Tag: qtrade

Achievement: Down to two providers

RobHLeave a comment

I am trying to keep my retirement investments as simple as possible, really I am. And this week, I finally reduced the number of providers I use from three to two. Most of my retirement investments (RRIFs, TFSAs, non-registered) are now held with Questrade, excepting one RRIF account I hold with Wealthsimple.

I had intended to be down to two providers back in March 2025, but then I uncovered a wrinkle in how providers deal with RRIFs and I ended up keeping 4 RRIF accounts over at QTrade during 2025. These 4 accounts funded my RRIF minimum payments in 2025.

One RRIF was moved to Wealthsimple in early November 2025 and this was an altogether painless experience, and I’ve been enjoying free money every month from Wealthsimple for my troubles. A good deal.

I waited until late November 2025 (November 26th, to be exact) before starting the transfer exercise from QTrade to Questrade for the remaining three RRIFs. And it took until this week (February 6th, 2026) before the assets finally showed up. That’s 72 days, a little over 10 weeks. Here’s a timeline:

  • November 26th: Submitted paperwork electronically to Questrade
  • On December 2nd, QTrade charged me the $150 transfer out fee on each account (plus tax).
  • On December 8th, I got the following message from Questrade: “Please be advised that RRIF/LIF account transfers are subject to the industry-wide cut-off date, November 28, 2025. f you would like to proceed with your transfer request, we require a document showing that the RRIF/LIF minimum payment was made for the year 2025.”
  • I submitted this proof (which, as I mentioned previously, was more than a little annoying) but nothing happened. After many calls to both Questrade and QTrade, I gathered that transfers at this point in the year were impossible. Of course, QTrade had already charged me the $150 plus tax transfer out fee.
  • In the new year, I resumed hassling Questrade and QTrade support for updates. This was made more complicated by a free money promotion offered by Questrade, which meant their support desk, shaky at the best of times, became completely overwhelmed. I saw a series of cryptic messages in my transfer update that indicated somebody wasn’t responding to a followup. These cryptic messages disappeared from my status update last week, which I either took to mean progress or an attempt to cover up inept practices, I haven’t decided which yet.
  • Anyway, without much fanfare, the assets appeared in my RRIF accounts on Friday, February 6th. My transfer status still shows “in progress”, for what it’s worth.

Anyway, I’m happy this latest transfer is done, but there’s still some tidying up I have to do:

  • I have to make sure I know what Questrade will use for RRIF minimum for the newly moved accounts. That’s another call to support, regrettably. And since I missed a month of payments, I have to figure out how to catch up.
  • I have to make sure Questrade refunds me the transfer out fees. I uploaded the documentation (which, I note, Wealthsimple does not require) to “prove” I was charged $1501.
  • I will check (again) to ensure all these RRIF accounts have a properly documented successor. That’s really important.

This last go-round was especially unsatisfactory since I got no free money out of it, which is really quite galling given how much is being thrown around these days2.

Anyway, it’s nice to have a simpler view of my portfolio; Passiv gives me a unified view across Wealthsimple and Questrade, but since the relationship between Questrade and Passiv has come to an end, I’m not sure what that will entail once my free “elite” subscription ends in March.

  1. Since every broker does this, this is 100% an exercise to prevent refunds to the unwary. . ↩︎
  2. Just search this site for “free money” if you don’t believe me. ↩︎

RRIF Support Showdown: Wealthsimple, Questrade, QTrade

RobHLeave a comment

I’m currently holding RRIF accounts at three different online providers (QTtrade, Questrade and Wealthsimple)1. So I am perhaps uniquely positioned to comment on the relative goodness and badness of the support of this kind of account at these three brokers. I also have some experience with BMO Investorline in this regard, but that experience is getting a bit long in the tooth now.

So without further ado, let’s take a look:

Wealthsimple

Wealthsimple now provides support for both RRIFs and (relatively recently) Spousal RRIFs. And although Wealthsimple supports USD accounts, they do not (for whatever reason) support USD RRIFs2, which, for many readers, isn’t a big deal, but to me it is.

But for all that, I still hold a CAD RRIF with Wealthsimple. It started last year, when I realized my DPSP couldn’t be immediately converted to a RRIF, and Wealthsimple was offering a shiny new Macbook to win the business. How could a certified cheapskate refuse?

Since I only opened the RRIF last year, this year is the first year where I’m obliged to take out RRIF-minimum payments. Wealthsimple makes this stupidly easy on many levels:

  • They clearly display what your minimum payment for the year is right on the account screen, and they also show how much you have left to go against that minimum
  • They make it easy to create a “recurring withdrawal” from the RRIF, which is something I do every month, and I can easily change this whenever I want, although I’m not planning on doing that.
  • And — bonus — they support XGRO fractional shares AND the ability to place a sell trade in dollars and cents rather than # of units. This means I can sell EXACTLY the number of XGRO units I need to every month, with no excess dead-money cash floating around.

You have to set up your bank account for EFT withdrawals before this works, of course.

QTrade

I still hold 3 RRIF accounts at QTrade, although I’ve been trying to move them to Questrade since late November. Seems that there is an industry-wide freeze on moving RRIF accounts in the month of December.

QTrade supports USD and CAD RRIF accounts, and they keep them completely separate — different account numbers, even. They are linked, however, because the TOTAL value of the 2 accounts is used to determine your CAD RRIF minimum payment. I’ve only withdrawn RRIF funds in Canadian dollars, because I couldn’t get a straight answer whether I could withdraw USD funds natively to my USD account.

QTrade also supports Norbert’s Gambit, which is important if you want to convert between USD and CAD cheaply.

With QTrade, you have to send in a form to set up your RRIF withdrawals, either monthly/quarterly/annually. And per their fee schedule, if you deviate from this, you owe them $503.

Once the schedule is in place, the withdrawals happen automatically. You have to make sure you sell your assets in advance of the withdrawal date. What happens if you don’t have enough funds? Not sure, cannot find any documentation that addresses this. There is also no indication online as to what your RRIF minimum payment is; you have to contact support if you want the exact amount.

Questrade

The majority of my RRIF holdings are here. As mentioned above, I’m trying to move 3 RRIF accounts from QTrade to Questrade. The delay from end of November to beginning of January seems like it’s explainable by the aforementioned industry-wide freeze. But since then, I lay the blame fully on Questrade for dragging their feet on getting the right forms in QTrade’s hands.

Questrade supports USD RRIFs, and combines them with CAD holdings. Same account for both, and they do a nice job of providing you with multiple views so you can see your portfolio in either currency.

Questrade also supports Norbert’s Gambit, and I’ve used it multiple times already to convert USD holdings into CAD holdings.

Questrade requires a form to set up RRIF payments, and like anything involving a form at Questrade, you have to sit on top of support to make sure someone actually reads the form.

Like QTrade, Questrade treats RRIF minimum payments as some sort of secret, forcing you to contact support if you don’t know what the value is.

You can also exceptionally get “extra” payments using the “Move Money” menu. I am not sure how withholding tax would work if you did this. It appears that you could also withdraw USD from this menu. The “Move Money” menu is one that seems to be rather fragile — bank accounts previously linked have a habit of disappearing from this screen.

As I write this, Questrade is only batting .500 in delivering the first RRIF payment. I got mine, but my spouse did not. Unclear why this may be, the support person I spoke to also seemed perplexed.

The Verdict

If you have USD in your RRIF, I would probably pick Questrade over QTrade. Questrade’s support of “on demand” payments is a nice flexibility. The one downside is that Questrade charges a flat fee to execute Norbert’s Gambit, whereas QTrade, as far as I can tell, does not.

But once Wealthsimple supports USD in RRIFs and Norbert’s Gambit4, they would be my #1 pick for managing the RRIF payments. High degree of automation, high degree of flexibility, high degree of transparency. If you don’t have USD in your RRIF, then I could recommend Wealthsimple over the other two.

  1. Mishaps and greed have contributed to this current situation. I don’t condone it. ↩︎
  2. Proof: https://help.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/17933575404315-Open-a-RRIF#h_01H8Y8853951RYHHA80S11T5Y9:~:text=Can%20I%20hold%20USD%20cash%20in%20my%20self%2Ddirected%C2%A0RRIF%3F ↩︎
  3. I’ve never had the need, but be forewarned! ↩︎
  4. Coming this quarter per this PR. ↩︎

News: QTrade Offers Free Money

RobHLeave a comment

New year, new promotions! QTrade (different from Questrade, don’t mix them up) is offering free money to new clients. It’s featured prominently here.

Detailed terms and conditions are here, but it’s pretty straightforward: register for the promotion with promo code CASHBACK26 and fund your account by April 30th. Keep it there for a year, and this is what you can expect your payout to be in May 2027:

The higher tier amounts aren’t particularly noteworthy as compared to others out there. But you’d be hard pressed to find a better ROI than $250 for a $1000 investment.

News: Wealthsimple now supports spousal RRIFs

RobH1 Comment

Well, that figures.

Right after the final, final deadline of Wealthsimple’s last free money offer, it appears that Wealthsimple is now offering spousal RRIFs as an account type for the DIY investor (they’ve had them for quite a while in their robo-advisor accounts).

This had always struck me as silly, especially since they have offered spousal RRSPs for a while now.

Full instructions on how to open one found here.

With this development, Wealthsimple is nearly a viable option to host all of my retirement funds1. My needs are pretty simple:

  • support for all the account types I need (RRIF/Spousal RRIF, TFSA, joint non-registered, individual non-registered)
  • zero cost ETF buy/sell
  • support for Norbert’s Gambit (which implies support for USD accounts, naturally)

Norbert’s Gambit is planned in early 2026 for Wealthsimple, per the very limited info found here.

So, if you’ve been on the fence about Wealthsimple, here’s one more reason to consider them. Once Questrade’s free money gravy train ends for me in March 2027, they become a personal serious contender, especially if they are willing to throw free money my way, which, historically, has certainly been a recurring theme. On that note, if any reader wants to give them a whirl, I have referral codes, just shoot me a note at comments@moneyengineer.ca; if you act quickly2, there might be some free Apple gear in it for you too.

  1. QTrade and Questrade both offer all three. There may be others. ↩︎
  2. Register by December 23, 2025 ↩︎

Online brokerage promos: when does the gravy train end?

RobH5 Comments

Online brokers are busily throwing money around to attract new customers; a quick search reveals many active promotions as I write this from Webull Canada, RBC, TD, QTrade, Wealthsimple….All of it has a bit of “if this seems too good to be true, it probably is” flavour to it.

I asked this same question on Reddit and the consensus seemed to be that this is the new normal in the online brokerage world, just like it’s normal for telcos/cablecos/ISPs to throw around big discounts in order to steal customers from one another.

But yet, I feel a little uneasy how money for nothing has become the norm. For DIY investors like me, it’s hard to see how my providers make any money off of me. I did a bit of research into the best proxy I could think of…Robinhood.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Robinhood is now part of the S&P 500 lineup; this is no fly-by-night company. Their quarterly results are public, and it was quite illuminating. Robinhood’s most recent quarter’s results are shown below.

Robinhood revenue sources: Source Robinhood Q2 2025 Earnings Presentation

So it looks pretty straightforward; revenue is coming from three sources, and their average revenue per user (ARPU) is a pretty healthy $151 dollars. Let’s look a bit further:

  • Transactions: Options trading and Crypto trading make up the bulk of the revenues here, but roughly 15% of their transaction revenue comes from basic equity trades ($66M in Q2’25).
  • Interest: a large chunk of this is interest made from margin ($114M in Q2’25), but a growing percentage comes from credit card interest charges.
  • “Other”: not elaborated further, but it’s small, so we can ignore it. Perhaps this accounts for the revenue from their 3.5M “Robinhood Gold” subscribers1

The transaction revenue was surprising to me since equity trades are free on Robinhood, yet they are still finding a way to make money. Further reading indicates that the exchanges are sharing some of their bid/ask spread revenue with Robinhood, which seems like a win/win/win: Robinhood makes a tiny bit of revenue on each trade, the exchange gets more volume which allows them to make more spread revenue, and the customer gets free trades2.

Robinhood transaction revenue: Source Robinhood Q2 2025 Earnings Presentation

So, assuming the Wealthsimples and Questrades of the world are following Robinhood’s lead, they are making money off of me every time I place a trade. (Sorry, I don’t trade options, I don’t trade crypto, I don’t trade on margin, and I don’t run a balance on any credit card I use). Since switching to Questrade (and getting free trades) I can tell you that my own behaviour has changed; I have always hated seeing non-productive cash in any of my accounts, and so with free trades, I can freely buy one share of something to clean up the last dribs of cash I may have in any given account. My “getting paid in retirement” strategy also requires a monthly flurry of trades (see the details here).

All this to say I feel less uneasy about the free money being thrown around; Canada’s online brokerage community seems to be following a successful playbook:

  • Get lots of customers, even if you have to pay them to get on board
  • Expand your offers, especially profitable offers, and entice as many of your army of fans to use them (crypto, margin trading, options trading, credit cards, subscription offers)
  • Invest just enough in your platform to not lose too many clients; switching online providers can take a lot of work (I know, I did it: read more here)

So my advice is to absolutely take advantage of the free money out there and enjoy the gravy!

  1. Perhaps serving as the inspiration for Questrade Plus? ↩︎
  2. Not everyone thinks this is a great idea ↩︎