Financial Channel

Hi guys,

I have a quick question, i recently opened a BMO student account because it looked attractive (no fees for students). Now I have my regular account with TD which i have been with for many years.

I have switched my account to the Value account but I still have to maintain a $1000 balance to avoid fees. My question is would you reccomend that i switch it to a savings account and move my money over for day to day stuff or even say ING so i can earn interest at least on that $1000 instead of having it sit there doing nothing.

I would like to keep my TD account cause I like the service there and the longer hours plus i've been with them for so long I know a lot of people at the branch and I do have other accounts with them for other purposes. In addition, if i don't like banking with BMO at least i can switch back easily.

If i do switch it to a savings account I know i then get 2 free transactions a month but I'm wondering, since i have it linked to ING right now, will I still be able to transfer between the accounts since it will no longer be a "chequing account"? What about the cheque books I have? Can i still write the odd cheque here and there?

I hope i can cause I have quite a few cheques and such for my TD account but none for my BMO (they're really expensive too, like $30 for basic cheques).

Thanks!

If you move to a TD savings account from your current cheqing account, you will lose the ING link, and the cheques you have will no longer work as the old account woulld be closed.

For the amount of funds involved at $1000, and the amount of interest you might gain from ING at about $30 over a year, wouldn't it be better to leave things as they are rather than pay another $30 for cheques on a new account? Not to mention the service charges involved with writing the cheques after you 2 transactions per month.

If there was a larger amount of funds involved, keep $1k in TD, and setup a TD savings, and ING savings to gain the interest. But at this point is does not seem feasible.

Yeah I see your point, and I agree with you, it's probably much more hassle to do the big switcheroo as I saw online you can't switch a chequing to savings account.

Oh well no big deal, I'll just keep $1000 at TD and the rest of the excess money at ING and BMO.

Thanks!