New Immigrants Bank Accounts Review
Canadian Bank Accounts for Newcomers
In a recent article, I talked about Canada being the best country in the world. It’s no wonder immigrants or newcomers from all over the world will be coming to this wonderful country for a better living. Every year Canada welcomes a handful numbers of new immigrants, and not all these newcomers are from third or second world countries. You will find immigrants from other first world, developed, or rich countries coming to Canada. And why not? If you were given the opportunity, why you would not want to be a part of the best country on earth, even if you live in another rich country? If you live in Canada, you will bump into new immigrants from other developed nations like Australia, U.K., U.S.A., France, and so on all the time. When a newcomer first arrives in Canada, the first thing they look for is to have a bank account. And today, I will review some bank accounts for immigrants briefly. I will concentrate on Chequing accounts as majority of newcomers look for a simple chequing account.
HSBC Bank Canada – Although HSBC bank tries to impress by advertising that newcomers can open an account even before you arrive in Canada, their fine print reveals a big catch. Their HSBC Advance Chequing Account requires a minimum balance of $25,000. If you don’t keep this minimum balance, you will be paying $25 monthly fee – which is too much. If you don’t like to waste your money paying banking fees, stay away from HSBC.
RBC Royal Bank – The RBC® Welcome to Canada Banking Package offers free banking for a full one year. This package includes many other products such as a credit card, free safe deposit box, etc. After one year, your monthly fee will be $4 – which is not bad. However, there may be transaction fees depending on how many transactions you do.
TD Canada Trust – TD does not have any separate bank account or any packages for newcomers. To view their products, visit TD’s website.
CIBC – CIBC’s CIBC Newcomers to Canada Plan offers free banking for one year. Also, newcomers get help with purchasing their homes with a CIBC Newcomer Mortgage.
ScotiaBank – Scotiabank offers StartRight Program for landed immigrants. The Scotiabank StartRight Program financial package offers No-fee Powerchequing® free for one year, free small safety deposit box, auto loan program, among many other things.
BMO – BMO Bank of Montreal® offers the BMO Banking Package for Newcomers. This package offers free one year banking, free small safety box, and a secured BMO Term Investments.
Some of these packages offer credit products to build a credit history in Canada. These are the programs offered by Canada’s major banks for newcomers. There may be similar programs offered by other banks or financial institutions. Always do your research before opening a bank account or any sort of account in Canada to get the best deals and to find something that meet your needs. Also, since you are new in Canada, why not broaden your financial knowledge by regularly reading my two financial websites: Canada Personal Finance Blog and Canada Personal Finance Website. Remember, no one cares about your money but you. Only you know how hard it is to earn a dollar, because you are the one who earned it. Save a dollar at every possible opportunity and start investing wisely – you will succeed in Canada.
More A Dawn Articles:
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
How to Use Visualization Properly to Achieve Goals and Success
Financial Author A Dawn’s New Book Save Now Is Designed To Reach His Global Readers
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 6th, 2011 at 8:03 pm and is filed under Banking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
