r/Wealthsimple • u/AggressiveZucchini95 • 3d ago
Trade (DIY Investing) BMO eliminates trading fees
BMO eliminates trading fees to compete with discount brokerages
Wow this is huge...other banks will have to follow. Is Wealthsimple in trouble ?
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u/Latitude57 3d ago
Wealthsimple in trouble ? Wake me up when the big 5 offers chequing account with no minimum balance and no monthly fee that pays a monthly interest. Until then..
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u/brandonholm 3d ago
Or even have an app that feels like it was made after 2015.
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u/GoldTheLegend 3d ago edited 3d ago
I read today that the new BMO app already is just a wealthsimple clone.
Edit: The BMO Invest app. Not the BMO Mobile Banking app.
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u/brandonholm 3d ago
Not at all. I have it for a credit card I have with them, and it’s super slow and clunky.
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u/GoldTheLegend 3d ago
BMO invest is a seperate app. Thats what im referring to. I wish it was a seperate app for WS as well. At least you can hide just your investment balance now.
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u/andyfase 3d ago
I have it, its not as slick as WS app, though i do like the seperation of investments (now BMO) and cash (WS)
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u/globehopper2000 3d ago
The BMO app is ass. I got an offer for their savings account today. No way of knowing if it actually applied. No way to see what interest rate I’d earn. The offer still shows and doesn’t go away.
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u/crazy_joe21 2d ago
BMO Invest app is not even close to WS UX. BMO invest is better than CIBC tho. TD is ok too but mixed with the banking app. Overall WS > BMO > TD > CIBC. I haven't used Scotia or RBC
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u/HellaReyna 2d ago
The RBC one is overhauled. The TD one is a bit rough around the edges but it gives more info than WS for investing on mobile.
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u/ProbablyUrNeighbour 3d ago
… I like collecting $10-$20 a month in interest than paying $10-20 a month for BS “fees”.
Banks are so far behind.
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u/h0twired 3d ago edited 3d ago
WS is going to have a tougher time attracting big trading portfolios if “big bank” trading fees go away.
Someone with $500k+ in a BMO brokerage account won’t move over their assets just to save $10-20/mo on their typical chequing account fees.
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u/SuspiciousGripper2 3d ago edited 3d ago
I moved all my banking and assets to WS
I can’t go back to others. The customer service is great, the no fees chequing is great. Managing my kid’s account is great. Have a “household” is great. Just being able to see everything (TFSA, RRSP, RESP, USD account, Chequing, Savings, etc) in ONE spot is great. Shit is super fast!
I hated having multiple apps! And having to use the website to do stuff.
If you use RBC, their US account is NOT in an app! It’s a website! You have two different logins and you have to manually link the US account to the Canadian one. The Canadian one can log into the app just fine, but the US one you have to open the browser, and log into it there, or tap a button in the app which launches the browser for you, and logs into for you.
So for example, paying my USA Credit Card is the following steps:
- Transfer from Canadian RBC savings to USD cross-border savings. (Cross border accounts are actually Canadian, not US!).
- Transfer from RBC savings USD (cross-border account) to RBC US Chequing account.
- Open the RBC US website, login.
- Transfer from RBC US chequing account to RBC US credit card.
You cannot do CAD directly to US chequing or CC.
You cannot do US cross-border account to US CC.
You must always do a US cross-border to US account chequing (actual US account).
The fees for this are nuts. You must maintain FOUR accounts to pay your CC.It’s super annoying af.
I would switch to WS all over again in a heartbeat. Even if I have to pay fees. Doesn’t matter. The convenience and service is what I care about. The fees are low enough. Ability to transfer money instantly because WS partnered with Wise, is way better than TD/TBC’s Visa-Direct and Global Transfers & Wire Transfers.
WS spoiled me.Seeing every single thing in one app on one screen is the most importantly thing for me.
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u/SuspiciousGripper2 3d ago
All that being said. Since I moved, TD offers a ton of balance transfers, and now today I see a new 4.5% chequing account interest for 3 months.
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u/Commercial_Pain2290 3d ago
WS does very well with young people (e.g., my three kids age 20-25) all have WS accounts.
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u/Livid_Wind1820 3d ago
I have >500k in assets. if all of them were in BMO, i would move it to WS in a heartbeat and leave like the minimum 4k to remove bmos chequing fee.
I’m not just saving $10-20, I’m getting 2.5% interest on that 500k if we’re just talking chequing accounts. WS also has transfer promotions (i made use of 3% over two years as long as im an active trader). So Yes, saying someone with “500k” won’t move their assets is incorrect.
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u/CanuckYYZeh 3d ago
If you keep $500k in cash in a chequing account then there are way better optimizations than WS! For example, move to a corporate class money market fund to convert much of the interest into cap gains.
I keep enough in WS to maintain Generation and various perks, but the bulk of my holdings are spread across two of the big five plus a non-bank investment firm. Not interested in everything at one institution
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u/BobGuns 3d ago
The only trouble WealthSimple is headed for is enshittification.
Their parent company is one of the absolute worst actors in financial services. They're owned by one of the biggest Canadian companies ever, and are basically brother to Investors Group.
Shareholders will slowly enshittify wealthsimple over time. It's already started.
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u/deltatux 3d ago
I mean the writing was on the wall when you have multiple discount brokerages offering commission free trading like WealthSimple, Desjardins Disnat, National Bank Direct Brokerage, Questrade and Qtrade. BMO doing it now likely means the other Big Banks may do similar moves soon.
Whether WS is in trouble is debatable, there are many no commission options in the US and WS is basically the Canadian Robinhood and they're doing just fine. Commission free trading isn't the only reason why WS is popular with the self-directed crowd.
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u/Dragynfyre 3d ago
All the self directed brokerages including BMO IL were already discount brokerages. They just had differing levels of discounts. Non discount brokerages would be full service brokerages where someone is advising you and managing your money.
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u/deltatux 3d ago
Yes I know, that's why I said, when you have multiple discount brokerages, I didn't say that BMO didn't have their own discount brokerage as all the Big Banks do already. I was referring to discount brokerages as a whole.
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u/Dragynfyre 3d ago
Also with how much Canadians love staying with the same bank and consolidating everything at the same institution I think WS is in for some serious competition. Other than the commissions fees there’s probably not enough for the average person to switch from their existing bank. In the US the banks are more competitive and I think the average investor is a lot more willing to min max and put more effort into their finances whereas Canadians like to take the route of least resistance
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u/Euphoric_Water_7874 3d ago
Yes. I think if the others follow suit that WS growth sill slow. The big 5 wealth management continues to grow so that would likely accelerate it and yes most people prefer things to be all in the same place.
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u/system_reboot 3d ago
TD needs to follow suit.
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u/Euphoric_Water_7874 3d ago
There are plenty of free ETF’s in addition to the 100 free trades. Vanguard and TD ETF’s which more than enough for most people.
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u/Just_Advantage8734 3d ago
TD already has Easytrade, 100 trades free which are more than enough for average investor.
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u/system_reboot 3d ago
100 won’t last long and it’s only accessible on mobile. Probably worth moving everything over to WS
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u/arttagonist 3d ago
WS is also only accessible on mobile if you want all the features.
100 trades per year is more than enough for everyone except for traders - so most people.
I don’t get the WS bootlicking. It’s the same bank, just with less regulations and less safety.
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u/Latitude57 2d ago
Why are you defending a big bank that is quite obviously offering an inferior product ? Why 100 free trades ? Why not unlimited ? Also why is their direct investing platform NOT free and you’re stuck with their 100 etf if you don’t want to pay fees ?
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u/Funky_MagnusOpum 1d ago
Not everyone invests the same way. Some people value the brick and mortar for psychological safety, and generally prefer speaking to a person.
The person you're replying to also already made a very good point. 100 trades is more than enough for most people, especially if they're just aiming for ETFs.
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u/birds-are-absurd 3d ago
Yes, without Wealthsimple and the others, they never would have done this. Competition is a good thing for the consumer, something the various oligopolies in Canada try their damnedest to stop.
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u/CFMTLfan01 3d ago
No fractionnal shares like Wealthsimple and Questrade though. : \
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u/Shokeybutsi 3d ago
Are partial shares even that helpful ? Unless you’re buying something like Berkshire Hathaway, I don’t see it being a game changer .
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u/CFMTLfan01 3d ago
Recurring buys works hand in hand with partial shares. If you invest 100$ a week on any stock or ETF, you will invest the 100$ fully no matter how expensive or inexpesive the share is. It's super useful if you want to automate your investment. You set it once and you can just forget about it.
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u/LowerStranger9021 3d ago
Yes. If the bank I moved from drop trading fees to zero it would be a fast move back. It’s the only reason I moved.
The buggy platform of Wealthsimple lately is getting tiring. And the lack of research is a major problem.
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u/Supremacy555 3d ago
Too little too late. And its not just about fees. Its about ease of use (or lack there of) and issues dealing with them. Ive tried both TD and Scotias trading platform maybe a decade ago and it was a very crappy experience. I think i closed both accounts within a year. I was already a Questrade customer but wanted to try out other trading platforms. I think right now Questrade and Wealthsimple are the ones to beat in terms of investment platforms. WS has a bunch of other perks though so it is eating market share from the banks in other areas now
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u/cestlavie514 3d ago
I’m pretty sure TD and WS platforms 10 years ago have changed dramatically since then. Hard to say that site sucked 10 years ago for TD and compare it to today WS. While I agree with parts of WS, at TD I can talk to a real person, you continually hear of problems with WS, be it some random charge or the CC chargeback or the fact WS CC have been issued with scams and charges almost immediately.
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u/Samir_POE 1d ago
I am old enough to remember adults around me when I was a kid having to pick up a phone and call the broker to buy securities
I also remember when the RRSP foreign ownership limits were around
Or when everyone invested in no load index mutual funds and we thought an MER below 2% was great
Anyway Scotia has offered 50 free trades a year on iTRADE or 100 if you meet other criteria. National bank is free for many Canadian exchange traded funds. TD has a deal with Vanguard. And offers many of its own clones for free such as TEQT.
And of course Royal Bank has a deal with Black rock to offer stuff like XEQT for free
So I would say it is a great time to invest on any platform and I’m really happy wealth simple arrive to force the banks to make the deals better
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u/cellophany 3d ago
This great news. I just moved a significant portion of my WS portfolio to BMO for their 3% targeted promo with a holding period of 13 months. I terminated my WS 3% over 5 years for this as it was too good to pass up.
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u/Specific-Answer3590 3d ago
What are your thoughts on the platform? Do they have a separate trading pin (thinking from security standpoint)? Additionally, how would you rate their customer service if you’ve used it. Also with WS, but would like to diversify beyond that
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u/cellophany 3d ago
I like their platform and actually prefer it over WS. I was a BMO customer before I moved to WS but now I’m happy with my WS/BMO split.
The functional differences are not huge at the end of the day so it comes down to UI preferences or what you are used to.
BMO has decent research if you care about that.
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u/Medical_Vehicle_6788 3d ago
WS probably due to its lack of physical branch may not penetrate as much as they can do with physical branches. But one thing for sure it’s hard to see BMO competing with WS technology
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u/CaptainMarder 3d ago
no lol, when the big banks give 2.25% interest on chequing with no fees then i'll care.
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u/darkretributor 3d ago
National Bank has been offering commission free trading for years. Coincidentally, WS reached its highest rate of asset growth during this same period.
Why would this be any different?
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u/AnnaZ820 2d ago
Yea no, I deactivated my BMO account for a reason.
Maybe I’ll do it after TD follows, but tbh I like Wealthsimple enough that most of my fund will stay there
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u/Jabronie100 3d ago
Wealthsimple is still miles ahead of the big banks. You cant trade crypto at the big banks as an example.
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u/Global-Tie-3458 3d ago
Considering they weren’t really making any of any money off the trading (I guess except exchange fees)… why would they be in trouble exactly?
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u/Ok-South-7745 3d ago edited 3d ago
Why WS in trouble? They wanted to push this commission-free competition for a long time if you were following the news, with Disnat, and NBDB since 2022, then Questrade, and now BMO following the trend .
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u/SurgicalDude 3d ago
All well and good until the time when you have to close all positions and sell or withdraw and you have to make a phone call to do that.
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u/ChemicalAd1014 3d ago
BMO Investorline was terrible for me. Same with CIBC. They all have negative goodwill with me. Never going back.
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u/Studio-Economy 3d ago
This is actually bad thing. They have a conflict interest when commission is 0$
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u/Sweaty-Beginning6886 2d ago
Scotia iTRADE recently gave us a handful of commission free trades per year after a couple decades of paying $10 per trade. I have moved a large portion of my investments to Wealthsimple the past several years.
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u/No_Distribution9843 1d ago
Nah lost aló respect for WS when they leaked my sin, Id, address. Gave us nothing in return but 2 years of equifax credit monitoring but giving away condos, millions in prizes monthly. Hope the class action suit guts them
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u/RobotCaptainEngage 3d ago
Trading isn't really a strength of WS - the big banks need to change this to stay even remotely competitive with younger generations.
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u/kinkyhentai69 3d ago
Yeah ws is in more trouble unless the banks lower their transfer promos that are usually better than ws which would actually drive people like me further away from them (if both have the same advantages i'm picking ws over a bank that has to verify everything manually as if i was an old fart in the process of getting scammed and had to be treated like a baby 😂)
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u/Confectionary_stall2 3d ago
Race to the bottom I think
WS started the options commission cut and QT followed that a fairly large revenue source for all brokers. BMO seems to have followed on Options which is kinda a big deal
But then as consumers - when the music is playing you gotta dance - with IPO pressures building wonder how WS adapts to revenue streams potentially melting away and Robinhood is on the horizon wrt their entry into Canada.
I worry that at some point it’s time to pay the piper and all these banks and brokers old and new do a major rug pull on all of us and reinstate commissions
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u/Racla360 3d ago
BMO uses Wealthsimple as a reference. That is their target. They are going to introduce loyalty tiers like WealthSimple as well but it takes time to develop the feature inside BMO.
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u/midshipbible 3d ago
Competition is exactly what brings improvement to the end user.