Transfer In / Transfer Out limits | Site suggestions | Discussion forum

meghan88 said
Could these possibly be added to the Comparison chart or the Services chart?

e.g.:

Hubert has no limits to transfer in, but has the following limits to transfer out: 50K/day; 250K/week; 500K/month.

Alterna transfer out limits: 25K/day, 50K/week, 125K/month

EQ: 200K max ceiling in HISA; not sure what their daily/weekly transfer limits are.

Thanks for considering this   

Hi Meghan,

Thanks for the suggestion on potential additions to the Services chart. The community has definitely discussed this in the past, but there are problems with implementation. In addition to the Services chart being already unwieldy and prime for pruning in terms of the level of detail that it offers, EFT transfer limits are commonly not disclosed publicly by financial institutions and they also tend to change fairly frequently—on average, at least every year. Moreover, FIs are increasingly customizing the daily and transaction limits. Since it would require manually confirming with each FI at least once per year their transfer limits, it becomes highly problematic to update. Thus, the best strategy seems to simply post to the applicable FI forum here asking for an existing customer to look up their current transfer limits or e-mail the FI directly and ask them for their current limits. We simply can't propose to provide all information before opening an account; some due diligence needs to be done before opening an account.

Edit: Noting Peter's reply, we also have to consider that we're now T-2 years (or so) from completely replacing the existing EFT payments system, so the time and effort to maintain this list is simply not worth it since it's all going to be moot by then. We're also going to have a list of caveats a mile indicating that YMMV with respect to limits and that some financial institutions have different limits, sometimes for different people, if placed with a representative. This site simply cannot provide all pieces of information to all people. We're still not comprehensively providing a listing of all the Canadian credit unions and banks that offer comparable HISA and GIC rates in all provinces and territories, so we should focus on that. Let's not spread ourselves too thin.

Noting MG's reply below as well, looks like we had the same thought. 😉

Hope that helps,
Doug

I also thought that any transfer out limit could easily be overridden by simply calling in and having the client rep perform or set up the transfer.

meghan88 said
Could these possibly be added to the Comparison chart or the Services chart?

e.g.:

Hubert has no limits to transfer in, but has the following limits to transfer out: 50K/day; 250K/week; 500K/month.

Alterna transfer out limits: 25K/day, 50K/week, 125K/month

EQ: 200K max ceiling in HISA; not sure what their daily/weekly transfer limits are.

Thanks for considering this   

You are incorrect re the Alterna Bank limits. Limits per their site are:
Sending / Receiving
Transaction Limit $50,000 / $100,000
7 Day Limit $100,000 / $250,000
30 Day Limit $250,000 / $500,000

EQ - 30K outbound per transaction and 100K inbound per transaction

Note that "per transaction" does not mean the same as "daily limit".

I've been getting around Tang & EQ limits by pulling from destination FI. Do some FI's have limits on pulls to make this information necessary? Like Doug said in the Tang thread on limits:

Doug said

No, they can't limit that. That'd be like limiting the dollar value of a cheque you write.

Rick said
I've been getting around Tang & EQ limits by pulling from destination FI. Do some FI's have limits on pulls to make this information necessary? Like Doug said in the Tang thread on limits:

Doug said

No, they can't limit that. That'd be like limiting the dollar value of a cheque you write.

  

Wow, that's a blast from the past. Thanks, Rick. Do you happen to have the URL to that thread we can link to from your post # 8?

Your thinking is roughly the way I am thinking with respect to individual FI transfer out limits. That's only important in the context of pushing funds out (with no holds, but not, usually, same-day credit) to a linked financial institution. Unless you need immediate access to the funds at your destination FI, pulling funds in is generally a better idea as you get credit for interest purposes from the day the financial institution posts it to your account. I can see people needing access right away for GIC purchases, but I've found that often the receiving FI can temporarily remove the hold on the funds and re-apply it on the GIC once the GIC is booked (if they even reapply it at all, since it's notionally locked in in most cases).

Only Motus Bank/Meridian Credit Union and Alterna Bank/EQ Bank would the exceptions to where one may want to know their other FI's transfer limits because in, the former case, they manually post their EFT transactions that results in several business days of clearing time and the slowest clearing times of any Canadian financial institution. In the latter case, they, like EQ Bank, have a maximum customer balance, but in either case, they would still call you if you transferred in too much. And, importantly, that's pushing funds out to the destination FI, not pushing funds out of the FI you're interested in knowing what their outgoing transfer limits are.

Incidentally, with the prevalence of Interac e-Transfer and Coast Capital Savings not having self-to-self, bank-to-bank electronic transfers, I can only pull funds out of Coast or send funds to Coast via Interac e-Transfer. So, I rarely, if ever, push funds out anymore.

Loonie said
motusbank is very sticky about EFT limits on pulls. Somewhere on their site it says or did say that the daily transaction limit is 10K. However, if you put through 2 transactions which total over 10K, the second one will appear to be accepted but is in fact rejected. All records of the second transaction vanish and the confirmation number you received is useless. And they don't bother to inform you that it didn't go through.
In addition, it takes motus 3 or 4 business days to actually put through an EFT. So, if you put through two of them on the same day totalling more than 10K, you are waiting around for four business days, only to find out you must start all over again with the second transfer.
Their clearing process is also slow, so you could end up tied up for quite a while. If you complain to a CSR, they will, with difficulty, put it through manually, which is somewhat faster.
Their systems are very inefficient. I still use them for some things as it took so long to get it all set up the way I wanted it, but would not recommend.  

Loonie, I think the solution here with Motus Bank is to close your accounts and close your online banking profiles, severing the relationship. They are more hassle than they're worth, honestly.

Cheers,
Doug