How a Tangerine Chequing Account Could Make You More Than $900

No, that isn’t a typo. If you switch your current, day-to-day chequing account to a Tangerine No Fee Daily Chequing Account you can pocket hundreds of dollars. Let us show you how.

First, though, let’s go over the details of the account.

Tangerine’s chequing account offers unlimited transactions and a minimum 0.15% interest rate (which is tiered up to 0.65% if a balance of $100,000 is kept). And did we mention one of its best selling features? There are no monthly fees. The only costs incurred will be $1.00 for each interac e-transfer.

How to Make Money with Tangerine’s Chequing Account

Right off the bat, new customers can earn $100 just by opening an account and transferring their current payroll direct deposit to their new Tangerine account. The account must be opened by April 2, 2018 and payroll must be switched by May 3 and allowed to continue for at least three months.

Don’t use direct deposits for payroll? No problem. Another option that will earn you $100 is to switch two pre-authorized payments of at least $50 to the new account. These could be your monthly gym membership fees, pre-authorized transit payments, monthly vehicle payments, or any other pre-authorized payments.

To qualify, new account holders must make the switches by July 2, 2018.

Make Money Just by Switching Accounts

After you’ve pocketed that easy $100, there’s another way for you to make even more. This little trick will take a little longer for you to net additional money, but it takes even less effort than setting up your direct-deposit or pre-authorized payment switches.

Presumably, the Tangerine account isn’t your first chequing account. Likely, your current account is with a big bank, such as TD, RBC, CIBC, BMO, or Scotia.

If so, and if it’s an unlimited chequing account, you’re likely paying monthly fees.

For our purposes, let’s assume you have an unlimited chequing with one of those big banks, many of which cost $15 per month. While that doesn’t seem like too steep a price for an unlimited account, those fees certainly add up: To $170.40 per year, to be exact.

Well, if you were to switch to Tangerine’s no fee chequing account you would not only be saving that amount of money each month/year, you would also earn a little interest if you hold it in your chequing account.

Let’s take a look at the math.

Getsmarteraboutmoney.ca, a website run by the Ontario Securities Commission, offers a handy compound interest calculator.

Assuming an initial investment of $0 and a regular monthly contribution of $15 (the account fee money saved) compounded at a rate of 0.15% (the interest rate offered with Tangerine’s account), you will have saved a total of $903.33 in five years. Of course, you will have only earned $3.33 in interest due to the low rate, but it’s the fee savings that make a big difference.

Add the $903.33 to the $100 earned just by opening the Tangerine account and you’d be up to $1,004.88 within five years just by switching your everyday chequing account.

It helps (and is more fun) to think in terms of real-world examples.

That $900+ you save could fund a vacation every five years.

That $15 you save every month could fund your monthly coffee habit.

That $180 saved every year could mean one extra date night for you and someone special.

Let’s play around with some other numbers.

Statistics Canada claims the average Canadian spends $200 on banking fees per year. That works out to $16.67 per month. For our purposes, we’ll round down to $16 per month and plug it into our inflation calculator.

Your savings in five years would then total $963.55 ($1,064.30 with the initial $100 for opening the account).

Still not convinced?

Let’s see what you might save if you switch from a lower-fee account. This time, we’ll use an $8.00 monthly fee. It should be mentioned that most accounts in this price range don’t offer unlimited transactions, so going over the allotted transactions (in some cases as few as 12 per month) would incur more fees.

We’ll assume you don’t exceed your transaction limit, though.

Switching from one of these accounts would save you $481.77 in five years (again, adding the $100 transfer bonus would spike that total to $582.53).

Now that the numbers have been laid out for you, is it enough to encourage you to make the switch from a big bank to Tangerine for your chequing account needs? Let us know in the comments below.

Also read:

• Benefits You Should Look for in a Chequing Account
• Reasons to Upgrade Your Chequing Account
• How to Cut Your Yearly Expenses by up to $5,000