Toronto Dominion Bank (TD) is known for its customer service, winning the J.D. Power and Associate award for customer service among the big banks.

In my opinion, TD also launches some great promotions that should be taken advantage of. A recent promotion TD launched is giving $150 for anyone who switches to them, although you will need to open up a particular bank account (which does cost money) but if you need the services offered, then it’s a win – win in our books.

That said, TD has once again started a new promotion, in fact it only launched 2 days ago (May 12th).

What is the new promotion?

From May 12th – June 19th, TD will be featuring a different GIC product each week with a competitive rate.

The weekly GIC rate will be offered throughout the week until Friday.

You have until the end of the day Friday to lock in the special GIC rate before it resets to normal, and you have to find out what TD will be offering for the following week on Saturday.

That said, we do have a special GIC rate on the market right now from TD. The GIC rate below will only be valid from May 12th 2012 – May 18th 2012.

Why should invest in these special offer GICs?

In the end, the main reason behind investing in these special offer GICs is the fact that you are gaining a competitive interest rate, which would otherwise not be given. What makes this promotion great is the fact that as it is offered, it is completely guaranteed for the term of your investment.

These GICs are also eligible for non-registered and registered investment plan; this includes RSP, RESP, RIF and TFSA.

The fact is, the special rate might prompt you to want to invest in these special GIC offers.

What do you think of the new promotion by TD and the special GIC rate?

The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Visa have announced the launch of a brand new product, which has been designed to allow consumers to pay for products over the phone or mail order purchases, directly through their bank account. Yes, your bank account, which means this is not a credit card.

The product launched is the RBC Virtual Visa Debit.

What can the RBC Virtual Visa Debit do for me?

As I mentioned, the RBC Virtual Visa Debit is a new product that has been designed to allow consumers to pay for products online, over the phone or mail order purchases directly form their bank account.

What makes this great is the fact that it is linked with Visa, which means you have several features that Visa offers on their credit cards. The features include:

• Visa’s Zero Liability
• Verified by Visa
• E-Promise
• Address Verification Service (AVS)
• CCV2 (Three digit security code)

How does the RBC Virtual Visa Debit work?

In order for the RBC Virtual Visa Debit to work, RBC deposit account holders will receive a reference card, which will hold all of the information they will need to make an online purchase with the funds withdrawn from their bank account. The reference card will have:

• A Visa Debit Number
• An Expiry Date
• A Three Digit Security Code

Keep in mind, this reference card has been designed for strictly online, telephone and mail order purchases. It cannot be used at a physical store, ATM or financial institution.

I love this idea, and although there are banks who offer Visa Debit included in their debit card (CIBC Advantage card) the RBC Virtual Visa Debit is ideal for anyone who wants the option, but with limits on what they can do. The fact that you can only make purchases online, through the telephone or by mail order and that you can’t withdraw funds or make in store purchases does add a bit of security on top of it.

Ideally, I hope to see this product, turn into a digital wallet, because in my opinion it isn’t too far of a stretch. Then again, I have been wanting a digital wallet for some time now ☺.

What do you think of the RBC Virtual Visa Debit?

 UPDATED: CIBC Advantage Card name corrected

The day has finally come, I am sure a lot of people have been looking forward to today and by that I do not mean St. Patrick’s day (although I am sure a lot of people have looked forward to it too).

What I am talking about is the fact that the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Shoppers Drug Mart are launching their co-branded RBC Shoppers Optimum banking account and debit card today!

As you may remember, the new program will provide customers with unlimited debit transactions and allow you to convert RBC reward points to Shoppers Optimum Points.

That said, RBC and Shoppers Drug Mart conducted a poll revealing that women are taking the lead towards a cashless society.

What were the main findings of the poll?

76% of Canadian women typically carry $50 or less in their wallet compared to 66% of men.

To allow their wallets be stocked with cash, men tend to use an ABM up to twice a week (41% of men), compared to 33% of women.

Interestingly enough, it seems that 28% of women rarely or never withdraw cash compared to 22% of men.

I personally find myself rarely withdrawing cash unless I know I will be in a place with debit/ credit is not accepted. Other than that I am a complete plastic user.

Warne Bossert, executive vice-president, Canadian Banking, RBC, explained that Canadians still prefer to have cash on hand, but as the survey suggests, women in particular are finding debit to be a more convenient method to pay for their day to day purchases.

Bossert continued to say that we are becoming a cashless society; I for one cannot agree with that statement more. Credit cards are a major form of payment not to mention debit cards. Cash is still used but realistically everyone’s first choice is some form of plastic.

People love earning rewards as well, and credit and debit cards allow that to happen.

The new RBC Shoppers Drug Mart account allows you earn $50,000 Shoppers Optimum points when you sign up, which is almost $85 in rewards.

You are earning a lot of Shoppers Optimum points through the new account, which only makes it more beneficial to using your debit card than cash.

What do you think of the findings of the poll?

Last week Bank Guru announced on Twitter that we were hearing a few rumours concerning the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). The fact is, we have heard quite a few things, and we want to share it with all of our readers on BankNerd.

There are in fact several rumours we have heard concerning RBC, which is why we will be covering them in a series (as to not overwhelm everyone at once).

The first of the rumours we have heard surround RBC’s personal accounts.

You will find I compiled the rumours into a table, which can be found below:

Were these changes even necessary?

The changes made are not as bad as you all expected, right? In fact, I would go as far as to say two out of the three accounts I mentioned got a bit better.

The RBC VIP Banking will have 10 free Interac e-Transfers/ month! Honestly that is more than I can imagine anyone using in a month, then again have more for the same is a great deal to me.

Now senior clients holding the RBC VIP Banking account do lose out on their rebate, but we have heard there is a possibility that a new change might make this rebate loss not worth complaining about.

The RBC Signature No Limit Banking may have increased by a dollar, but to be honest, I do not think it was a bad increase considering your are getting an additional 3 Interac e-Transfers every month and 3 cross-border debits/ month. The value of these additional transactions equate more than the $1 increase, making the account better than it was despite the increase in price.

Is the RBC Day to Day Banking account worth it?

Now the RBC Day to Day Banking account got worse, transactions got decreased, and you would think that if you were to lower the daily transactions, maybe, just maybe the excess debit fees would decrease if not stay the same. Well, as you have seen above, it increased to $1/ excess item. Overdraft protection also increased on it.

It wasn’t like I liked the account to begin with, but I can see some people using it.

You can of course get the monthly fee written off through the Multi-rebate program, but it does not change the fact that for people who use this account regularly, they need to now only make 10 transactions a month.

This account in my opinion not even worth looking at anymore.

Now as I mentioned these are only rumours we have been hearing, but if it does turn out to be true, remember, you heard it hear first!

What do you think of these changes to RBC’s personal accounts?

Last year, I wrote an article on Wave Accounting; which is a service that is ideal to help business owners become more successful.

Wave Accounting is a service that does a great job of basic accounting, particularly generating and tracking invoices, tracking expenses, and providing a dashboard that shows graphically what is going on in your business financially.

It recently caught my attention again when I saw that Wave Accounting recently introduced a brand new feature called Wave Payroll.

What is Wave Payroll?

As you have probably guessed from the name of the feature, Wave Payroll is an online payroll system that small business owners can use to pay their employees, handle deductions, and much more.

Wave Payroll is a very easy payroll application, it is in my opinion an ideal way to manage your business’ payroll. The features of Wave Payroll include:

• Pay your employees easily, whether they are salaried employees or hourly workers. This is made easy with a low fee of $3 per employee per payroll
• Direct deposit to your employee’s bank accounts at no additional charge, or pay by cheque if you prefer this method
• Manage employees, time sheets, vacations and overtime easily
• Automatically calculate your CRA withholding, and have it paid to the government on your behalf
• Records of employment and T4s are included at no extra charge.

So the cost of using Wave Payroll is $3 per employee per payroll, however you do not pay a dime until you run your first payroll. There is absolutely no setup fees involved in using Wave Payroll.

It took me about 45 seconds to set up my Wave Payroll account (all I had to do was integrate it with my Wave Accounting account).

To integrate your Wave Payroll account to your Wave Accounting account, follow the steps below:

1. Go to Wave Payroll(you will need to log into your Wave Accounting account) and click “Add Wave Payroll”
2. Allow Wave Payroll to access your Wave Accounting information
3. Choose your bank account; on this page you choose where you want Wave Accounting to record your payroll expenses.
4. You are now finished Wave Accounting integration and can begin adding payrolls onto your account.

Is Wave Payroll worth it?

Without a doubt, Wave Payroll is worth using; you take away the time it takes to manually manage your employee’s pay, etc., and do it all online in an easy manner.

One thing I like about Wave Payroll is the Dashboard; on it you will find “To do items”, “Upcoming Events” and “Payroll history”. As you can see in the image below, the Upcoming Events section shows you dates such as when your next Payroll is or upcoming holidays. The Payroll history is the best feature on the dashboard because you are shown all aspects of your employee’s payroll; their regular pay, overtime and vacation pay.

Another great thing about Wave Payroll is that it makes life easier for anyone wanting to get Direct Deposit done without the hassle. You just need to enter your employee’s bank account information and you are done.

With Wave Payroll at your side, you can easily review your pay stubs for your employee(s) for any particular invoice, and even print it off for record keeping purposes.

Overall, I think that if you are looking for an easy to manage payroll system, then Wave Payroll is definitely a good thing to use.

Although I wish it was free like with Wave Account, at $3 per employee per payroll, it is still a deal.

What do you think of Wave Payroll?

The week flew by incredibly fast; the weather was all over the place but I for one am happy that it warmed up as the week went on. Well as you know, it is time for BankNerd’s Best of the Best series.

Before we get into this weeks Best of the Best I thought I would share a video I found to commemorate the passing of Groundhog day; on a side note, it seems that winter will continue.

As usual, we have highlighted a few of our articles that were published this week and articles I have read on various blogs that I thought deserved to be shared.

Before we get into this weeks Best of the Best I thought I would share a video I found to commemorate the passing of Groundhog day; on a side note, it seems that winter will continue although I don’t mind having winter if the weather these past few days continue.

Our Best of the Best

1. BMO InvestorLine announced new mutual fund research tools to help clients make more informed choices as they continue to invest.
2. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) is offering a great Savings account deal for people to take advantage of.
3. This week I covered the RBC and Shoppers Optimum Bank Account and what features you can expect to find with the account.
4. I covered a dilemma my friend faced as her OSAP cheque was held. Why would a government cheque be held?

Best Around the World

The Financial Highway published a great article covering titled “6 Things your might not know about your Home Equity Line of Credit“. I liked the fact that the article covered things that were covered in a recent survey concerning  their HELOC.

I came across a great article on Retire Happy Blog, titled “ New Cpp Rules may make you think twice before you retire early“. This post in fact was a guest post from a Senior Tax Analyst for H&R Block Canada.

My Own Advisor wrote an article titled “Get your Financial House in Order or Keep Dreaming“. What I liked about this article is the fact that although what has been said does sound a bit grim, you feel a bit comforted knowing that in the end there is always room to improve your financial health.

Sustainable Personal Finance wrote a great article on Preparing to File Taxes in Canada. This is a great post, especially for people filing their taxes for the first time.

On Young and Thrifty I came across an article titled “Why and How to DRIP: Dividend Re-Investment Plans“. In this article, you are given the pros and cons of this investment and how you can invest in this product.

As some people might remember, just over a month ago I had some issues depositing a cheque into my bank account; in my opinion TD was wrongfully holding my cheque. I did get the money deposited, but it was a lot more of a hassle than it should have been.

That being said, it came to my attention from a friend of mine that when he went to deposit a cheque, she was told that it had to be put on hold, regardless of who it is from.

Now, I say, “who it is from” because it was not an issue of whether the account sees a lot of cheque deposits or not, or the history on the account. It was more on where the cheque was coming from.

Who was the cheque from?

The cheque was from none other the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). My friend was confused to say the least; not only has she deposited OSAP cheques in the past, but the hold were being placed on a government cheque.

After hearing that her OSAP cheque was being held, only one thing came to mind as to why this could happen; and that is cheque fraud. I can only imagine how many cases their could be; realistically not many people would contest a government cheque.

I decided to ask a bank employee about this case, and he explained that it is common for cheque fraud to occur on those kind of cheques, and it is common practice to hold the cheques.

Now if this was me, I would have not allowed my money, which is going towards my education to be put on hold; realistically, why should I be forced under scrutiny for a cheque from the government because other people might be committing cheque fraud.

On a side note, the bank that my friend banks with is none other than TD; I found it funny how my friend is also facing some problems with TD like I did.

What could you do to avoid your OSAP cheques form being held?

The solution to avoiding your OSAP cheques from being held is to have it directly deposited into your bank account.

This way, your void any potential fraud issues with your bank, as your OSAP will not come in a cheque form.

For anyone looking to have direct deposit for their OSAP, you will need to show the financial aid office your bank information so that they can direct deposit your funds into your bank account.

What do you think of OSAP cheques being held?

A few weeks ago the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Shoppers Drug Mart launched a new national program, where clients will be able to now collect Shoppers Optimum points through the use of a brand new RBC Shoppers Optimum banking account and debit card.

That being said, today I will give an overview on what you can expect to find this account to include when it is launched. The RBC Shoppers Optimum banking account is expected to launch in March 2012.

To get things going, I have compiled a table with what you should see the account features of the RBC Shoppers Optimum Banking account has:

As you can see, this chequing account offers the necessities and an additional benefit of allowing clients to earn rewards on purchases inside and outside the store.

How does the rewards program work for this new account?

The rewards program is quite simple; you earn Shoppers Optimum points for every dollar ($1) spent on both inside and outside the store.

The rewards program for the RBC Shoppers Optimum bank account is as follow:

As you can clearly see, the amount of rewards you can earn at Shoppers for their Optimum points is large, well that is once you spend at a Shoppers Drug Mart,

Is the RBC Shoppers Optimum Banking account worth the cost?

Truthfully, I am a person who looks at account fees as a complete waste of money. I mean, there are several no fee accounts that are available which can definitely suit your needs.

However, as with any credit card that has a rewards program on it, the fee is always justified because you are provided with a great rewards program.

In this case, I feel the same way. The Shoppers Optimum rewards program is one of the largest and most popular loyalty programs in Canada. I do not see anyone not wanting to pay the monthly fee if it meant they would be able to increase the amount of Optimum points they can earn.

With that in mind, the monthly fee can be waived through RBC’s multi-product rebate program. In order to qualify for the multi-product rebate program, you will need to hold each of the following products:

• An RBC Royal Bank investment
• An eligible RBC Rewards® credit card
• An RBC Royal Bank residential mortgage or RBC Homeline Plan

Note: Clients, 60 years or older, require only an eligible credit card and investment to qualify for the MultiProduct Rebate.

All RBC accounts come included with Cross Border debit, which makes them great accounts for anyone who frequently travels to the US. That being said, I do not see why the RBC Shoppers Optimum Bank account would not have this feature included. If this account does have this feature, then it only makes it even better in my books.

With the account fee waived, it is more the RBC Shoppers Optimum Banking account is definitely worth the cost.

What do you think of the RBC Shoppers Optimum Banking account?

Last week Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Shoppers Drug Mart launched a new program, which has been launched nation wide that allows Canadians to bank and earn rewards at Shoppers Drug Mart/ Pharmaprix locations throughout Canada.

The new program allows you to use RBC’s new RBC Shoppers Optimum Bank account and debit card to collect Shoppers Optimum points faster than before.

To recap, you are able to earn 10 additional Shoppers Optimum points fore very $1 you spend at Shoppers Drug Mart when using the RBC Shoppers Optimum Bank account.

When you make purchases outside of Shoppers Drug Mart, you earn Shoppers Optimum points on a 1:1 ratio.

RBC also released a great infographic highlighting the new program launched.

As you can see below, 1 in 5 ATM’s are operated by RBC; this is the largest ATM network with more than 50% than its competition. Shoppers Drug Mart has over 1200 stores nationwide, 63 Shoppers Home Health Care stores and 60 Shoppers Simply Pharmacy stores.

This announcement is also coupled with the fact that RBC will be introducing over 300 RBC ATM’s at Shoppers Drug Mart locations, which only further expands RBC’s reach. The fact is, with the amount of stores that Shoppers Drug Mart has, it will only be a matter of time before the 1200+ stores will all hold  an RBC ATM only expanding RBC’s reach even further than its competition.

This new program is set to launch on March 17th, 2012; the RBC Shoppers Optimum bank account will hold a monthly fee of $10.95, and from what I have heard, if you have the RBC’s multi-product rebate, then the account fee is waived.

What do you think of the new RBC and Shoppers program?

PayPal is a service I am sure a lot of you have used over the years, in fact I would not be surprised if the main place you use PayPal is eBay. I know in my case, I created a PayPal account to start purchasing products off eBay.

For anyone who is unsure, PayPal is an e-commerce business that allows payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet.

PayPal functions by you either depositing money onto your account, or having funds be pulled from you bank account, to your PayPal account, and then used for your purchase. It is a great way to make secure payments.

To be honest, I rarely use my PayPal nowadays, I tend to stick with using my credit card.

That being said, it recently came to my attention that PayPal has had a mobile app on the market for some time, which offers a lot of great features for avid PayPal users, and in my opinion can even bring people to want to use it more often.

What does the PayPal mobile app offer?

The PayPal app allows you to send money to your friends, manage your account, and much more. What makes using the PayPal app so ideal is the fact that it is a convenient way to send friends and family money when you need to, especially when you compare it to going to the ATM, writing cheques, etc.

With the PayPal app you can do the following:

• Send money as gifts, or repay a friend, request money (all for Free). When sending money, you have the option of using an email for the recipient or their mobile number.

  

• Split bills and request money at the same time; with this function you can choose to round up/ down the bill total, or leave it as is. From there you can begin requesting money to whoever is part of the bill.

  

• You can collect money for a group gift; you can add notes for the transaction, input the amount of contributors. You can assign names to the contributors (for record keeping purposes), and assign a specific amount of money to each contributor.

  

• Check your account balance, withdraw funds, or view past transactions

  

• Create, track and manage fundraising campaigns

  

• Bump to exchange contacts and send money through Bump

  

As you can see, you can do quite a lot with the PayPal app. To make logging in easier, PayPal has also given you the option to creating pin, which you can use to login to instead of your password and to change your login id as your mobile phone number.

Overall, PayPal has created a great app, that if used, can help make managing your finances a bit easier.

However, there is one feature I was a bit disappointed to not find on the PayPal app.

What is the feature that is missing?

On the US version of the PayPal app, there is the option to snap a photo of your cheque to add it directly into your PayPal account (no fees applied). When I first came upon the PayPal app, the feature that caught my eye was this one.

Yes, I know that the downside to this feature is that it is put into your PayPal app but you can always transfer the money to your bank account (there is a wait period, but the convenience of this is good).

I like the idea of depositing cheques with a photo, but I am not too keen on the money being sent to my PayPal account. You can opt to have the money sent to your bank account, but there is a delay in the transfer of funds.

The PayPal app is available to download for the Android, Blackberry and iPhone.

What do you think of the PayPal app?