So I have talked ad nauseam about TD Waterhouse and the fun I have had with them about their RDSP investing options, however, they seem to be winning the one horse race that is being run for folks that want to have an RDSP where they are not locked into: buying GICs, using a savings account or buying ONLY the banks Mutual Funds.
I have a reader who has asked me questions, and yesterday he said, “Hey I am ready to jump to TD Waterhouse under your advice”. As soon as I read that warning sirens went off in my head, as I am very leery about giving out advice to individual folks (and my lawyer has lectured me as well), so I attempted to give the better advice:
No you should be able to create an investment RDSP for your child with all of the major banks.
I then went on-line to look and see who else offers an investment RDSP, to help the reader out and found out:
- BMO Nesbitt/Burns does not offer it, BMO offers a standard package of GICs, Savings and Mutual Funds (only).
- Scotiabank? ditto to BMO
- RBC? meme chose as BMO
- National Bank? I don’t know, I can’t tell (but my guess is no)
- CIBC? Not sure either, they have it on their website, but it looks a lot like everyone else
- Questrade, sorry you are out of luck there too (I asked them in an e-mail, they said they were thinking about it).
- TD Waterhouse? Only one who will allow me to invest in ETFs, Index Funds, or whatever else I wish to help grow my son’s savings.
Anybody at any of these banks (other than TD Waterhouse) feel free to Comment and use the form of:
The BCM’s statements are full of crap because…. and then explain how you have a program that allows me to buy VANGUARD FTSE CAN HGH DIV YD IDX ETF (for example) in your RDSP offering.
If I am wrong, I will gladly retract anything said above, and I will happily talk about your RDSP program to help folks looking around, however, if all you have is something that sells your GICS, Savings and Mutual Funds, I will stand by my statements.
Congratulations TD Waterhouse, for all my complaining and whining about your program, at least you have one, and for that I am very thankful.
Shameless plug, go check out my RDSP page for more info if you want to know more about RDSPs.
Robo advisors would be a great way to go. Relatively low cost. Somewhat managed– largely algorithmically. It is still something that I would consider. BUT– not a single Robo advisor offers the RDSP and there are about a dozen of them. The community of the disabled is not well served by the financial industry. I view it as systemic discrimination. Imagine phoning an airline to book an economy seat and being told that they don’t sell seats to folks with a disability or that they only sell high cost first class seats [mutual funds].