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I'm a US citizen living in Canada. In my experience, your sentiment is common amongst Canadians. The thinking usually goes "Our banks might not be convienient,

I'm a US citizen living in Canada. In my experience, your sentiment is common amongst Canadians. The thinking usually goes "Our banks might not be convienient, but at least they won't fail like the ones in the US". My understanding of the mortgage crisis, however, is that most of the problems were with large banks, not small ones. I can tell you that small US banks an credit unions offer substantially better service at better terms than Canadian banks do. In Ontario, for example, there's only 1 bank that offers $0 checking accounts without absurdly low transaction limits (like 1 transaction per month). That bank doesn't have branches, and offers almost no services. It's absurd if you think about it. "You want me to pay you a fee for the privilege of loaning you money." The only way that kind of business can be sustained is through negative externalities. No fee bank accounts are standard practice in the US, precisely because there are many banks to choose from. Choice drives competition. Regulation of big banks may have prevented a banking crash, but I think it's a mistake to extrapolate from that notion to "many small banks are bad", because that was not the problem in the us...

afterburner 15y ago
"Our banks might not be convienient" I don't think that at all. I was responding to negative claims about technical innovations, and those are present in Canadian banks in one form or another. The bank you are speaking of is probably PC? You can use any CIBC ATM for PC banking, and its banking reps are in Loblaws stores, so while it has no branches per se it's not as bad as you make it sound. There are credit unions here as well. There are options, but I'll admit the big 5 have quite a lot of the attention. I have heard that many small banks in the US are lacking in several service features, I don't imagine it's a rosy awesome world in the US. I don't pay monthly fees, and I pay maybe $5 in bank fees a year total.
- scottdw2 15y ago
  I use PC too...They don't do so well with some things, like bank drafts, particularly in USD. You have go through a CIBC branch, both banks charge a free (even though PC is run by CIBC), and you have to deal with 2 bureaucracies. I admit, compared to other Canadian banks, PC is not bad. In the US though, you don't have to choose between branches and no fees.... Also, it's worth keeping in mind that if you keep a balance (to avoid fees) you are still paying a fee. One part is loss due to inflation (any interest rate below inflation is a negative return), and the other is opportunity cost....
jarek 15y ago
As an aside, both PCF and ING have de facto chequing accounts (what exactly makes a chequing account chequing anyway?) with no fees. No fee bank accounts are gradually going away in the U.S. to significant chagrin.

afterburner 15y ago

"Our banks might not be convienient" I don't think that at all. I was responding to negative claims about technical innovations, and those are present in Canadian banks in one form or another. The bank you are speaking of is probably PC? You can use any CIBC ATM for PC banking, and its banking reps are in Loblaws stores, so while it has no branches per se it's not as bad as you make it sound. There are credit unions here as well. There are options, but I'll admit the big 5 have quite a lot of the attention. I have heard that many small banks in the US are lacking in several service features, I don't imagine it's a rosy awesome world in the US. I don't pay monthly fees, and I pay maybe $5 in bank fees a year total.

scottdw2 15y ago
I use PC too...They don't do so well with some things, like bank drafts, particularly in USD. You have go through a CIBC branch, both banks charge a free (even though PC is run by CIBC), and you have to deal with 2 bureaucracies. I admit, compared to other Canadian banks, PC is not bad. In the US though, you don't have to choose between branches and no fees.... Also, it's worth keeping in mind that if you keep a balance (to avoid fees) you are still paying a fee. One part is loss due to inflation (any interest rate below inflation is a negative return), and the other is opportunity cost....

jarek 15y ago

As an aside, both PCF and ING have de facto chequing accounts (what exactly makes a chequing account chequing anyway?) with no fees. No fee bank accounts are gradually going away in the U.S. to significant chagrin.