Personal Finance

The EQ Bank Personal Account thread - 2.50% (+1.50% direct deposit) - USD account is out: 3.00%

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Jan 16, 2007
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New Brunswick
aweawea wrote: What are your top alternatives to EQ that pay decent interest on an account and offers free EMT, billpay, and cheque photo deposit without moving funds between a chq and sav? I'd move my day-to-day from EQ if another FI fits this criteria?
If you want cheque photo deposit - Alterna Bank. It's a smidge (.1%) lower interest rate but works. I don't really have any others that would fit that criteria with a reasonable interest rate. Potentially Motus, but they've dropped a ton on interest rate and have their own quirks. Actually Motus doesn't fit that critieria - forgot, their savings doesn't let you do bill pay from it for example. Alterna does.
Last edited by joshnet on May 6th, 2020 8:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
Banking: Alterna Bank (2.25%), Motive Financial (4.1%)
Investing: Qtrade Direct Investing
Spending: Scotia Amex Gold (6 pts/Sobeys, 5 pts/dining, 1 pts/rest), Scene Visa (1 pts)
Mobile: Eastlink 20GB Rollover ($39/mth)
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Mar 23, 2004
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aweawea wrote: What are your top alternatives to EQ that pay decent interest on an account and offers free EMT, billpay, and cheque photo deposit without moving funds between a chq and sav? I'd move my day-to-day from EQ if another FI fits this criteria?
Dont think there is anything that is exactly like that too, but I would go with LBC. Yes they are a shitshow too, but at least they have a higher rate.
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Jan 7, 2002
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aweawea wrote: What are your top alternatives to EQ that pay decent interest on an account and offers free EMT, billpay, and cheque photo deposit...
What's a "cheque"? ;)
veni, vidi, Visa
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joshnet wrote: Agreed. I'm also not a fan that they have a once a day EFT processing in the morning. There's no excuse for that these days, with other institutions having multiple per day.
EFT is not really an issue for me...i dont even recall using it once EMT became common. Guess i just dont transfer huge amounts to warrant using it.
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EFT also covers payroll deposits and other things (such as transfers from Transferwise).
Banking: Alterna Bank (2.25%), Motive Financial (4.1%)
Investing: Qtrade Direct Investing
Spending: Scotia Amex Gold (6 pts/Sobeys, 5 pts/dining, 1 pts/rest), Scene Visa (1 pts)
Mobile: Eastlink 20GB Rollover ($39/mth)
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Jan 7, 2002
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aweawea wrote: Hehe
Checkmate!

Normally I wouldn't touch any of them with a 10 foot Pole, never mind these days...
veni, vidi, Visa
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Sep 6, 2018
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bylo wrote: Checkmate!

Normally I wouldn't touch any of them with a 10 foot Pole, never mind these days...
I still get Rakuten cheques lol... And maybe 3 or 4 random others throughout the year. My work still does expense reimbursements with physical cheques for some reason...
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bylo wrote: Checkmate!

Normally I wouldn't touch any of them with a 10 foot Pole, never mind these days...
aweawea wrote: I still get Rakuten cheques lol... And maybe 3 or 4 random others throughout the year. My work still does expense reimbursements with physical cheques for some reason...
also to be fair, it's still good to get rent payments through cheque.
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Jan 7, 2002
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Guys, I know what cheques are and that some places still use them. It's just that more and more places now accept or even prefer electronic payments like bill pay, Interac, etc. That includes "little guys" like contractors, local clubs, family and friends, etc. I suppose landlords prefer a stack of post-dated cheques because they think that somehow guarantees their rent. Of course it doesn't if you do a stop-payment or the cheque bounces. But traditions die slowly.

The only cheques (actually checks) I've received in recent memory have been from the US in US$. I doubt that EQ can handle those. TD/CT does provided you also have a US$ account to deposit them into.
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I haven't received a cheque in... 5 years? For writing though I've done 3 in the past 3 years. This was to local companies because the balance exceeded the Interac e-Transfer limit, or they would have accepted that.
Banking: Alterna Bank (2.25%), Motive Financial (4.1%)
Investing: Qtrade Direct Investing
Spending: Scotia Amex Gold (6 pts/Sobeys, 5 pts/dining, 1 pts/rest), Scene Visa (1 pts)
Mobile: Eastlink 20GB Rollover ($39/mth)
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Jan 30, 2012
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aweawea wrote: I still get Rakuten cheques lol... And maybe 3 or 4 random others throughout the year. My work still does expense reimbursements with physical cheques for some reason...
after cashing it, can use it as tp ...
Sr. Member
Sep 11, 2011
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Alberta
After the simplii 2.8% promo ended, I've transferred my emergency fund and other savings to my EQ account.

In the past week, almost every time I try to log in, or do anything, the website has gone down. Either for scheduled, or unscheduled maintenance. Seems pretty unreliable, especially if I ever immediately needed the money.

Luckily I just got a 2.5% interest promo from Tangerine, so might be moving it all back over to them now.
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Jan 30, 2012
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wilhelmthe1st wrote: After the simplii 2.8% promo ended, I've transferred my emergency fund and other savings to my EQ account.

In the past week, almost every time I try to log in, or do anything, the website has gone down. Either for scheduled, or unscheduled maintenance. Seems pretty unreliable, especially if I ever immediately needed the money.

Luckily I just got a 2.5% interest promo from Tangerine, so might be moving it all back over to them now.
Did you check the start date of this new 2.5% offer?
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Sep 11, 2011
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Alberta
LOL808 wrote: Did you check the start date of this new 2.5% offer?
May 1st to September 30th
Newbie
Feb 24, 2018
97 posts
116 upvotes
Toronto
Hi everyone. Please help me.
I just signed for a savings account at EQ Bank and I have a difficulty to transfer money into it.

One of the ways to deposit funds into EQ Bank account is via Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) through linked accounts. So I linked my RBC checking account, but before transferring money I called RBC customer service to find out is there any fees and /or daily limits on EFT. The RBS's CS representative told me that EFT and Interac e-Transfer are the same therefore there is a limit 2K/day.
From what I'm reading on EQ website - you can deposit up to $100,000 per transaction from your linked account to your EQ Bank account. You can make multiple transactions per day.

Did RBS's CS representative misinform me?

Does anyone transfer money via EFT from RBC? Does RBC charge fees for that? Any problems with a limit?

Sorry for the long story. Appreciate all answers
Deal Guru
Jan 30, 2012
10045 posts
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multi city dweller
perfectos wrote: Hi everyone. Please help me.
I just signed for a savings account at EQ Bank and I have a difficulty to transfer money into it.

One of the ways to deposit funds into EQ Bank account is via Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) through linked accounts. So I linked my RBC checking account, but before transferring money I called RBC customer service to find out is there any fees and /or daily limits on EFT. The RBS's CS representative told me that EFT and Interac e-Transfer are the same therefore there is a limit 2K/day.
From what I'm reading on EQ website - you can deposit up to $100,000 per transaction from your linked account to your EQ Bank account. You can make multiple transactions per day.

Did RBS's CS representative misinform me?

Does anyone transfer money via EFT from RBC? Does RBC charge fees for that? Any problems with a limit?

Sorry for the long story. Appreciate all answers
If you just want to transfer your money held in your rbc chqing account to EQ bank, and you have already established an EFT link between the 2 accounts, then you can just initiate a "pull" transfer by logging into your EQ bank account.
The limited on the transfer is quite high so unless you are transferring several millions of dollars, you should not have any problem.
The other thing you need to keep in mind is that there may be a fee imposed on by RBC depending on the type of chqing account you have.

There is no need to use e-interac transfer. It is designed for much smaller amount like $3000 daily. It is published on the bank's website.
Newbie
Feb 24, 2018
97 posts
116 upvotes
Toronto
LOL808 wrote: The other thing you need to keep in mind is that there may be a fee imposed on by RBC depending on the type of chqing account you have.

There is no need to use e-interac transfer. It is designed for much smaller amount like $3000 daily. It is published on the bank's website.
That's why I called RBC bank first, to find out about fees for EFT transactions. And rep just told me that EFT and e-Interac are the same things. From what Im reading - its totally different types of transactions. I will probably email RBC again to double-check.
Sr. Member
Oct 12, 2005
909 posts
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Vancouver
perfectos wrote: That's why I called RBC bank first, to find out about fees for EFT transactions. And rep just told me that EFT and e-Interac are the same things. From what Im reading - its totally different types of transactions. I will probably email RBC again to double-check.
The fee for an EFT at RBC will be the same as any other debit transaction on your account. So as long as it’s within your limit, it’ll be free, otherwise it’s $1.25 fee on chequing accounts.

The transaction limit for transfers with EQ is $100,000 for inbound (RBC-EQ) and $30,000 for outbound (EQ-RBC).

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