Most brokers and financial institutions will charge you a transfer-out fee when you transfer your RRSP to a competitor.
I suffered this recently when I transferred my RBC RRSP account over to Questrade. RBC charged me $50CAD upon transferring the funds in cash.
Fortunately, I was able to get that money back. Questrade has a transfer fee rebate promotion by which they will rebate up to $150 of those transfer-out fees, if you transfer an RRSP worth at least $25,000CAD (either in cash or assets).
In order to claim the rebate, you will need to wait 3 months after transferring the RRSP. Once you have had the RRSP active with Questrade for 3 months, just log into your Questrade account and upload the RRSP statement containing the transfer-out fee. Then you need to email or call whoever helped you in opening the account and ask him/her to process the rebate for you.
What happens if your previous institution statement does not show the transfer out fee? This happened to me actually: my last RBC RRSP statement did not show any transfer out fee; but the first Questrade statement was exactly $50 short.
So, I went to my RBC branch and asked for information about this issue. How come I have no trace in my statement of the missing $50? They opened an investigation and mailed back to me (over postal mail) with an explanation.
RBC sent me a letter confirming that they charged $50CAD in transfer out fees, but that was not reflected in the statement. I find this omission from the statement a little odd, but anyhow I used this letter in order to get my rebate with Questrade.
It took less than a week for me to get the rebate, after I uploaded my RBC statement/letter and emailed the Questrade specialist that helped me in opening the account. The $50CAD rebate was deposited in cash directly into my Questrade RRSP account.
On a side note, Questrade has some promotions for new users. With the Refer a friend promotion you can unlock cash bonuses upon opening an account online and making your first deposit.
- $1,000.00 deposit unlocks a $25 cash bonus for you.
- $10,000.00 deposit unlocks a $50 cash bonus for you.
- $25,000.00 deposit unlocks a $75 cash bonus for you.
- $50,000.00 deposit unlocks a $100 cash bonus for you.
- $100,000.00 deposit unlocks a $250 cash bonus for you.
To use this promotion you need an active Questrade user to refer you. I would be very glad to refer you. Why? Well, because I get some cash bonuses as well by referring you :-) If you want me to refer you click this link. Great, now both of us are in the money! Thanks.
Disclosure: For a complete list of promotions click here.
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