In these days of COVID, many bank services are not as easy as before. We are trying to open a bank account for my son. All we wanted to do was open a Kids Savings account, that would give him a bank access card too.
Our family has done allowances this way for a long time. We automate the money going to the child, as a weekly deposit to a no fee TD bank account. This method worked well with my daughters.
My son, being on the autism spectrum, we weren’t sure how this would work. Happily he has asked about banking and wishes to have an allowance, so we are now trying to open a bank account for him.
For Tangerine, you have two options:
- For a kid who is less than 16 years old you can open a straight savings account. This can be done over the phone. We didn’t want to use this because it would not include a bank access card.
- For a student 16 years and older they have a student chequing account. This comes with a bank card, however, my son is not old enough and he does not need chequing capabilities, yet. This is done on-line.
We decided we were going to try to create a TD Kids Savings account. I called Easyline and was told this can only be done at a bank branch face-to-face. This is how we did it for my daughters. I was hoping we could do this on-line or over the phone, but no, this is not possible.
To book a face-to-face meeting with our local branch, takes at least 2 weeks, thanks to COVID. All bank branches are running with smaller staffs, and they are not open for as long. Banks are closed on Sundays, during the pandemic.
I had to wait 2 weeks to open my son’s bank account. Patience is not something my son has mastered yet, so there was a lot of nagging on his part about his bank account.
Epilogue
Finally managed to set up the account, but a few interesting new wrinkles.
- The account is a TD bank account. This type of account no longer is automatically on my Easyweb. Previously all my older kids’ accounts were visible.
- Still a lot of “paper” work. The amount of physical paper in the banking system must make Domtar proud.
Addendum
A few folks have asked, I had to have 2 pieces of identification for my son. In our case we used a valid passport and his birth certificate.
Wow. I am surprised that the process took so long. I recently ran across an app called Greenlight (don’t worry, I am not affiliated with them by any means — just figure it’s relevant to the content here). They also specialize in this concept of debit cards for kids. It might be worth a shot.
In any case, I’m glad you got it all sorted — even with all the paperwork involved 🙂
I am amazed at how complicated and archaic the entire banking system is in Canada. I had a couple of recent experiences that made my inner Karen come out. One was trying to get our credit limit increased at CIBC to take advantage of a zero percentage transfer offer they sent to us no less than 9 times. The process which ultimately required senior agent involvement took 39 days. The second thing I am going through right now is trying to move money from one institution to the other. The interac e-transfer limits are too low (moving approx $35k) and the linked account option took as long to get set up as my eventual mobile cheque deposit which then has to wait 5-7 business days to clear although I have more than the amount transferred in other accounts at the recipient institution. Then I had to pay off a car loan from that account (once a the funds cleared) which will take another 5 days to be reflected on the loan account. These are business days so thanksgiving has added even more time. The bank holding the loan (Scotiabank) wasn’t able (willing) to let me pay in person as the loan is not in my name. And then we have to wait another unknown number of days for the lien to be removed by the ministry of transportation so we can sell the vehicle with a clean title. Entire process is ridiculously drawn out.
TD really does require a lot of in-person paperwork, in my experience. And certainly not all staff know how to do these things. I regret not setting up every conceivable Direct Investing account the first time I was there… we did RRSPs the first time, TFSAs the next time a few years later, RESPs another trip (why didn’t we learn by this point?!) and soon we’ll have to go back to do taxable accounts. For my kids basic savings account, I set that up through Tangerine in about 10 seconds. So easy! Literally done in less time than it takes to call TD, haha. With an ever-so-slightly higher interest rate than adult accounts. Pros and cons to every bank!
Indeed, the “on line” banks seem to have stream-lined things a great deal more. Opening an RDSP was quite the herculean task.