Targeted offer: 2.75% for new money from March 1st to June 30th | Page 4 | Simplii Financial | Discussion forum

My point, which apparently, I did not express very well, unlike any other interest promotion I have experienced, from any other bank, the Simplii promotion is a short-term cashable fixed term investment, with penalty for early withdrawal. Apparently those replying to my post were aware of this...I was not. In retrospect I should have studied the terms and conditions more carefully, but as I stated, it has not been an issue previously...and will not be an issue in the future.

Wow, I guess I am really poor at explaining myself. Of course, I do not expect to be paid interest on non-existent funds, but I was expecting to receive interest similar to the other financial institutions - my mistake.

A basic example: the promo was for 4 months, I had 100K deposited the first month, and at 2.75%(I know the bonus was less the basic) so I expected approx $230 for that month (to be paid at the end), but I removed those funds after the first month and my account balance was averaged over those 4 months so I had an average of approx 25K and received $60 interest.

I knew the interest payment would be delayed (as always with simplii), but I did not realize the interest was based on the entire term. I did not realize that interest I accumulated in the first month would be reduced after I reduced my balance.

Are you saying you had $100k there for a month at 2.75% promo interest but your promo interest, paid into your account about halfway through the month after the month the promo ended, was $60 in total for the entire 4-month promo period?

(I agree your monthly average was $25K but you should have then received about $60 for each of those 4 promo months, i.e. about the same $240 promo interest you were expecting.)

My actual account and situation was more complicated than my example; I was trying to show a simple example of how Simplii calculates promo interest compared to other financial institutions.

I did have funds already in the account and I added new money. I added approx $70K in new money, which remained in the account for over 7 weeks, and I had approx $25K in new money for an additional week or two, and approx $45K in new money for an additional 12 days. My total interest received for the 4 months was slightly over $100.

Norman1 said
Unfortunately, your example is not only fictitious but also incorrect.

Simplii promotions pay bonus interest on the average new money balance of the entire promotion period for the entire promotion period, not for just the part of the period that the new money was present.

Your account received less than the expected bonus interest because the account had days when the closing balance was below the starting balance of the offer. Those days earned "negative" bonus interest that offset much of the expected bonus interest earned on other days. I described that previously.  

Would a simple rule of thumb for future reference be to always start with an opening balance of zero if one wants to take advantage of a Simplii HISA promotional offer? Personally, I always zero out my account just before a promo ends in the event another one follows, as has recently occurred with the current July 1 to October 31 offer.

It would be good to have a balance of zero at the start of their new money offers.

Next best would be to keep the balance during the promotional period above the starting balance.

Probably not a serious issue with a starting balance of $1.98. Days should the new money balance be -$1.98 won't earn much "negative" bonus interest. But, taking out an existing $10,000 for a month of the promotion would result in offsetting a month of bonus interest on $10,000 of the new money.

Yes, I see that my original example was inaccurate, as Norman1 stated, due to the neagative impact of my pre-existing balance.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was expecting the interest to be calculated similar to Tangerine, or any other bank I have used--just delayed, and as I previously stated--my mistake. With Tangerine, adding $70K for 7 weeks to whatever my balance might be, would result in about $250 interest.

That's unfortunate.

When the offer fine print refers to "Simplii Financial High Interest Savings Account", it only means one of these four Simplli savings accounts, listed in the CIBC CDIC deposit register:

1. Simplii Financial High Interest Savings Account
2. Simplii Financial USD Savings Account
3. Simplii Financial Tax-Free Savings Account
4. Simplii Financial RRSP Savings Account