EQ Bank is a Canadian financial institution that operates entirely online. Powered by Equitable Bank, this digital bank launched in 2016 and, so far, has more than $8 billion in deposits.
Notably, EQ Bank has an almost entirely fee-less structure, making them a solid choice for saving or investing without penalty. Some of their most compelling offerings are their savings accounts, thanks to competitive interest rates, lack of fees and other convenient features that can make saving simpler, as long as you don’t mind not having a branch to visit.
We’ve compared five savings accounts at EQ Bank to rank the best options available. See below to learn more about why we picked each account and the pros and cons, along with other features and benefits.
To create this list, Forbes Advisor Canada analyzed 123 savings accounts at 39 financial institutions, including a mix of traditional brick-and-mortar banks, online banks and credit unions. We ranked each account on 17 data points within the categories of fees, access, customer experience, digital experience and annual percentage yield, plus the minimums and balance needed to avoid monthly fees.
The following is the weighting assigned to each category:
Specific characteristics taken into consideration within each category included monthly fee, ability to waive the monthly fee, overdraft fee, NSF fee, other fees, ATM network, branch access, Better Business Bureau rating, Trustpilot rating, live chat availability, mobile app ratings, online bill pay availability, online banking access, minimum deposit requirements and minimum balance requirements.
Accounts offering no or very low fees scored the highest, as did those offering low minimum requirements and high customer service and digital experience scores. To appear on this list, the account must be nationally available.
Our research is based on information from the following financial institutions: RBC, TD, BMO, National Bank, CIBC, Scotiabank, UNI Financial, Canadian Western Bank, Coast Capital Savings, Digital Commerce Bank, EQ Bank, First Nations Bank of Canada, Laurentian Bank, Manulife Bank, Motus Bank, Peoples Bank of Canada, Simplii Financial, Tangerine Bank, VanCity, VersaBank, HSBC, Home Bank, ICICI Bank Canada, SBI Canada Bank, CTBC Bank, Bank of China (Canada), KEB Hana Bank Canada, Shinhan Bank Canada, Meridian Credit Union, Servus Credit Union, Envision Financial, Steinbach Credit Union, Affinity Credit Union, Prospera Credit Union, Conexus Credit Union, ConnectFirst Credit Union, Access Credit Union, Assiniboine Credit Union.
Each of the EQ Savings accounts offers different interest rates. At the time of this writing, the EQ Bank TFSA Savings Account and the EQ Bank RSP Savings Account offer 3% interest, while the EQ Bank Joint Account and standard Personal Account offer 4%.
Related: What Is A TFSA?
EQ Bank’s TFSA account offers 3% interest. All the interest earned is tax-free.
In short: Yes. EQ Bank is a federally regulated institution and is authorized to accept deposits throughout Canada. EQ Bank is also a member of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC). This means that deposits made are eligible for CDIC protection up to $100,000 per person, per category.
