Alterna Bank is a digital bank in Canada offering financial services, including savings, chequing, investments, and mortgages.
Online-only banks (with few or no physical branches) have become more popular as younger customers are comfortable performing most bank transactions online and have become more sensitive to paying monthly chequing account fees.
Other popular competing financial institutions in the digital banking space include EQ Bank, Motive Financial, Tangerine, motusbank, and Oaken Financial.
Related: EQ Bank Review: Best Savings Account in Canada?
Who is Alterna Bank?
Alterna Bank is the digital banking arm of Alterna Savings and Credit Union Ltd. Alterna Savings is a 110-year-old Canadian credit union based in Ontario and formed by the merger of CS Co-op and Metro Credit Union.
Alterna Savings and Alterna Bank are together referred to as Alterna Financial Group.
While banking with Alterna Bank is mainly online, customers can access face-to-face service through Alterna Savings branch locations in Quebec and Ontario.
Alterna Bank Accounts
Alterna Bank offers a variety of accounts that cater to the needs of the average bank customer.
1. Alterna No-Fee eChequing Account
This chequing account offers the following features:
- Zero monthly fees
- Free unlimited day-to-day transactions, including withdrawals, transfers, me-to-me transfers, bill payments, cheques, pre-authorized payments, debit card payments, etc.
- Free Interac e-Transfers
- Free access to THE EXCHANGE Network of ATMs (over 3,300 ATMs)
- 0.05% annual interest rate on your chequing account balance
2. Alterna High-Interest Savings Account
Their HISA account currently offers the following:
- High interest rate
- No minimum balance
- Free and unlimited transactions
- Free and unlimited Interac e-Transfer
Related: Best Savings Accounts in Canada.
3. Alterna TFSA and RRSP Accounts
Alterna Bank offers both registered and non-registered investment accounts, including:
- TFSA eSavings Account – no minimum balance and no fees
- TFSA eTerm Deposits (aka GICs) – 1 to 5-year term lengths, $500 minimum purchase, non-redeemable, and no fees
- RRSP eTerm Deposits
- RRIF Savings accounts and term deposits
- Non-registered eTerm Deposits
- Online investing via Qtrade Investor
4. Alterna Mortgages
They offer both variable and fixed-rate mortgages. Your mortgage legal fees and appraisals are covered by up to $800.
Alterna Bank does not currently offer a credit card.
Related: Best GIC Rates in Canada
How To Open an Alterna Bank Account
You can easily open a new account online or call them at 1-866-560-0120. Eligibility requirements include that you must:
- Be a resident of Canada
- Be the age of the majority in your province
- Have a SIN
- Have an account at one other Canadian bank
For Joint accounts, you will need to complete their Joint Account Authorization and email it to [email protected]
The Alterna mobile app is available on both iOS and Google Play. The app allows you to:
- Deposit cheques
- Make bill payments
- Transfer money between your Alterna accounts to accounts at other financial institutions, and Interac e-Transfer
- View your account transactions
- Find an ATM near you
- Set account alerts
- Check rates
- Contact customer service and more
Related: Motive Financial Review.
Alterna Bank Fees
While the bank does not charge monthly fees on its chequing and savings accounts, other service fees may apply. Examples of fees include:
- Paper statement: $2/statement
- Cheque image in statements: $2/statement
- Interac ATM withdrawals: $1.90
- Overdraft protection: $2.50/month
- NSF fees: $42.50
- Personalized cheques
Other fees may apply, so check their website for the updated list.
Is Alterna Bank CDIC-Insured?
Is Alterna Bank safe? The answer to this is – Yes, just as safe as other Canadian banks.
The funds you deposit with the bank are protected by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC), subject to maximum coverage limitations. This includes deposits in eSavings, investment savings, and term deposits.
Alterna Bank vs EQ Bank vs Tangerine
EQ Bank is a top-tier digital Canadian bank that consistently offers one of the best savings interest rates and GICs in Canada.
It also offers TFSA Savings and RRSP Savings accounts.
EQ Bank does not offer a traditional chequing account; however, its Savings Plus account is a hybrid account and offers unlimited free Interac e-Transfers, mobile cheque deposits, and bill payments. It also has no monthly fees.
EQ Bank Personal Account
Up to 4.00%* interest rate
Unlimited debits and bill payments
Unlimited Interac e-Transfers
No monthly account fees
Tangerine Bank is one of the most popular online banks in Canada. It offers a chequing account, savings, investment funds (registered and non-registered), mortgages, and a money-back credit card. You also get free access to 3,500 ATMs in Canada and 50,000 worldwide.
Tangerine Money-Back Credit Card
Rewards: Earn up to 2% unlimited cash back in up to 3 spending categories and 0.50% on all other purchases.
Welcome offer: Get an extra 10% cash back on up to $1,000 in spending in the first 2 months ($100 value); 1.95% balance transfer rate for 6 months.
Interest rates: 19.95% for purchases, balance transfers, and cash advances.
Annual fee: $0
Is Alterna Bank For You?
Online-only banks like Alterna Bank can save you on monthly fees – up to $200 per year on your chequing account alone.
On the flip side, you will need to be comfortable with doing most of your banking online, either using your computer, tablet, or smartphone.
Online-only banks like Tangerine and Alterna may have limited person-person interactions/support through their few brick-and-mortar locations in major Canadian cities.
For short and long-term savings, EQ Bank offers great non-promotional savings rates, and you can use it solely for savings while keeping your chequing and/or investments elsewhere.
If you are looking for an excellent cash back credit card, the Tangerine 2% money-back credit card is very competitive for a no-fee card.
Alterna Bank Review
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Ease of use
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Savings rates
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Fees
Overall
Summary
Alterna Bank is an online bank offering savings, chequing, and other accounts. This Alterna Bank review compares it to EQ Bank and Tangerine.
Pros
- $0 fees for eChequing account
- High interest savings account
- No minimum balance requirement
- CDIC-insured
Cons
- Limited branches for in-person support
- Savings rate may not be the highest available for an online bank
Alterna is my bank and it has several advantages to Tangerine :
Free of charge ATM at all National Banks outlets or The EXCHANGE® Network
(Tangerine has the same arrangement with Scotia Bank)
Interac e-transfers are free with Alterna, not with Tangerine, which costs 1$. Tangerine does have a free transfer system, but it’s complicated and takes it takes up to 2 business days to process.
With Alterna I can linkup my debit card with my high interest e-savings account, that can’t be done with Tangrine. Why a fuss here you may ask? With Tangerine, if you want access to cash money thru your debit card, that money must be kept in your chequing account, an account with almost no interest. With Alterna, the debit card gives direct access to your savings and great interest. With Tangerine, many transactions must go thru the checking account; there hoping you may leave it there.
Alterna has a much better regular interest rate (2.25% vs 1.10%)
Paying bills is terrible with Tangerine, unpractical. The transaction isn’t immediately processed (it’s queued) screwing up your indicated balance until it is processed.
Tangerine has specials (refer a friend, better conditional rates)
Tangerine has a much better user-friendly e-bank presentation. Alterna is old school, it works, doesn’t look nice, but it’s functional, everything is there.
Tangerine is owed by a big bank, the Scotia.
Alterna is owned by the second largest credit union in Ontario; I like that.
Alterna has better service (my opinion dealing with both)
I started out with Tangerine, I still have an account there, but I’ve switched over to Alterna after weighting in my needs.
For me, Alterna has more to offer.
The Alterna Bank rates appear to be very good, however their incompetence and lack of concern for customer service outweighs any seemingly “good deals”. They completely wasted my time with no regard for my concerns and there was no consistency with the responses and information I received from their employees!
NEVER will I deal with this Bank or recommend them to others! There’s many more institutions that my money is better invested in, and that care enough to be professional and consistent.
Been smooth sailing with alterna, therefore, have not had a need to contact for personal account. Set up a business account and changed my mind about something and got direct answers to my questions and requests. Would be cool if they adopted the chewing interest rate that motusbank has. That would have me completely sold. Hope they keep it real and stay true to the no fee aspect. Nothing worse than bank fees. Nothing.
Checking not chewing .typo
I had a terrible experience working with some of Alterna Bank representatives recently. Here is the long story short. I opened a TFSA account a few years ago with Alterna and decided to transfer my money to my TD Direct Investing (TDDI) TFSA account a few months ago. The TDDI submitted my request simultaneously to Alterna and BMO (another TFSA account that I hold) to transfer the fund. After 1 week, my BMO money was transferred to TDDI without any problem. However, no news on the Alterna side. I called them a couple of times and each time they said it could take up to 30 days for the fund to be transferred, with no offer of checking the status of my request. I waited 30 days and obviously no news. So, I called them back. They said they will check and after a few days, they got back to me and said they never received the request. After following up with TDDI, they assured me that they had submitted my request. Alterna, however, denied receiving it. After a few back and forth, Alterna gave me another fax number and told me to ask TDDI to send the request to that number instead. I did. At this point, I was tired of calling Alterna and explaining the situation to different representatives each time. So, next time, I asked one person from Alterna to handle my case, if possible. He agreed; he was very slow though, but he did follow up. After few days, he reached out and said Alterna still did not receive my request. TDDI, on the other hand, said they received a message from an Alterna representative, and that Alterna rep. said that the account information was not correct. I checked the account info with my Alterna rep. and he confirmed that all seemed to be correct. Finally, with a suggestion from TDDI, we decided to re-submit my request with my latest bank statement from Alterna attached to it. My Alterna rep. still claimed that they did not receive it after a week. They asked us to mail the request to them!!! As that point, I was exasperated. On a call with TDDI to find a solution, they offered that they could give me the name of the person on Alterna side who responded to the first round of requests. Finally, I was able to get a hold of her and connect her with my Alterna rep. to resolve the situation. This process took a total of more than 7 weeks, more that 10 calls to Alterna bank, and waisted 20+ hours of my time. This was an awful experience and I am very disappointed with the service that I received from Alterna. I believe the level of incompetency and disorganization of Alterna bank staff to handle a simple situation played a major role in this painful and stressful experience that I had. I will never go back to Alterna bank and I highly recommend anyone who is considering Alterna to think twice, especially if you may need your money urgently in future!