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moneysense.ca, 13/07/06
President’s Choice Interest Plus Savings Account
Check out Frugal Canadian’s post about a new savings account from PC Financial called Interest Plus savings account that just might give ING Direct a run for its money. In recent years, ING Direct has become more like one of the big banks, offering an interest rate that is no longer the highest among its competitors. For instance, the current savings rate offered by ING Direct is 3.35% compared to the 3.75% offered by Altamira High-Interest CashPerformer Account.
The new PC Financial Savings Account offers a current rate of 4% if a daily account balance of more than $1,000 is maintained. The Savings Account also offers an annual bonus interest depending on the average daily closing balance over the year and how long the account has been held. The bonus interest could add anywhere between 5 bps to 25 bps to your total returns. The Interest Plus account will be a very attractive option for someone saving money for the short-term (say for a down payment on a house) or for an emergency fund.
moneysense.ca, 13/07/06
There is a pretty neat trick some one could play with this account if they are looking to buy a new car, have the cash to actually buy it outright (I know, this leaves out a lot of people) and if the car makers have these 0% financing deals. You could open this account and put the cash for the car in it and have the car loan automatically come out of that account. If you do the math on this little trick it could save you some money when buying a new car.
The things to be careful about are the fact that generally if you take the 0% financing the dealers won’t move on the price at all so you will have to figure out how much 0% financing + 4% (minus taxes on that 4%) is going to save you over the term of the loan.
I guess in theory you are right – money could be made with this “trick”. But something tells me that if one had the cash to purchase a car outright – he/she wouldn’t need to mess around with earning 4% interest.
New ING Interest Plus Savings Account…
I just read about this new PC Financial account, the Interest Plus Savings Account. Their interest rate is quite a bit higher than ING’s (my current high-interest savings account provider) at 4% vs. 3.35%. More importantly though, our chequing ac…
I have had an ING savings account for about 4 or 5 years and have watched the interest rate progress I think from 2.5% to 2.75% and so on up to 3.55% which I think is what it currently stands at. Now when PC financial offered the 4% Interest Plus Savings account (no fees) I jumped on it right away. Considering I already have a chequing & savings account (3.05% interest on any amount, no fees) I went about signing up online for the Interest Plus Savings account back in July. It took me less than 10mins to sign up the account and transfer money in. I have noticed that transferring money in from my chequing account happens instantly, but takes 1 or 2 business days (usually the next day) to move money out.
Needless to say I moved my money from ING to the new PC Interest Plus Savings account and have been quite happy about the 4% returns that I am getting while I save up for a house
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I have been with PC for 4 years, love their service. Even moved my car insurance over to them to save me $400 a year and getting better coverage. Oh and I also accumulate their 1% pc points on their credit card purchases. Grins I am a big fan of Presidents Choice and recommend them to anyone (they are now backed by CIBC).
[...] E*Trade Canada has announced that it will be offering an online high-interest savings account offering 4.15% for Canadian dollar accounts and 4.75% for U.S. dollar accounts. The accounts can be used to park cash temporarily from an investment account instead of buying a money market fund. E*Trade’s interest rate is one of the best around and handily beats ING Direct’s current rate of 3.5% and even PC Financial’s highest rate of 4.0%. However, it looks like cash in a self-directed RRSP cannot be parked in the savings account. [...]
[...] I just read about this new PC Financial account, the Interest Plus Savings Account. Their interest rate is quite a bit higher than ING’s (my current high-interest savings account provider) at 4% vs. 3.35%. More importantly though, our chequing accounts are at PC already so moving to PC for high-interest savings accounts may mean that transfers between the accounts will be faster, or at the very least it means one less statement per month, one less account, and one less user name/password to worry about. [...]
The savings rate is good at PC Financial, however I noticed ICICI offers USD GIC’s with a 1 month term for 5.XX%, and CDN GIC’s (term deposits) with a 1 month term for 4.XX%.
Instead of getting just a savings account one could purchase a 1 month USD GIC/Term Deposit at ICICI. The US dollar is creeping upward this year so might be a good time to invest into the USD while it is still fairly low at around 1.16. However it could also drop down to 1.10 again who knows.
Why does no one even mention the bonus interest paid presently, and until May by HSBC of 4.75. Is this not higher than the others mentioned? No fees either!
i would like to open a saving account with pc financial