Are you also fed of bank account fees? Looking for no-fee bank account? If yes, then you’re no different from other Canadian residents who are paying monthly bank account fees to the big fives. Moreover, I was also no different from them as well when my student status changed and I realized that now I’ve to pay fees to banks for maintaining my account. So, I started finding alternatives at that and found that most banks charge you $4 per month for their minimum chequing account.

Basically, all Big five banks and have similar fee structure, approx. $4 for minimum chequing account with 12 debit transactions. No doubt most banks do waive of this fee if you maintain minimum monthly balance of $2000-$3000 in your chequing account. On the other side if you do the calculation and holding this much money in a chequing account with earning no interest made no sense to me so I started looking for alternate options.

My whole research for no-fee bank account was based on the of following options:

• First, I hardly carried cash so my most transactions were debit so I was looking for something with unlimited debit transactions
• Second, we used to borrow and lend money between friends so i was looking for something free interac or email money transfer options
• Third, of-course no account fees with better mobile and desktop accessibility
• Last, If I am traveling to USA then should be able to withdraw money without any fees.

So after analyzing, I shortlisted three financial institutes (Banks & Credit Unions) PC Financial, DUCA Financial and Tangerine. These all banks offers no-fee bank account with unlimited debit transactions and withdrawals and deposits.

PC Financial

PC Financial Banking is managed by CIBC and PC Financial customers can make unlimited withdrawals at CIBC bank machines. Customers can deposit money on CIBC as well PC Financial ABM’s. As it’s part of the Loblaws companies so they do offer reward points on participating stores using Debit Card. If you’re looking for reward points, then you may go for PC Financial but it was not fulfilling my requirements. PC Financial has its office locations mostly inside the grocery stores manged by Loblaws.

DUCA Financial

DUCA Financial is a Credit Union who also offers no-fee bank account with unlimited withdrawals at DUCA or EXCHANGE network ATM’s but like PC Financial it was also not up to my expectations so at last i decided to go for Tangerine.

Tangerine

Tangerine offers free Unlimited ATM withdrawals at ScotiaBank ABMs or at Bank of America machines if you’re traveling to the United States. It also offers free email money transfer as well as it has a great mobile app for iOS and Android. Tangerine has no physical bank location, but they do have few locations to which they call Tangerine Cafe. Moreover, you can also earn $50 cash when you open Tangerine Chequing account before September 16th using the orange key 43870202S1 and earn up to 2.40% interest on your savings account.

Another reason for choosing Tangerine was that I was able to open my account online and got it verified from nearest Canada Post location. I’m not sure about you, but I hardly visit branch for my banking needs and my maximum needs were fulfilled by online banking or telephone banking.