Canadian High Interest Savings Accounts

There are lots of places for Canadians to stash free cash. I have been using ING but keep up to date with other offerings. I have previously looked at this topic but thought I would share the most up to date information, rates, and links. Rates are current as of August 7th 2013.

ICICI Bank 1.45%

PC Financial Interest Plus 1.35%

Achieva Financial 1.80%

Outlook Financial 1.80%

Altamira High Interest Cash Performer 1.25%

ING Direct 1.35%

ING is the bank that I'm currently with. See my sidebar for an orange key and current ING sign-up bonus. (Right now it's $25 and bonus interest to 2.5%). ING frequently offers savings promotions that up the overall interest rates.

Manulife 1.55%

RBC 1.1%

There are lots of banks in Canada with high interest savings accounts. What do you use? Do you have a separate account, or keep one at your main bank?

RBC Access USA

I have been a long time user of RBC Access USA. This is a great cross border product for Canadians looking to access funds in the US.

When I applied, I was set up with an account in Canada, and an account at a US bank. The Canadian account is at RBC Royal Bank, and the US account is with RBC Bank.There is an easy web service to move funds between the two accounts with one log-in. RBC has two versions of the account RBC Access USA, and RBC Access USA Preferred. There was a no fee product when I first signed up, but now, the first has fees of $2.95/month and the second $19.95. Both accounts offer no fees on the PNC Bank ATM Network, and no RBC bank fees on Visa, NYCE or PLUS ATM.

My personal plus is the ability to write cheques on a US bank account. This comes in handy for direct investing where a US cheque is required (more than simply a cheque from a Canadian Bank in US funds).

Find out more from RBC here: RBC Access USA

Review of ING Direct Account Setup - Week One Update

The end of week one and I have achieved a savings of $35, $5 each day for 7 days. My money is resting in my ING Investment Account while I wait for some of the other accounts like the RBC Centura account through RBC Access to be set up. I'm also going to be investigating a low cost brokerage. I haven't achieved any gain on my savings as yet, will update you on the amount of interest at the end of the month.

Setting up the ING account was relatively quick and painless. Fill out a form online, return a cheque payable to yourself. They've set up an electronic transfer with my main chequing account at Bank of Montreal. So far I've been pleased with the service, any transfers have gone through in a day or so, with a 5 day hold on the funds. I will report back on how long it takes for the funds to be returned back to me. The account is no frills, but it serves its purpose as a leave your money there for awhile account.

RBC Access USA

I paid a visit down to my local RBC branch, carrying my driver's license, SIN card and my passport. Thanks to Sam and Nancy I was able to quickly enroll in their RBC Access USA program. They set me up with an RBC Day to Day Savings Account, which has no monthly charges, the fees are transaction based, with one free transaction a month at their branch. Then we fired off an application for the RBC Access USA program. I opted for the basic level service, which let's you have a few free transactions, write cheques etc, there is a premier level service that has some more fees, but more included. Everything seemed to go fairly easily because I had all my ID and such. They faxed the application off to RBC Centura who are then supposed to go ahead and set me up an account and mail me the information. So step one completed, hopefully all goes ahead with no issues. If everything goes ahead, I should be able to log into both accounts through the RBC canadian account and move funds into the US account.

The RBC Access USA program appears to be set up primarily for Canadian snowbirds, for the unfamiliar, snowbirds is the nickname for Canadian retirees who spend 6 months or so over winter each year in Florida. The program looks like it will work for folks like me as well who require a bank account physically located in the US. In this day and age, this looks like one of the last viable options for US banking for canadians without traveling to the US.

High Interest Savings Accounts

What to do while I wait to build up some funds? A stack of bills under my mattress won't do me much good. I went looking around for some high interest savings accounts. Most of the major banks have some kind of a higher interest option, one maybe two percent. That's not very good, the better options are high interest savings accounts from discount banks. These banks are usually characterized by having little to no storefront presence, and their business is primarily conducted online. You usually have to submit an application form, have a social insurance number, and submit a cheque payable to yourself so that the accounts can be linked. Once your account is linked you can move funds by Electronic Funds Transfer.

Some of the options out there are:

Citizens Bank Investment Account

Citizens Bank Ultimate Savings Account

HSBC High Rate Savings Account

ICICI Bank HiSAVE Savings Account

ING Direct Investment Savings Account

The plus side is that these are all CDIC insured, the only drawback is the potential for slightly lower customer service. Personally, I've opened an account earning 3% with ING, not big dollars, but somewhere to put the cash for now.