Author Topic: Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?  (Read 12624 times)

dess1313

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 438
  • Location: Manitoba Canada
Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?
« on: May 19, 2015, 10:14:01 PM »
I have been looking for some better saving account and/or GIC rates.  I just stumbled across something called Oaken Financial at http://www.oaken.com/  and was wondering if anyone else used them?  Have anything good or bad to say about them?  They claim to be CDIC insured.  They're offering 1.75% interest on just savings and slightly higher on GICS

So far i have been using tangerine, which is way better than my big bank, but have been trying to look for better deals for several banking items. 

Tangerine offers 1.05% but its better than the ridiculous CIBC 0.15% unless you have over 5k then it goes to a whopping 0.8% The rates there are so pitiful its laughable

KMMK

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1464
  • Age: 47
  • Location: Edmonton, AB, Canada
    • Meena Kestirke Insurance
Re: Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?
« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2015, 05:45:37 AM »
How close are you to Winnipeg? Crosstown Credit Union and Steinbach Credit Union have high interest savings accounts. I'd prefer to use them over an online bank I've never heard of.

Tanor85

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 57
  • Age: 38
  • Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Re: Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2015, 06:43:27 AM »
Hi,

I also use Tangerine for the following reasons:
-No monthly fees;
-Good ATM availability; and
-Awesome online platform.

For a mere 0.7% increase in interest payments, I would not sacrifice any of the above mentionned benefits. Unless maybe you have a very large amount in your chequing account.

dess1313

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 438
  • Location: Manitoba Canada
Re: Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2015, 09:08:30 AM »
I had checked some other credit unions and had not found as good as these two are posting.  Thanks!  I'll keep them in mind.  I'm right inside Winnipeg.  I just found Oaken curious, because i had never heard of it.  I was leary about doing all online banking with ING when it started but love it now even though they had to change their name.  They are very dedicated to making it easy to do banking online which is nice.

MsSnowBlack

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 14
  • Age: 36
Re: Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2015, 09:40:34 AM »
I would suggest to use Hubert. They pay 1.90% for their savings account currently. I use their online banking and have no problem at all. I park money there and transfer to PC Financial whenever they have promo rates available using EFT.

PharmaStache

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 274
  • Location: Canada
  • Peg City 'Stache
Re: Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?
« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2015, 06:02:19 PM »
Never heard of Oaken.  I've always used Outlook https://www.outlookfinancial.com 1.85% on savings accounts. 

KMMK

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1464
  • Age: 47
  • Location: Edmonton, AB, Canada
    • Meena Kestirke Insurance
Re: Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2015, 07:32:25 PM »
I had no idea all the credit unions were getting into the online banking thing. This thread has been very informative. I'll have to do further research on the topic.

Really, in Manitoba there's no reason to not use credit unions for most or all of your banking.

dess1313

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 438
  • Location: Manitoba Canada
Re: Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?
« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2015, 09:07:57 PM »
i used to bounce between towns a lot when i was in university, so i needed a more national style chain.  Each town can have its own credit union and not work with the others. 

Since then i've figured out how to get pretty much free banking monthly, so i don't have fees i need to avoid which has kept me from switching.  I'll maybe pay a $1 or $2 if i do a lot of transactions which is unusual.  I later got going with tangerine and so far its much better than the measly amount CIBC had offered so i had been happy.

daverobev

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3961
  • Location: France
Re: Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?
« Reply #8 on: May 21, 2015, 05:03:58 AM »
Hubert
Achieva
People's Trust

All better rates than the banks. No need to go to a branch for savings, they link to a chequing account.

Oh, also Zag Bank (part of Desjardins) are offering some nice earlybird sign up bonuses - check RedFlagDeals hot deals forum.

FI40

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 115
Re: Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?
« Reply #9 on: May 21, 2015, 12:19:07 PM »
I actually stopped by Oaken's storefront opening a couple weeks ago here in Toronto. I asked the guy there how their short term cashable GICs (extremely similar to a bond) were able to beat government bond rates by so much. He said they invest in "high risk" mortgages essentially, according to him still pretty safe, and since they are CDIC insured there's no risk to me. For balances under 100k.

I think their ability to offer those rates to retail clients is maybe because of one or both of the following reasons:
1. CDIC insurance is a bit too cheap. I mean, it's government backed, so shouldn't it yield similarly to government backed bonds? Seems like somebody's giving something away there, and I guess we should take advantage.
2. Investors are pricing in the fact that in case of a default, yes you get your money back from CDIC, but that process may take some amount of time or effort.

I think I'm going to keep holding VSC as my bond position. It's a tough call though.

FrugalFan

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 895
Re: Any Canadians ever use Oaken Financial?
« Reply #10 on: May 21, 2015, 12:27:13 PM »
I just recently transferred most of our cash from Tangerine to Hubert (1.9 % or 2.35 average for a redeemable 12-month term that pays interest quarterly). Their online platform is a bit more clunky than Tangerine, but they are working on it (no account nicknames, automatic withdrawals have to be set-up by snail mail). I mention these two things every time I talk to them in the hopes that they will fix them sooner rather than later. I don't use this as my regular checking account, but it's where we keep our emergency fund, and our save-to-spend accounts like vacations, new car, house expenses. So, the increased interest adds up to several hundred dollars a year.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!