How to deposit US cash into Tangerine’s USD Savings Account?

This can only be done indirectly as far as I know.  I opened an RBC U.S. High Interest eSavings account and deposited the American dollars into it by visiting an RBC branch (the teller would do this for you)

I already had a USD Savings Account with Tangerine. In the past I had funded this account via cheques that I received. This time I had some leftover USD cash from a vacation and I wanted to deposit that back into Tangerine (and collect some interest until my next vacation). The problem though is that Tangerine does not have physical branches and so I was stuck with the cash. 

I figured that I could transfer the money from the RBC U.S. High Interest eSavings account into the Tangerine’s USD Savings Account. To achieve this you need to add the RBC U.S. High Interest eSavings account as an external account in Tangerine. This is the link where you can do that: https://www.tangerine.ca/app/#/settings/external-accounts (you will need to log in with your credentials)

As part of the process Tangerine would make two small deposits into the RBC U.S. High Interest eSavings account and you’ll need to type those numbers into the linked-to-be external account in Tangerine. Be careful to enter the right numbers (do not make a typo) and a second later you would have added/linked the RBC account as an external account in Tangerine.

After this simply “Move Money” from the RBC U.S. High Interest eSavings account into the Tangerine’s USD Savings Account. It should take a few days for the money to be transferred from one institution to the other.

I know this works, because I did it myself a week ago. 

Why did I bother? Well the RBC U.S. High Interest eSavings account has an interest rate of 0.25% while the Tangerine’s USD Savings Account offers at this time 0.80%. Also, Tangerine offers US Dollar Guaranteed Investment (US$ GIC) that I wanted to use. I actually locked the cash for 6 months at an interest rate of 1.75%. I know I won’t need this cash for at least another 6 months; so that’s why I picked the 6 month term. Not sure why Tangerine does not publicly posts the rates of the US$ GICs under one year; but Tangerine offers those as well. 

They had as of today:
  • 90 days US$ GIC   – 1.00%
  • 180 days US$ GIC – 1.75%
  • 270 days US$ GIC – 2.00%
All other terms and interests rates can be found here: https://www.tangerine.ca/en/rates/index.html

If you do not have a Tangerine account and want to open one please consider using my Orange Key: 40030923S1. We could both be rewarded with some signing bonus cash if you do that. Click here to start the process of opening a Tangerine account.

Historical Yield Spread between the Government of Canada 10-Year Bond and the Government of Canada 2-Year Bond

The chart below represents the historical yield spread between the Government of Canada 10-Year Bond and the Government of Canada 2-Year Bond. I constructed the chart using the data freely available at the Bank Of Canada website and used Google Sheets to put it together.

This is an interactive chart: you can hover your mouse over the line to get the values of the yield spread on a given date. For a more detailed version of the chart CLICK HERE.

The Y-Axis is the  yield spread between the Government of Canada 10-Year Bond and the Government of Canada 2-Year Bond in percentage points. 

The Y-Axis represents time; each data point being a month.

Please, let me know in the comments section if you find this to be useful and I will keep updating the chart as time passes.

Personal Cloud Storage in Canada

I recently started using Sync.com [1] as my personal cloud storage. I decided to avoid the big names mainly because they can scan and read your files. Sync encrypts your files locally prior to the upload to the cloud; all the while your private encryption keys remain only accessible to you: the user. You can read more details in their privacy whitepaper.

Sync servers are located in Canada and as such Canadian privacy compliance is built-in (in addition to that of the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom).

I signed up for the trial version which provides 5GB of free storage with the purpose of evaluating the PC and iPhone apps. Shortly after, I bought the cheapest personal plan that provides 500GB of storage for $49 CAD (plus tax) per year.  For more pricing alternatives read this

For the last two days I have been uploading the files; so far so good. I blame my ISP for the slow upload!

It is early to tell; but so far I don’t have any complaints. Plus I still have 30 days and I can get my money back if get any nasty surprises.

Should you decide to give it a try, I’d appreciate if you use my referral link [1]. Both you and I will get an extra GB of storage after a successful referral. 

Finally, I’ll update this post after my 30-days-money-back-period is expired. I will let you know whether I decided to keep using Sync or if I bailed.

[1] Yanniel's Sync Referral link: https://www.sync.com/?_sync_refer=11e8cf2e0