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Banking in Canada: Accounts, Savings, Fees, Moving Money and Sign-In Links

Updated

This section explains banking in Canada by task: choosing an everyday account, opening one or switching, saving, bank fees, sending and receiving money, the numbers that identify an account, choosing a bank or another kind of institution, and protecting your money. Each task below links the page that covers it. What counts as a bank, and other kinds of institution such as credit unions, caisses populaires, trust and loan companies and fintechs without a banking licence, are set out on choosing a bank. If you are looking for your own bank or another institution, the sign-in and help table links each listed institution’s own sign-in page, its branch locator where this site links one, and its pages here. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC), deposit insurance and complaints take a paragraph each, and recent changes are listed with their dates.

What are you trying to do?

Each line is one task and ends with the page that covers it.

  • Choose an everyday account. How chequing packages and their fees work, the debit card, pending transactions, accounts compared across banks and bank-by-bank lineups: bank accounts and chequing accounts compared.
  • Open an account, or switch. The ID a bank can ask for, the SIN, whether a bank has to open an account for you, opening online, and accounts for students, children and teens, newcomers and seniors: opening a bank account; moving to another bank: switching banks.
  • Save. The kinds of savings account, how interest is worked out and paid, a savings interest calculator and how the interest is taxed: savings accounts, with savings rates by bank.
  • Understand or reduce bank fees. The fees an account can charge and what can waive them, common fees side by side by institution, and whether a bank has to tell you before a fee is added or raised: bank fees.
  • Send or receive money. Interac e-Transfer, transfers between your own accounts, wires and cheques, money sent abroad, and a payment that went wrong: ways to move money.
  • Find your numbers. The transit, institution and account numbers, how they are written, where to find yours, and where your bank’s or credit union’s numbers are listed: routing numbers.
  • Choose a bank or another institution. The kinds of institution, what to compare, and the banks OSFI lists as domestic systemically important: choosing a bank.
  • Protect your money or fix a problem. What CDIC deposit insurance covers, and a scam, a disputed charge, a complaint or a forgotten balance: protecting your money.

Sign-in, branches and help by institution

Each row links the institution’s own sign-in page, its branch locator where the table gives one, and its pages on this site, including its help section or profile. The rows are in alphabetical order, and the table ranks none of them.

A dash means no link is given here for that institution.

Links checked on October 25, 2026.

Institutions in this table: BMO, CIBC, Desjardins, EQ Bank, KOHO, Manulife Bank, National Bank, RBC, Scotiabank, Simplii Financial, Tangerine and TD.

More online banks and fintech accounts are profiled on online banks and fintech accounts, and credit unions and caisses are compared with banks on credit unions vs banks.

Consumer protection: FCAC, deposit insurance and complaints

What does the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada do?

FCAC says its mandate is to supervise federally regulated financial entities and strengthen the financial literacy of Canadians. FCAC says it monitors and supervises the compliance of financial institutions, the external complaints body and payment card network operators with consumer protection measures set out in legislation, public commitments and codes of conduct.

What FCAC does when a customer has a complaint is on FCAC’s role.

Are your deposits insured?

The Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) insures eligible deposits at its member institutions if one fails, up to $100,000 per coverage category, principal and interest included, so deposits in more than one category can be covered for more in total.

What counts, how deposits are grouped and how to check whether an institution is a member are on CDIC deposit insurance.

FCAC says provincial deposit insurance plans cover deposits in credit unions, trust and loan companies and caisses populaires, and that deposit insurance plans vary by province; each province’s insurer, who it says it covers and its coverage, in the insurer’s own words, are in the insurer table.

How do you complain about a bank?

A bank (an "institution" under Part XII.2 of the Bank Act, which means a bank or an authorized foreign bank) must have complaint procedures satisfactory to the Commissioner of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada and must deal with a complaint within the period the regulations prescribe, 56 days after the day it is received (FCAC puts it as a detailed written response within 56 calendar days from when you first made the complaint). A complaint that is not resolved to the person's satisfaction, or not dealt with within that period, can go to the external complaints body, which since the designation took effect on November 1, 2024 is the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI) and of which every institution must be a member (FCAC says all banks and federal credit unions must be members of OBSI). Under the Act OBSI's services are free, it must give a person written reasons within 30 days after it receives a complaint that is outside its terms of reference, and it must make a final written recommendation no later than 120 days after it has all the information it needs. By OBSI's own terms (not the law), you have 180 calendar days after the final response to bring a complaint, it can recommend up to $350,000 for a single complaint, and its decisions are not binding. FCAC does not resolve individual complaints, and FCAC says a provincial credit union's process may differ.

The steps, from the bank’s own process onward, and where a complaint about a credit union goes are on complaints about a bank.

What has changed recently?

Changes dated this year or last, newest first, each linked to the page that covers it:

  • : the full suite of proposed Regulations is intended to be in force within one year of final publication in the Canada Gazette, Part II (Proposed open banking regulations)
  • : An Act to establish a consumer-driven banking framework (Royal Assent to the Consumer-Driven Banking Act)
  • : Since March 12, 2026, a federally regulated bank may charge a natural person no more than $10 when there are not enough funds in their personal deposit account to cover a payment drawn on it. It may not charge a non-sufficient funds fee more than once within two business days on the same personal deposit account, or when the account is in unauthorized overdraft by less than $10. The limits do not apply to business accounts or to the fee a merchant, lender or other recipient of the payment charges. (NSF fee limit)
  • : Under the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada's Commitment on Low-Cost and No-Cost Accounts (effective December 1, 2025), the institutions that signed it offer every Canadian a chequing account costing no more than $4.00 a month, and a $0 account to seniors receiving the Guaranteed Income Supplement, RDSP beneficiaries, youth aged 18 and under, students and newcomers in their first year, on proof the signatory may ask for, plus at least one more group each signatory chooses. Both include at least 18 debit transactions a month and no minimum balance. It is a public commitment that FCAC monitors, not a regulation. (FCAC low-cost account commitment)

On open banking, also called consumer-driven banking, FCAC says: “Consumer-Driven Banking will soon be available in Canada.” Financial Consumer Agency of Canada

Other sections

Sources

The figures and rules on this page come from these sources, last checked against them between September 14, 2026 and October 25, 2026. How we check facts.