Equitable Bank
Equitable Bank is a Canadian bank which primarily provides residential and commercial real estate lending services, as well as personal banking through its direct banking brand EQ Bank. The bank was founded in 1970 as The Equitable Trust Company and became a Schedule I Bank offering savings products in 2013. It is now Canada’s eighth largest independent bank, with more than $35 billion in assets under management. As of September 2020, the bank had over $16 billion in deposits. Equitable Bank is a member of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation. Cash Surrender Value Line of  Credit. In December of 2018, Equitable Bank launched a new product, the Cash Surrender Value (CSV) Line of Credit. Through the Equitable Bank CSV Line of Credit, Canadians can borrow up to 90 per cent of the cash surrender value of their participating whole life insurance policy without making ongoing payments and affecting the growth of their policy. Acquisition of Bennington Financial Services. On January 1, 2019, Equitable Bank completed its acquisition of Bennington Financial Services Corp, a growing privately owned company serving the brokered equipment leasing market in Canada. Mortgage lender. Equitable Bank provides mortgages, commercial lending services and  deposit services. It is headquartered in Toronto with offices in Calgary, Halifax, Montreal and Vancouver. Equitable Bank is one of nine Schedule I banks listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange; it is listed through its parent company Equitable Group (). EQ Bank. Equitable Bank launched a direct banking operation branded as EQ Bank on January 14, 2016. As a completely online banking service, EQ Bank has no branch locations and also does not provide debit cards, credit cards, or cheques to its consumers. EQ Bank moved its core banking system onto Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure in November of 2019. EQ Bank  is the first bank in Canada to be hosted in the cloud. As of September 2020, the EQ branch had increased their deposits to $4 billion, just three months after reaching the $3 billion mark. At that time, it had grown its customer base to over 149,000 customers. On September 8, 2020 EQ Bank announced that it had surpassed $4B in deposits. EQ Bank announced it had reached $5 billion in deposits in February of 2021. This follows the milestones of $3 billion and $4 billion of deposits, both achieved in 2020. Products and  services. Savings Plus Account. The primary product offered by EQ Bank is the Savings Plus Account, a high-interest and no-fee savings account. At launch the bank attracted customers with an interest rate of 3.0%. The rate was lowered on April 18, just 96 days later, to 2.25%. The rate was lowered again to 2.0% on August 25, 2016. In May 2017 the rate was raised to 2.3%. From January to March 2020, the rate peaked at 2.45% before being reduced to 2.0% in response to reductions of the Bank of Canada interest rates due to the economic impact  of the COVID-19 pandemic. In August 2020, the interest rate was reduced further to 1.7%, with reasoning continuing to be COVID-19's impact on the industry. In July 2021, the Savings Plus Account had a reduced interest rate of 1.25%. Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs). EQ Bank began offering guaranteed investment certificates (GICs) in May 2018, and launched an international money transfer service in partnership with TransferWise in 2019. All of EQ Bank's products require a Savings Plus Account. In March of 2022, EQ Bank launched new rates on its suite of GIC products. The bank offers GICs from 3  month to 10-year terms. Joint Savings Plus Account. In July of 2020, EQ Bank announced the launch of the EQ Bank Joint Savings Plus Account, which allows customers to invite up to three other people, for a total of four account co-holders. TFSA & RSP. The EQ Bank Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA) and the EQ Bank Retirement Savings Plan (RSP) were introduced in December of 2020. Both products have no fees and can be opened online. Mortgage Marketplace. In May of 2021, EQ Bank announced the launch of its Mortgage Marketplace, a digital service that will allow customers  to shop over 2,000 mortgage products offered by various Canadian lenders. In partnership with nesto, a digital mortgage brokerage, users have the ability to be pre-qualified for a mortgage online and receive regular digital updates on the status of their application. US Dollar Account. EQ Bank launched the EQ Bank US Dollar Account in June of 2021. The no-fee account gives EQ Bank customers the ability to send US dollars internationally. International Money Transfers. On February 6, 2020, announced the addition of 15 new currencies to its International Money Transfer service, powered by Wise. The International Money Transfer  service offers transfers in 40+ currencies.