Free Chequing Account-ING: Email Money Transfer/ABM Withdraw/BillPay/Overdrft Jan 14+

[deal_king]

ING is offering a free unlimited (no monthly fees) chequing/checking account as of January 14. By far the best free banking offer I have ever seen in Quebec, and comparable/superior to PC Financial in some ways.

If you live in Quebec: You've hit the jackpot! You can save $200/year with this fee-free account.
If you live outside of Quebec: Get this and use with the President's Choice "no fee bank account". The two accounts are complementary- link them together.

THRIVE Chequing:

FREE:
-withdrawals/deposits at any Exchange network ABM (http://www.the-exchange.ca/default.a...1006&LangID=en)
-Email Money Transfers
-Bill Payments
-direct debit
-20 free cheques ($10 for additional cheques), can view cheques online
-$250 overdraft protection
-online statements

Interest Rate

0.25% $0.00 -$49,999.99
1.00% $50,000.00 -$99,999.99
1.10% $100,000.00 or more


Comparing PCF to ING:

1. ABM Machines: PCF has access to 3800 machines fee-free, including all CIBC machines. ING has access to 2500 machines fee-free, including all HSBC, National Bank, and most local co-ops, and private banking machines. If you live in Quebec, you've hit the ING jackpot. If you live outside of Quebec, use PCF along with ING side by side. Winner=PCF, ING in Quebec
2. Cheques: ING offers 20 cheques for free and $10 for every 20 cheques thereafter. PCF offers free unlimited cheques. However, this is hardly an advantage when offers for free cheque printing pop up very often on. Winner= PCF, but hardly relevant.
3. Email money transfers: ING offers FREE email money transfers ($2000/day, $7000/month max), while PCF charges $1.50. Some think that ING's EMTs are inferior, however many people have confirmed that they take exactly the same amount of time as PCF's Interac Money Transfer. Winner= ING
4. Interest Rate: ING offers a higher interest rate than PCF. Period. Winner= ING
5. Overdraft Protection: ING offers FREE overdraft protection up to $250. PCF charges $5 plus 19% interest. Winner= ING
6. Incentives: ING offer a FREE cash bonus of $25 for you and your referring friend, if you input an Orange Key upon signup. PCF offers nothing. Winner= ING

[andrewf]

How on earth does ING win #2 (free cheques)? Their service in this regard is strictly inferior. I smell bias.

[CanadianCapitalist]

How on earth does ING win #2 (free cheques)? Their service in this regard is strictly inferior. I smell bias.

+1. You'd think free cheques would make PCF the winner in that category.

[brad]

I agree that the free chequing should go to PC Financial, but it's no dealbreaker for me; it'll take me a couple of years to go through my 20 cheques as I pay for almost everything online or with a debit card.

I've been using ING's THRIVE account ever since it was first offered as a beta test to 10,000 Canadians last year. I love it and have no complaints, although I'm getting tired of merchants exclaiming over my blaze-orange debit card when I pay for things -- nobody's seen it before and they all want to look it over.

I've had no problems paying all my bills online via THRIVE, my direct deposits get deposited and I get email notifications, it all works nicely. You can set up email alerts to tell you whenever money is added to or withdrawn from your account, or if your account drops below a certain amount. You can even send payments to friends (if they have accounts with ING) by email.

For those of us in Québec, this is the only practical solution for a fee-free chequiing account, since PC Financial is technically not available here; there are workarounds for that but they're not very convenient.

The only downside is the relatively limited ABM network, but since my previous chequing account was with Banque Nationale (which uses the same network) it doesn't change anything for me. For convenience, I opened up another account at my local credit union (Desjardins), which has many more branches and ABMs all over my city, and I get free chequing there by keeping a minimum balance of $1,500 in my account, which gives me 12 transactions per month for free. I've never come close to using that many transactions as I use that account just for times when I need to withdraw cash and there's no ING-compatible ABM nearby.

[deal_king]

How on earth does ING win #2 (free cheques)? Their service in this regard is strictly inferior. I smell bias.


+1. You'd think free cheques would make PCF the winner in that category.

Thanks for the feedback- I changed it. Actually I base this on the fact that free check printing offers from different companies come up fairly often. The most I've ever paid was $5 for 50 cheques.


I agree that the free chequing should go to PC Financial, but it's no dealbreaker for me; it'll take me a couple of years to go through my 20 cheques as I pay for almost everything online or with a debit card.

The whole point behind ING's free email money transfer is that they want to make cheques obselete...

Brad- can you share the workarounds for Quebecers to get the PCF account?

[CanadianCapitalist]

I agree that the free chequing should go to PC Financial, but it's no dealbreaker for me; it'll take me a couple of years to go through my 20 cheques as I pay for almost everything online or with a debit card.

It's only after we had kids that we had to write tons of cheques. Daycares and schools take only cheques; adds up to 2 to 10 cheques every month for us.

[brad]

Brad- can you share the workarounds for Quebecers to get the PCF account?

I've never tried it myself, but have heard from others that you simply drive to the nearest town in Ontario that has a PCF kiosk and open an account there. You apparently don't need to have an Ontario address, but you can't sign up online with a Québec address.

This is no big deal for those of us who live in western Québec, but for those farther east it would be pretty inconvenient unless you happen to be traveling to Ontario for other reasons.

Regarding ING's pay-by-email function; I haven't tried using it yet but I was under the impression that it only worked for sending money to people who have an ING account. But I've heard conflicting reports on this, with some people claiming it works for people who only have accounts at other banks. I suppose I should just try it sometime to see!

[larry81]

Is this free chequing available for business ?

[andrewf]

You also omitted reward points. PCF offers PC Points with their debit card. Unless I'm mistaken, ING does not offer anything.

[CanadianCapitalist]

Is this free chequing available for business ?

The only free business chequing I know of is offered by HSBC. I opened an account but haven't tried it out fully yet.

[deal_king]

I've never tried it myself, but have heard from others that you simply drive to the nearest town in Ontario that has a PCF kiosk and open an account there. You apparently don't need to have an Ontario address, but you can't sign up online with a Québec address.

This is no big deal for those of us who live in western Québec, but for those farther east it would be pretty inconvenient unless you happen to be traveling to Ontario for other reasons.

Regarding ING's pay-by-email function; I haven't tried using it yet but I was under the impression that it only worked for sending money to people who have an ING account. But I've heard conflicting reports on this, with some people claiming it works for people who only have accounts at other banks. I suppose I should just try it sometime to see!

So you can sign up with a Quebec address if you go to a PCF kiosk?

For the Email Money Transfer- it works to send to ANY bank. You receive an email saying that someone has sent you cash, you input your account and transit number and it deposits into your account. It is instant if you send to another ING customer, and takes between 12-24 hours to process for any other bank.

[Jungle]

We use both. PCF for main account, ING for free email transfers. Win win.

[Eclectic12]

Posted this an hour ago- but it disappeared. Maybe I forgot to click the "Submit" button?? Someone please advise...

ING is offering a free unlimited (no monthly fees) chequing/checking account as of January 14. By far the best free banking offer I have ever seen in Quebec, and comparable/superior to PC Financial in some ways.

[ ... ]

5. Overdraft Protection: ING offers FREE overdraft protection up to $250. PCF charges $5 plus 19% interest. Winner= ING
6. Incentives: ING offer a FREE cash bonus of $25 for you and your referring friend, if you input an Orange Key upon signup. PCF offers nothing. Winner= ING

Hmmm ... I wonder if my account is grandfathered. The twice I've used the overdraft - it was an interest charge only.

... but that was years ago now.

[Eclectic12]

So you can sign up with a Quebec address if you go to a PCF kiosk?

For the Email Money Transfer- it works to send to ANY bank. You receive an email saying that someone has sent you cash, you input your account and transit number and it deposits into your account. It is instant if you send to another ING customer, and takes between 12-24 hours to process for any other bank.

Hmmmm ... so that's to let you know that it is a valid Email transfer and not a crook who is in process of stealing your identity?

[deal_king]

By the way, if you order your free ING cheques and say you never received them, they will send them to you again. :D

[HaroldCrump]

By the way, if you order your free ING cheques and say you never received them, they will send them to you again. :DThat's right...get more and more people to rip off a good deal and guess what - the good deal will be gone before long.
It won't take long for the bank to figure out folks are taking advantage of this service.
Between this post and the other thread on "using and returning", I think some people are stretching the concept of frugality too far.
There is a line between frugality and outright cheating and some folks are crossing it, or dangerously perched on the fence :)

[the-royal-mail]

Agreed Harold. I have my doubts about this poster.

[Karen]

...For the Email Money Transfer- it works to send to ANY bank. You receive an email saying that someone has sent you cash, you input your account and transit number and it deposits into your account. It is instant if you send to another ING customer, and takes between 12-24 hours to process for any other bank.

My daughter and I often transfer money back and forth between her Royal Bank account and my Scotia bank account by e-mail. It only takes a few minutes for the funds to arrive and be deposited in our accounts - it's never been anywhere near 12 to 24 hours.

Both banks charge a fee of $1.50 to the sender of the funds, which I think is very reasonable - it would cost me a lot more in gas to drive to her house and give her a cheque.

[Plutos]

ING just upped the initial free cheque order from 20 to 50. Also supposedly ING charges you $2 for a US/foreign ATM transaction. PCF charges you $3.

Now, I am not sure if there are any hidden fees on top of $2 with ING. When I asked the answer I received was very vague along the lines of "the other bank machines might charge you extra fees." But they couldnt tell me if they were talking about fees that the ATM warns you about or if it was going to be a surprise fee that would appear on your ING transactions list.

Has anybody on this forum used a Thrive card outside Canada to take money out of a non-ING ATM?

[FrugalTrader]

The last time I deposited a USD cheque in my PCF account, they held it for 30 days!

[carverman]

Is this free chequing available for business ?

AFAIK, the PCF free checking is only for individual private accounts.

[carverman]

That's right...get more and more people to rip off a good deal and guess what - the good deal will be gone before long.
It won't take long for the bank to figure out folks are taking advantage of this service.
Between this post and the other thread on "using and returning", I think some people are stretching the concept of frugality too far.
There is a line between frugality and outright cheating and some folks are crossing it, or dangerously perched on the fence :)

What is frugality by definition? I would think getting the most of your after tax
dollars and perhaps finding ways to have some of it end up in your pocket rather than some one elses.

Now, I have returned some surplus items (not used and in saleable condition)
to the store where I bought it for credit. Consumers do have a right to change
their minds and most chain stores offer a 30 day window for returning items
for that reason. Items that fail or are of inferior quality (even food..bought
and spoiled in a sealed can..I generally return to the store for a credit.

I don't do it on a regular basis, but being on a reduced pension I can't
afford throw out goods that are not up to my expectations.

But certainly this is a bit different from buying an expensive evening dress
wearing it to party and then returning it to the store....that is going a bit
too far in my opinion.