Best Banks

[Jimmy Stang]

If you use mostly online banking and bank machines, I'd say President's Choice for sure. I used to work for CIBC and once my staff perk of no service charges ran out, I started getting charged service fees. I switched to PC and I haven't changed a single thing about the way that I bank. Between my wife and I, we probably save over $30 a month in service fees.

You have to go to Superstore exactly once: to set up your accounts. The rest of the time you can do your banking at CIBC machines for free (including deposits) and online. Special requests aren't too bad either. Money orders can be mailed to you, or you can spend $7.50 or whatever and get one at the post office. Since I have bought a money order once in the past 5 years, this isn't a big deal to me.

I know that the whole Superstore thing is a turnoff for some, but honestly, I haven't set foot inside a kiosk since the day I opened my account.

For my business, as PC doesn't offer business banking, I use TD. I have found them to be quite customer-service oriented and I have never really had any problems with them.

[DionPlett]

I've been with and like RBC because of the way they have everything set up with online banking and all the different transfers you can do yourself. I agree with the previous poster though, the loyalty is not mutual and they're never there when you need cash.

[Deegee]

Credit Unions are excellent. I would highly recommend them to anyone. I also work for one, so I may be a bit biased.

http://www.albertacreditunions.com/p...e.asp?cid=3-57

As a previous poster mentioned, First Calgary Savings might be a good choice for you. They are also a Credit Union.

Take your pick. I also know at least at my Credit Union will still do some lending based on character...

Business banking at Credit Unions are (generally speaking) significantly lower on fees then the Chartered Banks as well. I know, for example, the Credit Union I work for doesn't count deposits against your transaction total, whereas the Chartered Banks they do.