It is that time of year again, for me to go through the odd set of steps to move money into my son’s TD Direct Investing RDSP account . First let me point out that the TD Direct Investment RDSP is the best one (i.e. the best of the RDSP Providers ) that I can find on the market (do not be confused TD has a TD Mutual Fund version, you should ignore), in terms of its ability to allow me to invest in what I want, and receive the correct Government grants.
Now that I have said that TD is the best of existing RDSP Providers, allow me to now clarify that to actually put money into this account is the most convoluted, horse manure interface that could be concocted by a set of Lawyers and Accountants (and possibly throwing in a Modern Dance Choreographer). I have written previously about the steps I must take to put money into this account, however, this last time I got a glimpse at the end of the deposit part of the process.
Previously I pointed out that the steps were:
So note that I cannot do this on-line in 1 step. I can put money into my trading account using a normal automatic transfer mechanism (step 2), so some of it is automated. I dutifully every pay cheque transfer an amount into my trading account to build up the money for the RDSP account (yes, I still think they are one of the best RDSP Providers, but this is driving me crazy).
What I found out from this last session on the phone was that step 3 is not actually a straight forward transfer, it is actually an E-mail sent from the lucky phone representative who I talk to on the phone, to some magical over-lord who does the actual transfer. Read that sentence again, the RDSP program at TD is so convoluted that their own representatives are not allowed to do a simple transfer, they must ask someone else to do it? #Seriously?!?
I am staring to wonder just how exciting will it be to withdraw money from this system? Again let me please reiterate this is the best RDSP Provider out there (currently).
Woah! IMPORTANT:
Yes TD Direct Investment RDSP gives you access to online trading, but remember that is in Canadian funds only (unlike other registered accounts). This means you will NOT be able to trade all those wonderful dividend-producing stocks that are listed in the U.S. It will be Canadian-listed stocks only, i.e. mostly resource stocks.