Canada has many great “products” for personal finance, such as the TFSA, RESP, and the capital gains tax exemption. In fact that last one alone is enough to make Canada an attractive destination for many upper middle class internationals. Unfortunately, for day to day banking and spending, we are severely behind other first world countries. While Canada is an early adopter of contactless payment methods, we are still quite lacklustre in other aspects, including peer to peer payments, credit card perks and benefits, and even day to day bank accounts.
With that being said, it’s even more important that we try and make the best out of what we have. So these are some of my favourite personal finance products for day to day banking and spending. Note that this post is not meant to be a detailed review of each product, but is just meant to inform and highlight some of the main features that make each product great. If you are interested in any of them, please make sure to do some more thorough research to make sure they are suitable for your needs.
Revolut
I used to have some high praise for Revolut here, but unfortunately as of May 15, 2021, Revolut has decided to exit the Canadian market, citing inability to bring their full product offering to Canada due to limited resources. Apparently they say they will be back in a couple years. I eagerly anticipate the return.
EQ Bank
Outside of short term promotions that come along once in a while, EQ Bank is the best overall savings account. If you want somewhere to park your money for an emergency fund without having to worry about it for a long time, this is the place to do it.
Notable features:
- No fees
- 1.25% interest rate. This used to be 2.3% for the longest time, until the significant interest rate cuts by the Bank of Canada (although you can’t really fault EQ Bank for this)
- CDIC insured
- No debit/credit cards, but allows for bill payments, including pre-authorized payments
- Built in integration with Transferwise
I’ve been using EQ Bank since 2016 as my emergency fund account and it’s always been great. Sometimes other banks like Tangerine or a random credit union will have promotions that temporarily offer a higher interest rate than EQ Bank, but I’ve never been bothered to go through the 2 week+ sign up process and send myself a bunch of e-transfers just to earn an extra $12 in interest over 3 months.
But speaking of promotions, if you’re going to sign up for EQ Bank, use a referral link, it’ll give you and the referrer $20 each. Incredible, I know.
Questrade
Probably the most well known product out of everything in this post, Questrade is a popular online self directed trading platform that has been around for over 20 years. It is famous for offering a wide variety of securities and investments available to trade, as well as no fee ETF purchases, but you still pay a fee (up to $10) to sell. Questrade also has a very wide variety of account types, including all of the most popular ones: TFSA, RRSP, RESP, and non registered accounts.
Notable features:
- No fee ETF purchases
- Norbert’s Gambit
I debated whether or not to include Questrade in this list, as I realize it is not suitable for everyone. It does have a fairly steep learning curve, since it is fully self managed. And while it does have many great features, it might not have the best tools for a super active day trader.
A potential negative about Questrade that you should be aware of (but not necessarily afraid of — I’ll explain why) is their poor customer service. There’s tons of negative online reviews of Questrade’s customer service, especially from Reddit. But before being scared off entirely, it is important to consider the nature of these complaints and the specific details of each one. Having read most of these complaints, it seems that the majority of them involve lengthy delays in responses from customer service, or lengthy processing times for orders, both of which can cause significant impacts to customers with money on the line waiting for a trade to execute. However, for a simple investor who isn’t involved with crazy options contracts, most would never need to contact customer service in the first place for regular buying/selling.
Even despite these potential negatives, I ultimately decided to include Questrade because I still think it’s the best platform for someone who’s decently tech and financially savvy, not afraid of going self-managed, and is looking for the ultimate low cost passive investing strategy — which doesn’t require any customer service at all.
Rogers World Elite Mastercard
The best no fee cashback credit card (if you are eligible) in Canada, period.
If you could only have one credit card to your name, this is the one. It doesn’t have any enticing sign up bonuses, or special perks (other than free Boingo wifi), but it has a flat 1.5% (used to be 1.75%, but reduced to 1.5% as of June 2, 2020) cashback on every CAD purchase, and a 0.5% net cashback on USD purchases (technically 3% cashback less 2.5% forex fee). It also has a pretty typical (which is to say, pretty good) set of World Elite travel and insurance benefits. Make sure to read the details carefully though, as insurance is a tricky business and details are super important. The one “drawback” is that there is a $80 000 minimum income (or $150 000 household income) requirement, OR spend $25 000 in one year on the Rogers Platinum card (not worth).
Notable features:
- 1.5% cashback on all CAD purchases, unlimited (meaning you don’t stop earning cashback after a certain amount of spending)
- 0.5% net cashback on USD purchases
- no annual fee
- mobile wallet support (Apple, Google, and Samsung Pay)
- $80 000 minimum income requirement or $150 000 household income
I upgraded to this card from the Rogers Platinum Mastercard as soon as it became available, and have been using it as one of my two credit cards ever since. It’s the best.
Amex Cobalt
I wouldn’t recommend using this as your only credit card, since Amex is not as widely accepted as Visa or Mastercard, but as long as you have a “backup” Visa/Mastercard, then the Cobalt card offers some of the highest earn rates in Canada. Not only does it have excellent rewards rate on food and groceries (5% — the highest in Canada), it also has up to a 30 000 points sign up bonus if you spend at least $500 per month for 12 months.
Notable features:
- 5% rewards on restaurants (including food delivery) and groceries. In my experience, this works for both Canadian merchants and US merchants (in USD).
- 2% rewards on travel and transit
- 1% rewards on everything else
- 30k points sign up bonus over time
- pretty good travel insurance and medical coverage
- $10/month fee
- no minimum income requirement
Unlike the Rogers card above, the Amex Cobalt earns reward points (Amex MR-S points, to be specific) instead of straightforward cashback. These MR-S points can be transferred to a few different hotel loyalty programs, or they can be redeemed at a rate of 1 cent per point towards any travel expenses on your card.
That’s it for now!
I’ll update this post when there’s a new exciting product that I learn about, and I’ll probably sign up for it too, so I can share a bit of my personal experience with it shortly afterwards.
