Concentra Bank now accepting GIC deposit clients directly | Wyth Financial (formerly Concentra Bank) | Discussion forum

GICinvestor said
Will their rates be posted on this site too?

See their fees here. https://www.concentra.ca/reference%20materials/302-117.pdf

Do they have:
Savings accounts for registered and non registered accounts.
ATM cards
Cheques  

They do have a high interest savings account that, I believe, is available in all plan types, but its interest rate is not competitive (about 1%). It's better than the "Big 5" banks but only roughly as good as Tangerine's regular, posted rate of interest (and even there, it falls short by 10-20 bps). It's nonetheless worthwhile to open for parking money between deciding how to renew your GIC.

As for rates, they are also in PDF format and are available from this link https://www.concentra.ca/Documents/direct_rates.pdf ("View Rates" on the Deposit Solutions webpage).

Rates, like I say, are competitive with Tangerine in terms of GICs, but slightly below that of EQ Bank's GICs. Nonetheless, they are a higher rated issuer than EQ Bank in terms of their subordinated debt, deposit notes, and GICs.

No ATM cards, as of yet, though this could change in the future (possibly a deposit-only ATM card would be nice), and no cheques. They have no plans to offer banking services. This is meant as a safe place to park money at rates better than the "Big 5" banks, but not as good as small credit unions and banks. AltaRed would likely like them. (He prefers banks to credit unions for reasons of governance and management competency.)

Cheers,
Doug

Loonie said
My dad used to have GICs with them back in the 1980s or 90s, maybe both. I had wondered what had happened to them.
At that time, they would have been quite competitive or else he would not have bought them.  

Yeah, they used to be the Concentra Financial Services Association, an arm of the SaskCentral credit union central, if you will, until a few years ago when they received approval to convert to a Schedule I bank owned by various credit union centrals and credit unions.

I'm excited to see what they plan in terms of an online account opening system, but I think, given their superior debt ratings to many credit unions and even Canadian Western Bank, they're a decent offering. Thought you might like them, Loonie, because they keep things super simple.

In fact, there's a very good chance if you hold an RRSP, RRIF, or TFSA with a credit union, Concentra Bank or Concentra Trust (their wholly-owned subsidiary) is the trustee and custodian of your registered plan assets (others include certain credit union centrals, Canadian Western Trust, Community Trust [I think!], and Computershare Trust). Speaking of Concentra Trust, there may be possibility of having another dual CDIC issuer here, similar to EQ and Oaken.

Cheers,
Doug

Loonie said
Yes, I am aware that they are the custodian.
I wasn't really aware of where my dad had his money while he was alive as he managed it all on his own until he died in his 90s.
You can perhaps imagine my amusement when I saw that he had put his money in many of the same non-Big-Five that I had. Great minds think alike? or perhaps it's genetic!  

Oh, yeah, maybe it is genetic! 😉

Just curious, how many FIs do you directly with these days...there's Meridian, TDCT (where you have your main chequing account, from the sounds of it), Hubert, EQ, any others? Oh yeah, Tangerine and maybe Simplii Financial, but not sure you have much with them anymore. You're probably like me and sick of the targeted promo offers and switching money back and forth. Just give me a decent GIC rate for 1 year and be done with it. 😉

And how long ago was it that your dad passed away? You mentioned you're in 70s (I assume closer to low 70s?) so it's conceivable, since he live into his 90s, that he just passed away in the last 10 or so years?

Cheers,
Doug

Loonie said
I don't, and won't, deal with Simplii or its predecessor.

My father did die within the last 10 years.

I deal with more FIs than I would prefer to, and that list seems to keep expanding despite cutting a couple out. I was trying to reduce the number, but found this too challenging, so now I am trying to concentrate them more in Ontario at least.  

I know what you mean, Loonie. I have accounts with Hubert, Implicity, Coast, Scotiabank, and Tangerine, and would like to whittle at least two of those out. I'd hate to give up Implicity as they do offer decent rates and great service. I've kept my Scotiabank savings account (can't call it a HISA as the rate would have to be, well, high) because it was my first bank account as a kid (well, technically a Fat Cat Savings Account at Interior Savings Credit Union, then known as Kelowna & District Credit Union, was), but it might be time to bite the bullet. As much as I like Tangerine, I could give that up, if they don't implement my suggestions to add additional transaction narrative detail for ATM transactions, make Interac e-Transfers free, and/or make their personal finance spending tracking tool optional such that I can opt out (like at Coast). Then again, if Coast doesn't implement bank-to-bank transfers and make Interac e-Transfers free by the end of 2020, I might just close my accounts with them, too. I'll have waited fully 4-4.5 years and it will show me that they, too, don't seem to value my input.

Who knows, by 2021, I could surprise you all and either be an Alterna Bank primary customer or a Motive Financial primary customer. Stranger things have happened.

Cheers,
Doug

Loonie said
Time to dump any FI that doesn't serve you well. The exception might be EQ, as someone reported that they wouldn't allow him to open an account later.
It's a rare event indeed when any business takes one's advice! I wouldn't hold my breath.
We once got a $200 GC from an insurance company for making a suggestion they accepted. And , from a bank, we got some reward points for pointing out something important that was missing on their statements. Both of these came almost immediately. And that's it, for all my years!
Everyone else has ignored my suggestions. An exception is my public library , which sometimes does accept them. For this week's accomplishment, I managed to get them to change the title of a book from "Untitled" to its actual title! No response though from Collections Manager on another suggestion.  

Hi @Loonie,

See my thorough update here.

Cheers,
Doug

LeBronBMT said
This is a good find Doug thank you. Their rates are the best for currently available 1 year and 18 month GICs as far as I know.

1 year 3.01%
18 Month. 3.02%
2 year 2.66%
3 year. 2.54%
4 year. 2.59%
5 year. 2.68%

https://www.concentra.ca/Documents/direct_rates.pdf

Only problem for me is getting more money to make use of them.  

Wow, their rates jumped since I posted initially. Geez!

Thanks, LeBronBMT. Yeah, that's their consumer deposit rates through both channels. concentra.ca is definitely the main website, and you'll have to navigate there to login to online banking.

I had been considering breaking my 1-year Hubert GIC that renewed 10 days ago to go to Peoples Trust/Peoples Bank, but am thinking I may do this for Concentra Bank.

Cheers,
Doug