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Don't bank at a bank! I've been through CIBC ($40/mo. in service charges), and RBC (truly abysmal financial service, but only $20/mo. in service charges). Try a Credit Union! They are member-owned, and profits are shared with members, not with shareholders (like at banks).

Personally, i use Citizens Bank of Canada, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of VanCity Credit Union. The best part of Citizens Bank is that it's completely online. Unlimited bank transactions, including debit for free when you have a balance over $1000, or only $8 otherwise.

Some people use President's Choice, but it is the unholy union of Superstore and CIBC: two companies that treat their customers and employees like garbage.

THE BEST CANADIAN BANK

Is CitizensBank. It's a credit union, true, but they run a damn fine operation.

For starters, they have a no-cost VISA which donates 10c for *every* transaction to charity, those charities being elected by vote by the members.

Their mortgage rates are frequently the lowest available and are *always* lower than any bank rate.

Their ATM card is no-cost.

And their accounts pay a bit more interest than any of the banks. Not difficult, of course, and not very much.

If you can keep some money in the account -- I think it's a mere $1000 -- there are no banking fees.

If you take the actions of your bank seriously -- i.e., whether they attempt to make reasonably responsible decisions about business and social practices -- Citizen's Bank is certainly the leading choice. I'd second any recommendation to give them a try.

... recommend another good Canadian bank? : CitizensBank.ca Why not write the Royal Bank and compliment them on their wise investment practice? I'm sure they would love to hear from a customer. E-mail: custrel@rbc.com The Centre will make every effort to ensure that the individuals responsible receive the accolades that are due.

As you use TD, I'm going to assume you're Canadian. And The Citizen's Bank of Canada is completely done online. They're some sort of a subsiduary of VanCity Bank which is a Vancouver bank, which I use for online banking. Now, since Vancity has a really good online system from what I've used, I'm going to assume that citizen's bank uses a pretty similar system and would be worth investigation.
VanCity Bank
Citizen's Bank of Canada

javajawa# sleep

I personally use citizens bank of canada and ING Direct . Citizens are a virtual bank that is part of the VanCity bank. ING Direct is also a virtual bank that specializes in savings (5% on their savings account).

It took a while to get used to not having a branch at all (since citizens is completely virtual) but for US$ you can use the ING bank machines (at Canadian Tire stores in GTA anyway). Other than the need for US$ occasionally I have no real need for the branch.

And to the point of the question, I have used both of their internet services from each of Linux (Netscape) and Windows (IE of course in each of 95,98,NT & 2K) as well as once in the aol custom browser and all worked correctly.

Most of the deployments I've seen have avoided breaking browser compatibility. It in use by over 40 credit unions in Canada as well as Citizens Bank ( http://www.citizensbank.ca/)

Vince
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(Remotely associated with net micropayments)

Anyone got any good stories about Internet Banking?

I'm in love with my bank, [Citizen's Bank of Canada]. As long as I keep more than $1K in the account, it's free. *FREE*. No service charges on the account. No transaction fees. *No VISA fees*. *No ATM or DirectPay fees*. And they pay higher interest rates than the big banks.

And every time I use my VISA, ten cents goes to charity. And we bank members get to vote on the charities every year.

Works for me!

My sister-in-law banks with "President's Choice," a big-box grocery/superstore chain in Canada. It pays higher interest, but doesn't do the charity thing. She gets discounts on her groceries... and suffers with a smile the taunts and teases about her grovery bank.

Anyone have experiences to share? Is there anything like this in the USA? Someone from Finland was talking about their country being over 50% e-banking...


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So far they lack Quicken and on-line brokerage, but more than make up for it in quality of service, low fees, and ethical business practices.