# how to transfer money between banks without fees



## joncnca

i figured that it could be possible to link accounts for each of the two brick/mortar banks to ING, then make an automatic withdraw from one bank and automatic deposit into another bank.

ING has a 7 day hold, so if you put a 7 day delay between deposit into and withdrawal from ING, this would be free and relatively quick. certainly, it should be possible according to a 2 week automatic transfer schedule.

does this sound feasible? has anyone done it? are there any better alternatives to this roundaboutness?


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## the-royal-mail

I think the best way is to write yourself a cheque and deposit it via the ATM. All this electronic banking may be convenient but the fees generally make it unappealing for the average person. Cheques are the most economical method which is, of course, why there's a secret push to get rid of them. There is also paypal but nobody wants to pay the fees.


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## KaeJS

You can always send yourself an EMT.

They are easy and take less than half an hour.


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## Financial Cents

I'm with Royal. I usually write a cheque to myself and deposit the money.

If I really need the cash right away, I'll do EMT (email money transfer), but I hate paying fees for that kinda of thing. To date I've only done this for emergencies.


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## Plugging Along

You could set up you other account as a Payee under your bills, and they just make a payment. It takes no longer than one business day, and there is no cost.


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## the-royal-mail

PA, I think that depends on who you are with. I'm with RBC and I looked into that and was only able to configure as a payee, the companies that had registered with them as payees. It was not possible (AFAIK) to add individuals to the list. With individuals they wanted me to pay some service charge for interac email money transfer. $3.50 vs. nothing for a cheque? I'll use a cheque. These are the things that erode our hard earned money. When I see how they're waiting for us with fees for electronic stuff I'm super grateful for cheques as an option. Without them and without cash we'll all be in fee he-l.


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## joncnca

thanks everyone,

yes, cheques would be free but i'm really trying to automate this process. i'm really meticulous anyway, and probably would not forget to go to the abm and make a deposit. however, if possible, i'd still like to just set it and check on it, just one less thing to do.

email transfer costs $1.50....if i'm doing this transfer every 2 weeks, that's 3 bucks....sure, not a super high amount, but i (much like many of you) object to these little fees on principle. 

an with TD at least, you can the-royal-mail says, you can't add individuals as payees, only registered companies, i checked.

so back to my original question, anyone tried making recurring transfers between 2 banks through ING, and does this sound like a feasible plan given my preferences?

thanks!


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## Plugging Along

I'm with TD and I have individuals as payees. I don't pay anything, and I do a transfer about twice a month. 

I just added a person a few months ago.


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## Financial Cents

I know with PCF, I can add TD accounts as bill payees and transfer money, without paying any fees 

I don't know about ING and its features. Why not call ING and ask?


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## Xoron

joncnca said:


> email transfer costs $1.50....if i'm doing this transfer every 2 weeks, that's 3 bucks....sure, not a super high amount, but i (much like many of you) object to these little fees on principle.
> 
> thanks!


The timing of the transfers makes me think this is related to a payroll payment? If so maybe your payroll department can deposit to two accounts? I know where I work we can have $x or x% deposited to account 1 and have the remainder deposited to account 2. Check with them.

If it isn't related to payroll, then ignore my suggestion


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## Dibs

The last time I transfered some money (around 3k), I took it out in cash and deposited it. Is there a limit to how much a bank will let you take out or deposit in cash?


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## joncnca

cash is actually no more effective, and more dangerous, than a cheque. i would still have to physically go to one or both banks to get it done.

yes, Xoron, it's kind of related to payroll. actually, it's a combination or payroll and mortgage payment....

ALTHOUGH, i realized that i can just have the mortgage amount deducted from an account at a different bank, as long as i provide them with a void cheque....sigh, really disappointed in myself that this possibility escaped me...haha

but i've also opened a chequing account with the bank that holds my mortgage, just to get access to online banking and stuff....kinda miffed about the $4.00/month service fee though, on principle, unless i want to leave $1000 sitting in the account doing nothing but depreciating due to inflation...


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## FrugalTrader

I believe that TD LOC's allow individual payees. Might work since you are a TD client anyways.


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## the-royal-mail

It really bugs me that the banks have put up so many barriers to transferring cash between individuals. The technology is finally in place for us to do this with a few mouse clicks, and they're waiting like hawks to gouge us with fees and rules.

Just this morning I mailed yet another personal cheque payment to someone who has paypal (like I do) and didn't want to pay the fees.

We want this type of electronic service, but we don't want the BS fees. Many of us are already paying monthly service charges and the banks are obviously very rich from what they get from us in interest and other fees. They should be giving everyone a basic # of transactions (say 20) per month as part of the service charges we already pay them for.

This is a big failure on the part of the banks.


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## Eclectic12

the-royal-mail said:


> PA, I think that depends on who you are with. I'm with RBC and
> 
> [ ... ]
> 
> When I see how they're waiting for us with fees for electronic stuff I'm super grateful for cheques as an option. Without them and without cash we'll all be in fee he-l.


Yes - it depends a lot who you are with.

Bank #1 - with a $1K balance
Ten transactions a month free (cheque, ATM, Debit, online bill payment) but $16 to get a book of cheques, own or affiliated ATM transactions free, other ATMs $1.50 per transaction, email money transfer $1.50


Bank #2 - any amount on deposit
Unlimited transactions free (cheque, ATM, Debit, online bill payment), book of cheques free, own or affiliated ATM transaction free, other ATMs $1.50 per transaction, email money transfer $1.50


Bank #3 - any amount on deposit
Unlimited transactions free (cheque, ATM, Debit, online bill payment), first book of cheques free, own or affiliated ATM transaction free, other ATMs $1.50 per transaction, email money transfer free


So it is quite a spectrum where a "free" cheque might have a cost to it.


Cheers


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## Karen

The last time I e-mailed money from my Scotiabank account, they only charged me $1.00 - a pleasant surprise since it's always been $1.50 in the past.


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## houska

May not work in your situation (desire for full automation, which I interpret as "don't need to think about it"), but to periodically transfer money to a family member while I am overseas I just use paypal - once your account is linked to a bank account ("verified") you can send money for free up to $1000 to another paypalee. Takes a few days.

I'll confess I don't fully trust paypal after things I have heard, and I'm waiting that one day they'll change the terms on me or screw up and take weeks to sort out, but so far so good.


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## the-royal-mail

What houska says is true. Paypal does a pretty good job of allowing individuals to transfer money and automate ebay and other online payments. However, I would urge caution when it comes to giving them your real bank account info. If you google for paypal problems you will find many, many horror stories of them LOCKING people's bank accounts when they get into some stupid argument with you. They lock first and answer the phone later. It is absolutely unsafe to give them your main bank account #s that has your mortgage and other important life payments coming from. If you must use paypal to receive money (which is what requires the linking to a bank account), setup a new no-fee account (pc financial is a good one) at a bank that does not know you. Use this account ONLY for paypal. That way if you ever get into an argument and they freeze your account you won't have all sorts of cheques bouncing and mortgage payments being denied etc. Google it, it's all there. Entire websites devoted to paypal horror stories.


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## HaroldCrump

the-royal-mail said:


> However, I would urge caution when it comes to giving them your real bank account info. If you google for paypal problems you will find many, many horror stories of them LOCKING people's bank accounts when they get into some stupid argument with you. It is absolutely unsafe to give them your main bank account #s that has your mortgage and other important life payments coming from.


I like to have a separate no-fee chequing account (PCF) for stuff like this.
Every month transfer the total amount of the bills from your main account into this and let the phone, utility, etc. companies to debit from this account.
That way your main account is protected.
Of course, this requires close monitoring to make sure the totals add up and you don't get overdrafted or NSF-ed.

The other option is to simply use good ol' fashioned cheques for making payments.
IMO, it is better to pay $20 a year to the bank for a chequebook rather than run the risk of all kinds of companies dipping into your primary account every month.


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## the-royal-mail

Excellent post by Harold. Great idea to keep paying by cheques. Too many people are getting sucked in with this electronic stuff. It has definite limitations. But my favourite way is to receive a paper bill in the mail, then log on to online banking and pay the full amount manually by scheduling the pmt to occur 1 day before the due date. This is a manual payment initiated by me. It is not a pre-authorized payment.

Back to the topic of the thread, yesterday I attempted a money transfer between individuals (one of whom has no Internet knowledge or access) and I was once again presented with a brick wall. It is not possible for me to use online banking to deliver the payment. Paypal doesn't work because 1 party doesn't have an account (see previous comment about www access) and a personal cheque would have had as much as a 5 day hold. Given the amount of money in question, I had to pay $7.50 for a draft, physically give that to the recipient who then had to physically deposit it in their account at bank B. Then the funds were available to be used instantly.


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## kcowan

the-royal-mail said:


> But my favourite way is to receive a paper bill in the mail, then log on to online banking and pay the full amount manually by scheduling the pmt to occur 1 day before the due date. This is a manual payment initiated by me. It is not a pre-authorized payment....


Me too. The only thing I am toying with is converting to all electronic billing. Also for some payments (like Amex), I allow 3 days before the due date. It is never a large amount.

DWs sister gets a cheque once every 6 months. Otherwise they are really a rarity. I even transfer money between my different brokerage accounts as a bill payment.

My Mexico bank account also gets a cheque deposited when it need a touchup. It takes 16 days to clear.


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## joncnca

omigosh, now everyone's got me worried about having verified my bank account with paypal!

i didn't know people held 'mule' accounts at PCF and such. that seems like a safe thing to do. though i'm trying to avoid having too many bank accounts. i do recently have a second bank account with another bank (b/c of mortgage)...perhaps it would be advisable to use this as a mule...? i'm paying fees for it anyway (grudgingly), might as well use it?

i guess i'll stick with cheques, and maybe link both accounts to ingdirect, just in case i want to move money already in ing to one account or another. PCF would be adding basically a 4th bank account, i'm trying to simply my life here, haha....so may hold off on that too. i can't bring myself to do an interac email transfer and pay $1.50 to send money to....myself.....on principle, i can't bring myself to do it!!!


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## the-royal-mail

jon, the point of having a mule account is so that in case paypal gets their knickers in a bunch and freezes your account, your life will go on. What I've done with this is to get an account at some other bank that has NO link with my main account that has my important monies going in and out. I chose PCF because they do not otherwise know me, I have no other business with them and there is NO link to my real account. As well, when I need to use the money from my online sales that ended up in PCF, I can either withdraw the cash using my ATM card at CIBC or PCF ATM OR I can write myself a cheque (PCF will send you free cheques) and deposit that cheque in my real account at the ATM. I will NOT setup an automatic or electronic link between these two accounts. Paypal is very sneaky and will do whatever they can to get their fingers into your accounts. If you want to sell stuff online and receive paypal payments, you can't give them an ounce of your trust. It sounds like you've read the online horror stories about them freezing accounts.


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## the-royal-mail

kcowan, I did consider electronic billing but it seems that each utility I deal with has slightly different rules for setting this up. One of them wanted me to create yet another ID and password on their website, others had epost (a great idea) and others required me to sign and mail forms IIRC. It is not a simple process. But even if it was I still like the idea of getting a paper bill in the mail. It comes as a reminder to me and gets my attention. I do so many things online now and it is easy to forget to send a payment, but at least when I've got a paper bill sitting on my desk, it keeps staring me in the face until I logon, pay the bill and then move the bill to my paid pile. Doing it this way also cuts down on the # of logins to online banking, making it more secure. You never know with all the spyware, malware, advertising and keylogger crap being installed from various websites these days. So the less times I have to login to something so important as online banking, the better.


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## kcowan

I tend to put the electronic notifications in an action folder. Then at a specific day each month, I go in and postdate all the payments for the month. I agree that it is clumsier than hard copy, but not by much. I also charge most of my payments to a credit card so that reduces the number of items in the banking cycle.


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## Four Pillars

the-royal-mail said:


> One of them wanted me to create yet another ID and password on their website, others had epost (a great idea) and others required me to sign and mail forms *IIRC*.


What does IIRC mean?


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## HaroldCrump

Four Pillars said:


> What does IIRC mean?


If I Recall/Remember Correctly.
Jeez, guys, ya'll need to upgrade to the 21st century


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## joncnca

the-royal-mail said:


> kcowan, I did consider electronic billing but it seems that each utility I deal with has slightly different rules for setting this up. One of them wanted me to create yet another ID and password on their website, others had epost (a great idea) and others required me to sign and mail forms IIRC. It is not a simple process. But even if it was I still like the idea of getting a paper bill in the mail. It comes as a reminder to me and gets my attention. I do so many things online now and it is easy to forget to send a payment, but at least when I've got a paper bill sitting on my desk, it keeps staring me in the face until I logon, pay the bill and then move the bill to my paid pile. Doing it this way also cuts down on the # of logins to online banking, making it more secure. You never know with all the spyware, malware, advertising and keylogger crap being installed from various websites these days. So the less times I have to login to something so important as online banking, the better.


i consider myself quite computer savvy, and i've been building them since junior high school. but i totally agree with you about getting paper bills. it gets your attention, then you login, pay the bill, write down the date and amount, and file it away. paper bills all the way!

ebilling is good in theory, i used to use this for certain services. but now i get a million email messages a day, and it's getting to be a lot harder to figure out which ones are critical (like bills). as much as i'd tried to keep my main email account free of random spam, i realize that some of this stuff that i actually opt into (newegg!). but my home address, that's sacred!!! i look at every piece of postal mail i get...


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## Addy

FrugalTrader said:


> I believe that TD LOC's allow individual payees. Might work since you are a TD client anyways.


Apologize in advance for bringing up an old thread, but I thought it better than post a new one considering I wanted to quote from this thread.

Can anyone confirm if TD LOC's allow this? And I'm assuming the individual payee could be at a different bank (Ie RBC?)


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## MrMatt

I write checks.
Or pay a LOC, and then transfer to the account.


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## zidane

I have an Advantage account with Manulife. It's basically a high-interest chequing account. I treat it as a savings account though. The great thing about it is that I can transfer money from Manulife to any big 5 bank without any fees.


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## dcaron

zidane said:


> I have an Advantage account with Manulife... The great thing about it is that I can transfer money from Manulife to any big 5 bank without any fees.


That is wonderful. Any catches such as minimum balance,etc?
How about fees for day-today transactions?
Im now considering them now over my current ING accounts for TFSA's + chequing account.

Edit: Manulife charges fees to pay your bills. ING does not. Scratch that idea ...
Edit #2: ING does free email money transfers to online banking customers, with a delay of 2-3 biz days, or immediate transfers for $1. This could be useful as I will not have to write cheques to myself anymore, and deposit my paycheck in an ATM for bank to bank transfers. My employer refuses to deposit my paycheck other than in my employee banking account, so Im forced to do these maneuvers.


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## Addy

dcaron said:


> That is wonderful. Any catches such as minimum balance,etc?
> How about fees for day-today transactions?
> Im now considering them now over ING, for TFSA's, and chequing account.


We opened ING accounts in the fall for the free money ($480 worth of cash which was nice!) and have been pretty happy so far. It's not our main bank, we use TD and a Credit Union for our savings, but ING is nice for email money transfers... free if you the receiver can wait 2-3 days, $1 for instant transfer. I understand there's a fee on the receiving end but I'm not sure what it is, it may vary according to what financial institution they use.


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## Causalien

Well, the royal mail's method is pretty good. Though I don't know if ATM can handle large amounts.

I was at the teller and the bank manager had to come and manually enter the password. It feels like she was scrutinizing me to see whether or not there's any fraud. Not sure how they are going to do this through ATM.


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## dcaron

Addy said:


> ... I understand there's a fee on the receiving end but I'm not sure what it is, it may vary according to what financial institution they use.


I will test the full cycle to determine whether the the end-to-end delay and fees is something Im willing to deal with. 
(a)Source Bank is CIBC
(b)ING will pull from CIBC (transfer from external linked account)
(c)ING will push to National Bank (free 2-3 days email transfer).

Edit: Step (b) results in 5 days hold period, so I gave up on this approach.


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## dcaron

Just found out that my employer (bank) covers the fees for INTERAC transfers, and my receiving bank does not charge fees for reception.

Just went though whole process and it took a few minutes to get the funds moved from one FI, to another ...

1- First step is executing the email INTERAC transfer from my employer's online banking, and setting up security question and answer.
2- A few minutes later (up to 30 mins), a email is set to the payee. The email contains a web link to the secured INTERAC portal. 
3- The INTERAC portal allows you to retrieve the funds and deposit into one of the following FI's: BMO, ING DIRECT, PCF, Scotia, CIBC, BNC, RBC, and TD.
4- Once you select one of the above FI's, you are automatically re-directed to the FI's online banking LOGIN screen.
5- After you login to your "receiving FI", you are presented with a dialog screen to complete your last step of the transaction.
6- You must now respond to the security question which you set up in step #1, then select the account where you want the funds to be deposited.

That's it! No fees for this, due to employee benefit. This sure beats writring a cheque from "myself" to "myself" every 2 weeks, and visiting an ABM to deposit my paycheck.


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## zidane

Glad you figured it out dcaron. Manulife does charge a lot of fees for what banks normally don't, but it gives you interest. I use the free EFTs to send to my other banks to pay bills.

@the royal mail - thanks for your insight on protecting yourself from ebay. I'm planning on opening an ebay store.


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## OhGreatGuru

dcaron said:


> Just found out that my employer (bank) covers the fees for INTERAC transfers, and my receiving bank does not charge fees for reception of INTERACT transfers.
> ... That's it! No fees for this, due to employee benefit.


Congratulations. For the rest of us peons, there are usually fees for INTERAC transfers, but some classes of accounts may allow a limited number of free transactions per month.

The amount that can be transferred by INTERAC is also usually limited to the daily limit on your client card for INTERAC payments. This may not be sufficient for some needs.


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