017, and are transferred to an Eligible Account. Promotional Interest will be paid in two instalments in September 2017 for the period May 1 to August 31, 2017, and November 2017 for the period September 1 to October 31, 2017 into a single Eligible Account held by a primary account holder. …

My apologies if someone has already made a similar observation to this:
Assume you had invested $20,000 with Simplii on or about Nov 20th which is about 100 days before the end of the special 3% rate promo and then kept it there for one year. Please check their current interest rate page to confirm.

For 100 days you will get $164.38 then for the remaining 265 days of a year you will get 50 cents (.05%) on the first $1,000, $4 (.10%) on the next $4000 and finally $30 (.15%) for the remaining $15,000 for a grand total of about $189.45 for one year assuming you leave the $20K in until Nov 20th 2018.

If you take the $20,000 and put it in a Hubert savings account you will get $370 for the year.
So endith the lesson. Tell Simplii to simply shove their promo where the ....

gipper said
Norman,
1) There would be a lengthy withholding period for a $500,000 cheque to clear.
2) Why the hell would I want to make a deposit to a Simplii checking act when I'm only interested in the 3% promo?
My point was that Simplii does not allow direct transfers from HISA accounts of other online banks. They only allow transfers from checking accounts which take time to set up, and could delay the overall transfer time.  

Yes they DO allow direct transfers from HISA of other online banks, but you can only do it from the other side not from Simplii side.

For example, I have successfully done this :

1. Transferred from Tangerine HISA directly into Simplii HISA from the Tangerine side i.e PUSHED from Tangerine.

2. Transferred from Simplii HISA directly into Tangerine HISA again from the Tangerine side i.e PULLED from Tangerine side.

But from Simplii side i.e after logging into Simplii , I can only PUSH or PULL money to/from the Tangerine Checking account as only that checking account is linked from the Simplii side. As only that account has a VOID check. I cannot PUSH or PULL to/from the Tangerine HISA from the Simplii side.

I cannot link Tangerine HISA from the Simplii side as no VOID check is there for Tangerine HISA.

But I can link Simplii HISA from the Tangerine side as only 2 micro deposit confirmation is required to set the link.

So Simplii HISA to external HISA both pull & push directly can only be done from the external account side.

After 58 days my Simplii HISA is finally fully active and open for Online banking, Telephone banking, 2 External accounts linked from the external side and also linked from the Simplii side.

What a gong show it has been !

Waiting for secure email from them , waiting for welcome kit from them , Signature card, Canada Post physical verification, mailing VOID checks, Micro deposits from the external side , getting telephone password, setting online password, waiting for bank card in mail, waiting for PIN in mail.

Lots of steps, waiting, sending stuff by snail mail , doing physical things, calling them on the phone etc etc. All the delays were there from THEIR side, not mine. When asked to do something I would do it promptly and then wait & wait for the next step. Then do the second step, third step & so on. Lot of waiting & delays in between due to them.

Now that its all done everything is ONLINE , but before that the initial set up hardly anything was done Online except for the initial application online.

Loonie said
I guess it's a great system if you don't really want to be paying out 3% interest for all that time!  

Yup. Basically out of the 120 days , lost more than 30 days of 3 % promo interest.

They should extend this promo till March 31 due to their incompetence. I don't know a SINGLE new customer of Simplii who has managed to open a HISA and transfer money from their external account in less than 30 days.

This promo has been great for existing PCF customers that too the ones who managed to empty their accounts before October 31, as its only on net new deposits.

My bro is an existing PCF customer, he got info of this promo on October 29. But due to the BS 1 day internal transfer it takes just to move from PCF Savings to PCF Checking and then another 1-2 days to move to external account, he too got screwed as his money was out 1 day later than the cut off time. So now its not considered to be net new deposit if he moves it back to PCF i.e Simplii.

With Tangerine that internal Savings to Checking transfer is instant, so generally in 1 day less you can move money out to an external account for these type of promos than with PCF/Simplii.

This time maybe at least on Feb 25, I will PULL or PUSH money out of Simplii in case they have a new promo on March 1 . Won't wait till Feb 26 or Feb 27 to transfer money out, can't trust these guys to do anything on time. Would rather lose 1-2 days interest than take a chance of losing out on some new promo which they might ( or might not ) come up with on March 1, 2018.

rfdm4g4g9 said

My bro is an existing PCF customer, he got info of this promo on October 29. But due to the BS 1 day internal transfer it takes just to move from PCF Savings to PCF Checking and then another 1-2 days to move to external account, he too got screwed as his money was out 1 day later than the cut off time. S  

Hi -- do you -- or does anyone else here -- know why PCF has this inane 1-day transfer delay only on savings to chequing (it's instant from chequing to savings)?

No other FI that I've ever used does this, from big banks to tiny credit unions.

I can't imagine that there's a technical reason for this. The cynic in me is assuming that it's PCF's way to discourage customers from pulling money out of savings accounts.

If you or anyone else has some insight (or inside knowledge) of why this very annoying -- and sometimes costly -- policy exists, I'd love to hear it!

JustMe2016 said
…This is how I got the total:

• Step 1. I converted 59 days into years.
◦ 59 days = 59/365 years = 0.16164 years

• Step 2. I found an interest using the formula I = P x i x t where P is the principle, i is the Interest per year and t is the total time in years
◦ I = P x i x t
◦ I = 100,000 x 0.02 x 0.16164 (if you need the total 3% replace the 0.02 with 0.03)
◦ I = 323.28"  

That's exactly the same as the what the average balance calculation would give:

I = 100,000 x 0.02 x 0.16164
= 100,000 x 0.02 x 59/365
= 100,000 x 59/365 x 0.02
= (100,000 x 59)/365 x 0.02
= (0 + 100,000 x 59)/365 x 0.02
= (0 x 61 + 100,000 x 59)/365 x 0.02
= (0 x 61 + 100,000 x 59)/365 x 1 x 0.02
= (0 x 61 + 100,000 x 59)/365 x 120/120 x 0.02
= (0 x 61 + 100,000 x 59)/120 /365 x 120 x 0.02
= (0 x 61 + 100,000 x 59)/120 x 120 x 0.02/365
= [(0 x 61 + 100,000 x 59)/120] x 120 x 0.02/365
= [average of 61 days of $0 and 59 days of $100,000] x 120 x 0.02/365

rfdm4g4g9 said
After 58 days my Simplii HISA is finally fully active and open for Online banking, Telephone banking, 2 External accounts linked from the external side and also linked from the Simplii side.

What a gong show it has been !

Waiting for secure email from them , waiting for welcome kit from them , Signature card, Canada Post physical verification, mailing VOID checks, Micro deposits from the external side , getting telephone password, setting online password, waiting for bank card in mail, waiting for PIN in mail.

Lots of steps, waiting, sending stuff by snail mail , doing physical things, calling them on the phone etc etc. All the delays were there from THEIR side, not mine. When asked to do something I would do it promptly and then wait & wait for the next step. Then do the second step, third step & so on. Lot of waiting & delays in between due to them.

Now that its all done everything is ONLINE , but before that the initial set up hardly anything was done Online except for the initial application online.  

Sorry I meant 38 days , not 58 days . But still.