Tag Archives: savings rates

Is Traditional Banking Dying?

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Banks have now spent over 30 years getting us out of the branch and onto using ATMs. They’ve also spend almost a generation slowly getting us to use online banking. Those are certainly big changes to the traditional banking model. But when they don’t see you in the branch, it’s much more difficult to sell you products or services.

On the one hand, that’s great news. You can’t be sold something you don’t need, or that’s not suited for you, if you don’t talk to the commission based people in the bank. On the other hand, banks’ profits keep reaching new highs of billions per quarter. Well, that’s because the service charges increase twice a year now and we just take it without firing them.

But how long can this go on? Here are some insights from the founder of a new U.S. online bank called Bankmobile. They’re U.S. stats, but we’re not much different here in Canada:

The average person goes into a branch twice a year, but does 20-30 transactions a month. What’s even more stunning is that the average bank branch opens between 40 and 50 new accounts in a year! That’s it!

The average online banking customer is 27 years old. And I’d bet most of them have never been anywhere else but online.  I recently talked to a 20-something who had never seen a cheque, never had a cheque book, and had no idea what they are, and what they do. He’s not alone – an entire generation has direct deposit and online everything else.

The millennial generation of 35 and under are actually way smarter than us older people who deal with banks. As of an hour ago, online bank Tangerine (bought by Scotia from ING) has a basic savings account rate of 1.1% vs. TD of zero interest until you reach $5,000. Then it’s 0.5% – same as the other banks. So the online banks are more than double the rate and don’t grab your first $5,000 without paying you a cent of interest.

In the U.S., the branch network has shrunk by 10% over the last few years and is expected to shrink another 20% in the next three. The largest nine Canadian banks have 6190 total branches – no change since 2012. Many fewer visits, but still an incredibly expensive branch network. Small wonder they have the highest service charges, up them twice a year, and literally half the savings returns compared to online banks.

Maybe the under 35 generation is helping us all out by avoiding the physical banks in favour of online banking at vastly lower fees and significantly higher savings rates.

George Boelcke – Money Tools & Rules book – yourmoneybook.com

What Just Happened This Week?

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Wow – it’s only Wednesday and what a week it’s been in the financial markets.

Monday the world markets dropped enough to wipe out $5 trillion in wealth while the US markets were closed and Tuesday morning the US Federal Reserve dropped rates three quarters of a point.

Here in Canada they came down a quarter of a point that the banks did pass on, but there had been rumours that the no service mega banks were considering not lowering the prime rate.

While it was only a rumor that started back in December, there is no way to buy this kind of bad publicity is there? And how great that a number of media outlets, starting with columnist Greg Weston, brought this to the attention of the world.

The logic was that banks wouldn’t pass on the one-quarter point rate reduction to offset some of their rising expenses and that would include the billions of dollars some of them have lost in their subprime mortgage portfolio.

When the prime rate changes, it affects two-thirds of our borrowing costs, either directly or indirectly, for consumers and businesses. A lower rate is the Bank of Canada wanting to impact the economy, manufacturing, consumer spending and the dollar.

How dare the banks consider not moving down the prime at the same time? Isn’t it enough to keep charging us more and more interest, less and less competition and more service charges everywhere? Am I just cynical or are we supposed to cover some of their paper losses?

Just having this idea floated is another big reason to allow more competition in the banking field. In the U.S. there are about 3,000 financial institutions waking up each morning figuring out ways to bankrupt each other – that’s competition. Not the five we’ve got who want to merge into two or three.

But there’s good news in hearing banks might not change the rates. Because when we get mad – we get moving and there are alternatives for your financial needs:

For savings: ING right now is at 3.75%

For loans & mortgages: Credit unions are at or below the mega no service banks’ rates, are locally owned and run AND you’re a shareholder so you’ll get a large refund at the end of the year.

For RRSPs: Mine are with Primerica Financial. Many of their mutual funds have way better returns – and there are lots of other no-load no fee places to comparison shop.

Maybe this is another reminder to get informed because knowledge really is power and to remember to always always comparison shop. There are options and a lot of ways you can save interest and money.