PC Financial Early Bird Incentive Interest Rate Bonus

I have been getting word that some people who have signed up for PC Financial’s TFSA plan before the official launch date got some kind of bonus interest incentive. It is not too much by the sounds of it, but free money is always nice especially since this bank in particular has dropped its rates pretty dramatically in a quick time.

At this point I’m not sure exactly how they calculate this bonus, but for those who signed up before January 2nd you might want to check your statement online to see if you got this bonus as well.

Scotiabank Fast TFSA Interest Rate Drop

If you ever wanted an example of a very fast interest rate drop and how they can change at anytime, I guess Scotiabank is a good example of that. It has been a little over a week since I posted about its initial interest rate increase from 1.75% to 2.6%. Just today, I was told that it dropped to 2.4% as you can see here:

Now you might be asking if there is anything you can do about these crazy fluctuating rates when it comes to a TFSA plan correct? Well, one immediate thing that comes to mind is that a lot of the banks and financial institutions actually offer you the option to get a TFSA GIC plans which would lock the interest rate.

Course, the main drawback is similar to a regular GIC the intent is to keep it locked in for X amount of years. But it’s an option.

That $5000 Bank Thing

Well this was kind of funny. I was talking to a person today about a tax free savings account and at first he had no idea what it was. I started explaining a bit about how it is kind of like an RRSP that worked a little differently as you can earn interest and not be taxed for it.

Immediately, he then responds by saying “Oh, you mean that $5,000 a year thing”. Kind of interesting I thought as it made me wonder how many people actually think that a TFSA is an RRSP. Maybe that commercial didn’t get through to a lot of people in the way that it intended.

Based from my experience though, not many average people are really taking advantage of a TFSA from what I noticed. With responses like the above, the information about it isn’t really penetrating enough I seems.

Government of Canada TFSA Commercial

While watching TV yesterday I thought that it would be fun to keep an archive of as many TFSA related videos and commercials that I can since one of my goals for this site was to compile as much information about tax free savings accounts. So to start off, here is the official TFSA commercial from the government of Canada:

In general, it is mostly just alerting Canadians that a TFSA exists while directing users to go to its site at tfsa.gc.ca for more information.

Scotiabank TFSA Interest Rate Increase Update

I was just looking at the interest rate for Scotiabank and apparently the rate has gone up from 1.75% to 2.6% which was a please surprise as you can see here:

I guess that makes the Scotia Tax-Free Savings Account go from one of the lowest interest rate to one of the higher ones now. This is one of the few banks who are trying very hard advertising wise I think as I keep seeing its commercials on TV all the time.

Should be good for everyone who are considering or are currently using them.

CIBC TFSA Interest Rate Drop

I was alerted that CIBC has just recently dropped its interest rate for its “CIBC TFSA Tax Advantage Savings Account” by 0.5%. Originally it was 3% and as you can see today it is 2.5%:

This bank definitely still has one of the highest transfer fees too at $100.

Outlook Financial TFSA Interest Rate

Looks like Outlook Financial has finally displayed its tax free savings account interest rate on its site. As you can see, it is listed at 2.8%:

The rate itself seems okay when you compare it overall with the other financial institutions and is one of the higher choices when it comes to a credit union.