Sunday 30 September 2012

ING Direct Canada: Change of Owners!

So as you may have heard by now, ING Direct Canada will soon be owned by Scotiabank....

It's kinda funny because not too long ago, I was a Scotiabank customer...then I got tired of paying ridiculous chequing fees, maintaining a minimum balance, and ensuring that I don't exceed the transaction limit each month, so that I don't get charged their stupid fees. Once I heard about ING's free Thrive chequing account, I opened up an account with them and it's been adios Scotiabank ever since! Now, to my horror, ING Direct Canada will be owned by Scotiabank. Apparently, ING's parent company is not doing so well in the home country, so they're selling their profitable US and Canada subsidiaries to raise some cash.

The good news: Scotiabank says they will not make any changes to ING, at least for the next 18 months...

The bad news: Scotiabank will likely eventually make some changes...what and how much? Only time well tell!

For now, I'm not going to be rash and close my ING account. I'll stick with them as long as they continue to offer the free Thrive chequing account. However, if they do change that, I'm outta there. I'm hoping that one good that might come out of this is that ING customers will be able to start using Scotiabank ATMs, similar to how PC Financial customers can use CIBC machines.

I will update if anything changes!

Here's the official press release: Agreement announced to sell ING Direct Canada to Scotiabank