We have a love, hate, affair with our banks……… coming from England I was used to paying no fees and getting interest on my money. Good interest too, yeah I know it is a thing of the past, but hey the interest rate on my mortgage was around 14% at one time.
This is probably why we have been using a credit union for years!!! No fees, you earn a little interest on your money and have a really cool online feature where you can set up multiple sub accounts, for things like savings, big annual expenses such as property tax etc. and of course the 10% that you always pay yourself first right? If it wasn’t for what we learnt about managing our money, we would maybe not be heading off on this great adventure!
Reality is that when you are planning on being an itinerant wanderer you have to have a bank and a banking system that fills your needs. Our credit union was not able to help with mitigating those crippling ATM fees or even being able to transfer money from bank to bank.
Neither of us were impressed when we went in to discuss our needs recently, despite advance warning of the questions we had, we watched one “account expert” scrabble through the brochure looking for the explanation of a “feature” in the account he was promoting as best for us. As Queen Victoria would say “We are not amused”……………..
Back to the drawing board for us! What do we need and where do we find it without paying crippling banking fees and charges?????
Mike drew up a flow chart of our accounts as they stand right now (he must be a Engineer or something!), it was very helpful to see what we have and easier to see how we might best link them.
Along with extensive internet research and some crazy telephone calls, some answers started to emerge. Note: do not believe everything some operative on the end of the line tells you!!!!! One representative of a major bank told me that I could set up my credit union as a payee…… then I would be able to “pay” them just as I would a phone bill!! #$%&$%!
Some friends steered us to their bank as they have a reputation for being “International” let’s see if you can figure out who they are. They do have branches worldwide and are even affiliated with other banks, if we use their ATMs …zero fees, however no email transfers and you need to have at least a $25,000 minimum balance or $100,000 of business in place with them to qualify for free banking. The representative was knowledgeable, friendly and very keen to sell us some mutual funds to take care of that minimum investment. If your guessed HSBC, you are correct.
Bank # 2 was CIBC who we do already have some business with. Their representative was friendly, helpful and they are affiliated with one other country for banking purposes……. downside – to transfer bank to bank in person no problem, only way to do by distance is a “E” transfer…… one slight problem, maximum amount you can transfer is $1,000 per day, which they charge $1.50 for. Hmmm!!!
Bank # 3 was Scotiabank. Again they were friendly, kind of helpful…. they didn’t seem too sure about some things. On the plus side they are affiliated with two other big banks and the minimum balance for “free” banking was only $1,000.
Bank # 4 was TD Canada Trust who we already had some dealings with. They were friendly, knowledgeable and very helpful. In fact once our lovely account expert knew what we wanted she steered us to a fee free account, no ATM charges other than what is charged by those foreign banks and the offer of free E transfers. Minimum balance required $5,000, included in the account is a free safety deposit box and a travel rewards credit card with a normal annual fee of $120, card and secondary card included for free.
Which did we choose? TD Canada Trust mainly due to the willingness to provide what we needed, in fact they went out of their way to make sure we could get the services we needed. Our lovely account manager has even volunteered to be available via email to assist us as we need it! What a bonus, a lovely helpful lady and bank just an email away.
The love, hate relationship is taking a turn for the better………….
