increased reference bonus | Tangerine Bank | Discussion forum

james1900 said
Today I received a promotion email from Tangerine. If I can refer another client (initial deposit of $100 or more), I will get $50 plus extra $100 bonus.  

This sound terribly like a desperate attempt to keep their deposit base form leaking to EQ and Oaken.

This also implies we may see an increase in interest rate soon ....

I don't get how it would be a sign of losing depositors per se (although they may be losing deposits). The bonus only applies when NEW clients are brought in., and Tangerine is always very strict about the fact that they must have never been customers at any time. They know that people are leaving HCG, so it's an opportunity for them to beat out the competition offered by EQ and Alterna, they hope.
However, I don't know why anyone would be attracted to 0.8% and lacklustre GICs. I agree, they will have to increase their rates.

FYI, the $100 bonus kicks in after you successfully refer 3 customers. Everyone I know has probably already had accounts there. They need to work on pulling back the people who left for greener pastures or who didn't like the introduction of fees. They need to get back to their roots and understand that fees are anathema. Maybe time for Scotia to spin them off.

I have sometimes thought that a lot of the marketing of financial institutions works on something akin to a pyramid scheme. They keep trying to pull in new suckers without paying attention to the ones they already have. When the ones they already have start leaving, they have a problem for which their a only hope is to pull in more suckers. and so on. The person who leaves is always the person who doesn't feel fairly treated and can do better elsewhere.