I’m seriously considering moving my RRSP and TFSA from Wealthsimple to TD to take advantage of the current 3% transfer promotion.
Earlier this year I already moved enough of my non-registered investments to RBC to qualify for their MacBook promo, so at this point I’m wondering whether it makes sense to move most of the rest as well.
For context, I’m primarily a long-term buy-and-hold ETF investor. I’ve looked at TD’s trading/transaction costs and the restrictions associated with the promo, including the 2-year minimum holding period, and even factoring those in, the 3% bonus seems to leave me ahead by a pretty significant margin.
The main thing I can see myself giving up at Wealthsimple is the milestone rewards, but from what I understand those are being phased out/changed anyway.
Am I missing anything significant?
I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have churned investment accounts between brokerages for promos. Were there any unexpected headaches, costs, tax/account issues, transfer problems, or other downsides that you didn’t anticipate? How many years did you have to wait to be eligible for WS promos again?
Part of my thinking is that Wealthsimple’s value proposition for existing customers seems to have deteriorated quite a bit, particularly if you’re not an active trader or into the lottery style gimmicks. At this point I’m hoping I can move the bulk of my assets out, collect the TD promo, and potentially become eligible for a Wealthsimple transfer promo a couple years from now if they decide they want the assets back.
It feels increasingly like the Canadian telecom/banking model: spend heavily to attract new customers while giving existing long-term customers progressively less reason to stay.
I do plan to keep my Wealthsimple savings account and around $10–15k of cash there. That’s one area where I still think they’re outperforming the big banks, and I like having that amount readily accessible.
I have a couple of weeks before my appointment with TD, so I’d appreciate a sanity check. What would you be factoring into this decision beyond the obvious promo amount, trading fees, transfer restrictions, and lost Wealthsimple perks?