Opening and using a chequing account: your experience? | Tangerine Bank | Discussion forum

I think the first question is whether that TD account is your only Big Bank account.
Personally, I would find it difficult to manage without at least one such account, for several reasons which I can get into if you want. I don't expect to ever close my TD account. My TD chequing account is a grandfathered Seniors account, which is free and no minimum, which makes it easier for me to make this decision.

As for the Tang chequing account, my spouse has one and really likes it. We especially like the fact that you can deposit cheques through your smartphone, if you have one. And there have been no problems with that (as have sometimes been reported with other banks that offer this).

Certainly, if you are planning on getting rid of Big Five completely, then Tangerine is the most functional of the alternatives IMO.

My answer is probably coloured by the fact that I don't have to pay for my TD account. If I did, I might be looking harder for alternatives.

I like to keep a bricks and mortar account for these reasons:
1. Safety Deposit Box (you can't get one without an account, and the wait list for them can be long, depending on location).
2.. Flexibility for larger cash withdrawals if needed - don't have to worry about ATM limits, although may need to requisition the cash in advance, as they do have some limits, not sure what they are.
3. Accessibility of bank drafts. These are required for large purchases such as new cars, houses etc. Miron says you can get Tang to mail you a money order, but that makes me uneasy. If you're bidding on a house, for instance, in a city like TO, you don't have time to dicker around and worry if it's going to come in time.
4. Ease of use of US dollar account.. ATMs usually don't dispense US dollars, if needed. Same with other foreign currency. you can also buy Travellers' cheques still, at the bank, I think, although have not done so in ages, and I don't think very many people use them any more.
5. Cross-border banking. I don't have a use for this but I know other people find it convenient to have a Cdn bank that has availability in the US - others can comment on how that works and which banks work best.
6. Easy to deposit rolls of coins.
7. I am not convinced that all of the "external banks" you might want to do business with will accept a cheque from Tangerine as meeting the requirement to get your account going. I could be wrong about that. When I started with ING, they themselves required a link to an external account, but that was before they had chequing at Tang.
8. If you are into buying mutual funds or ETFs, I believe that there are some fairly good funds that TD offers which can only be bought through TD (or can only be bought without commission at TD; not sure which). I don't do this myself, but its something to be aware of.

It's unlikely all of these factors will apply to you. Perhaps none will. In general, though, I like the idea of having a bank I can walk into and get done whatever I need to do, whenever it comes up.

If you happen to live near a Tangerine café, you may be able to accomplish some of these things there fairly easily.

There is little harm, however, in closing your TD account as an experiment. You have little to lose as they are not doing you any favours at the moment, except that your leftover cheques, which may have cost you real money, will be useless.. (If I were to close mine, I'd lose my free seniors account and wouldn't be able to get it back.) You could see how things go without it. If you find that you need it, you might even qualify for a promo offer for new customers at that time! And that would give you an opportunity to check out arrangements at competitors as well. TD has got to be about the worst in some respects, as it offers no high interest accounts at all.

Here's an idea. Never mind what I say, or anyone here. Make an appointment with your branch manager and ask him or her why you should keep this account open, given the alternatives. If there are any other good reasons, she or he ought to be able to come up with them! Maybe they will start to notice that the $2000 requirement isn't working.

christinad said

I recently received an inheritance from my grandma. It was nice to go into the branch, deposit the cheque and receive access to the funds right away. I was wondering how i would deposit the cheque if i only had a tangerine account. I would have probably have had to go to a cafe and there would have been a hold on the funds. Definitely an advantage of a big bank.

With Tangerine Bank, one could have deposited the cheque at a Scotiabank banking machine or using their mobile phone Cheque-In service.

The hold would depend on how one's credit is with Tangerine.

The cheque was over $25000 and i wouldn't have felt comfortable depositing it in a bank machine. I was able to transfer the entire amount to various savings accounts and my mortgage with no holds. I'm not saying it is a dealbreaker but no holds on a large amount is pretty cool. I've never been in a cafe so i'm not sure what services they offer. I would definitely check before switching. The one time i went into scotiabank they wouldn't help me so i'm not sure what to expect from them either. I've considered switching too so if i do more research i'll post.

Fyi I transferred to savings accounts outside td, it wasn't about the fact i was transferring internally within td. Good to know about scotiabank. Thanks.

I decided to phone tangerine because i was curious. Apparently you can deposit a cheque up to $99,999 in the bank machine or mobile deposit. However at tangerine the maximum without a hold is $5000 so i was right about td being better since i had no holds. I think i have 5000 at tangerine. There are no teller capabilities at the cafe. You can use debit up to $5000.