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moneysense.ca, 10/03/10
Coming soon: ING Chequing Accounts
With the exit of Citizen’s Bank last year, President’s Choice Financial is now the only game in town in the free chequing account space. But perhaps not for much longer. There has long been speculation on whether ING Direct will start offering chequing accounts.
A reader recently got in touch with ING Direct and asked if they are planning on offering an online chequing account similar to the Electric Orange account in the USA. The Electric Orange account is an all-electronic, paperless chequing account that allows bill payment, access to cash through ATMs, electronic money transfer etc. If you need to write a paper cheque, you have to fill out the payment details online and the cheque is mailed out by ING. Here’s ING’s response:
“We are actually currently testing our chequing accounts. The official launch should be sometime this year.”
Not much to go on but it would be interesting to see what features will be available in INGs chequing accounts.
moneysense.ca, 10/03/10
It’ll also be interesting to see if it’s available in Québec. Citizen’s Bank was not, and PC Financial is technically not either, although some people have worked around it by physically traveling to Ontario to open an account.
That’s interesting. I have to say, though, that not being able to write cheques would be a deal-breaker for me. We don’t do it that often, but I still like the idea of being able to whip out the cheque book for certain things.
I wonder if any of the discount banks will ever offer RESPs. There aren’t a lot of options there if you don’t want to pay the high fees of the big banks or hold the money in a trading account. The latter isn’t great as the kids get older and you want to shift more into cash.
I’d be happy to forgo cheques — I only write 1 or 2 per year now — but would also need access to funds while travelling outside the country. Currently, I access my CIBC chequing account from wherever I am to withdraw funds in local currency. If ING can offer that, I’m in. It would also be nice not to have to wait 1-2 days for money to transfer from my ING savings account, as I do now.
Speaking of ING, I read somewhere that they are selling their US operation, is that true? Is there any similar move afoot for their Canadian business? That would be worrying.
This has been in development for some time. We have regular meetings with ING Broker Team and they reveal the program to us last year.
Some ING employees have apparently been the guinea pigs (sic) for this program and from what I’ve told it’s going to be a great alternative to what’s currently out there (probably referring PCF). In addition, people who have existing accounts with ING would be able to seamlessly transfer funds to and from their accounts.
Brad: The only unit ING sold in Canada is their insurance arm, which is now known as Intact. The direct banking unit is definitely not up for sale. I haven’t heard anything about them closing US units.
@brad: I believe you are referring to reports that said that, IIRC, ING Group was planning on selling some of the ING Direct properties around the world. Not sure if ING Direct Canada was among the properties that was considered for sale. But it never went past the rumour stage.
ING did sell its stake in what is now Intact Insurance. That turned out to be a bit of a distress sale and those who purchased ING’s stake have made out well.
I pay my rent with a cheque, so it would be too much of a hassle to switch to ING chequing. However, I also already have free chequing from Coast Capital credit union.
Sounds good except for the cheques … sometimes only cheques will do … I have to write 12 monthly cheques in ADVANCE for my daughter’s lessons so to rely on ING to mail the cheques won’t do.
My wild guess the reason it’s called a “chequing account” is because people can write cheques when they need to..
Like Aleks says, if you live in BC, then Coast Capital Savings offer the best chequing account going ie: Free – this applies to their small business accounts too…
[...] think it’s available in all parts of Canada. Canadian Capitalist recently wrote that chequing accounts from ING Direct may be coming soon, so keep [...]
ING-USA is a real bank……ing canada is a joke
You can get a free checking account with RBC, if you have 2 other products, I got a credit card and opened a TFSA and put in a few dollars.
Canadian Western Bank also offers absolutely free chequing and has downtown branches (and has good rates Jan-Feb for RRSP as well as scratch-and-earn extra 1/8-3% interest on RRSPs)
and has real live people answer their phones. I tried calling the big banks to check on rates but gave up — the phones were too frustrating.