Tag: hisa

News: Canadian and US interest rates stable; HISA Table for June unchanged

RobHLeave a comment

The Bank of Canada maintained their policy rate constant last week1, and as a result the HISA table remains stable, with no changes from the previous month. On the US side, no changes were announced at the mid-may Fed meeting; the next US Fed meeting happens June 18th, and as a result, there’s no changes on the US side either. The US Fed rate remains at 4.33%, the same level it’s been since December 19, 2024.

You can see last month’s table over here, with a newly updated “last update” date 🙂

Since my provider (Questrade) doesn’t provide a way to buy HISAs on the cheap, I use ZMMK for my Canadian cash holdings and ICSH for my USDs. These ETFs are part of my ETF all-stars. ZMMK’s last distribution was $0.12 per share, which works out to a yield of 2.89%2 and ICSH’s last distribution was $0.198284 per share, which works out to a yield of 4.71%.

As expected, I’m getting a slight premium on my interest rate for taking on a slightly more risky investment. I’ll keep on eye on that in future posts!

  1. At 2.75%, if you’re keeping track ↩︎
  2. 0.12/49.90*12 ↩︎

News: HISA Table for May, Questrade Plus, WealthSimple Self-Directed RESPs

RobH2 Comments

Happy May to all, here’s some news from the world of Canadian DIY investing.

HISA rates are stable

HISAs, for those in the know, are “High Interest Savings Accounts” and offer a nearly zero risk1 way to earn some interest on your cash holdings. Read all about them here. “Class F” funds are usually available via your online broker, often bought and sold in the same module as mutual funds, although they are NOT mutual funds.

The periodically updated HISA table I maintain has been updated for May. No changes seen from last month, which is unsurprising, given both Canada and the USA have held interest rates steady over the past month. Here it is:

ProviderFundLinkRate SheetRate
RBCRBF2011, RBF2021, RBF2031, RBF2041RBCLink2.55%
ScotiabankDYN6004, DYN5004, DYN3065, DYN3055, DYN3075ScotiabankLink2.70%
Equitable BankEQB1001, ETR1001Equitable Bankn/a2.55%
TDTDB8151, TDB8156, TDB8158, TDB8160TDn/a2.55%
RenaissanceATL5071Renaissancen/a2.55%
Home TrustHOM101,
HOM201		Home TrustLink2.65%
B2BBTB101B2B Bankn/a2.75%
ManulifeMIP610, MIP810Manulifen/a2.40%
National BankNBC200, NBC6200, NBC8200NBI Altamira CashPerformern/a2.55%
Canadian HISA rates, last updated June 9, 2025

Here are the USD rates offered:

ProviderFundLinkRate SheetRate
RBCRBF2015RBCLink4.15%
ScotiabankDYN6005,
DYN5005		ScotiabankLink4.15%
Equitable BankEQB1101,
ETR1101		Equitable Bankn/a3.80%
TDTDB8153TDn/a4.15%
RenaissanceATL5075Renaissancen/a4.15%
ManulifeMIP611Manulifen/a3.30%
National BankNBC201NBI Altamira CashPerformern/a4.15%
USA HISA rates, last updated June 9, 2025

Questrade Plus Launches: Meh

In other news, Questrade launched a new subscription service2. Dubbed “Questrade Plus”, $11.95/month gets you free journaling, better quote data, and a subscription to Passiv Elite.

As a newly-minted Questrade user (got my first bonus payment yesterday, yay!) I see this as a net negative. Let’s look at why.

Passiv Elite is no Longer Free

One nifty (and unexpected) bonus I discovered being a Questrade client was getting access to Passiv’s advanced features. Questrade Plus means that particular freebie is coming to an end. Passiv’s “community” (i.e. free) service is still somewhat useful, but if you want automated rebalancing, you’re going to have either pay Questrade (and subscribe to Questrade Plus) or Passiv (currently $99/year) for that privilege in the near future.

Unlimited Journaling of Limited Use

The unlimited journaling feature of Questrade Plus targets people like me who do Norbert’s Gambit to convert USD to CAD on the cheap, but since I don’t do this sort of thing super-frequently (maybe 5-6 times a year at most), I’d rather pay-as-I-go (currently priced at $9.95 per request).

Real Time Data Streaming of No Interest

The “real time data streaming” feature targets the day trader. Other providers include this sort of thing for free (QTrade, Interactive Brokers). That’s not my thing. It does make me wonder who Questrade sees as their ideal client. Are they trying to be Wealthsimple? Or are they trying to be Interactive Brokers?

Wealthsimple Self-Directed RESPs, coming soon

Wealthsimple continues to chip away at the gaps in their self-directed portfolio offerings. RESPs were one of those gaps, but now it’s been filled, and the main website has been updated to reflect this. I can confirm that I have been offered a spot on the beta launch, so its release to the general public is imminent. Wealthsimple has offered robo-advisor RESPs for a while, but the DIY investor has been forced — until now — to look elsewhere for this.

  1. Unless banks fail. We are all in a lot more trouble if that happens. ↩︎
  2. Because, we all know, you can never have enough subscriptions, right? ↩︎

The HISA table April 2025

RobHLeave a comment

Summary: High Interest Savings Accounts (HISAs) are a way for cash to earn half-decent, risk-free interest. These “Series F” HISAs are likely available through your online broker, but you may have to ask how to get at them, exactly.

We talked about HISAs in February over here if you need a quick reminder: https://moneyengineer.ca/2025/02/14/earn-money-with-your-cash-the-hisa-table-february-2025/

On March 12, the Bank of Canada reduced their overnight rates by another 0.25%.1 Unsurprisingly, this had a knock-on effect to the interest rates provided by the series F HISAs I track.

Equally unsurprisingly is that the US Federal Reserve didn’t touch their rates, and as a result, there were no changes in the HISA rates paid out for USD accounts. Here’s the full breakdown:

Current HISA rates for HISAs available via QTrade

There’s also a Google Sheets version with a bit more detail (source links) if you prefer.

For Canadian Dollar HISAs, B2B bank remains top of the heap: https://b2bbank.com/advisor-broker-rates/banking-rates.

For those of you who hold US cash in your brokerage accounts, you can benefit from the much higher US interest rates, and you have multiple choices since multiple providers are paying the same rate.

  1. You can also say “25 basis points” if you want to impress your friends ↩︎

QTrade versus Questrade unboxing

RobH4 Comments

I’m in the middle of my transition from QTrade to Questrade. With 11 different accounts to migrate, most of my time has been spent with their new account setup screens, but I have already taken note of a few differences that I’ve noticed between the two in my first week of using Questrade.

Trading fees on stocks and ETFs

Questrade recently announced that they were eliminating commissions on the buying and selling of all stocks and ETFs. QTrade has a decent list of free to trade ETFs, but obviously Questrade is the winner here.

Personally, I don’t think this will make a huge difference for me since my retirement portfolio is mostly based on QTrade’s “free” list (most notably XGRO and AOA), but it’s not fully in that camp. I’ll save a few bucks over the course of the year thanks to this.

Support

Those of you who read my mini-review of QTrade will know that I don’t consider their support a strong suit1.

I encountered quite a few snags2 along the way with Questrade’s account opening process, and as a result I have spent some time dealing with their support team.

One big difference you see right away is that they seem to rely exclusively on chat, with very clear (if sometimes disheartening3) queue position metrics. I myself am a fan of chat, especially one that makes it very clear where you are in the queue. Compared with QTrade, no contest — I’ll take keeping a window open on a computer I’m using over having to listen to highly compressed and repetitive hold music any day of the week!

A technical quibble I have with Questrade’s chat is that it is inconsistently persistent as you navigate the Questrade screens4. On more than one occasion I had my chat closed accidentally because I navigated to the “wrong” screen. Compared to other support chat platforms I’ve used (Rogers, for one), it’s decidedly feature-light.

The support I eventually got was uneven. I suppose last week may not have been the best week to attempt calling Questrade5, but all the same, sometimes the answers I got made no sense or were just flat out wrong.

US Dollar Account Support

Both companies are strong in this regard, allowing USD holdings in various accounts. Personally, I hold USD-denominated assets in my RRIF and my non-registered accounts. (I also used to hold USD assets in my TFSA, but because of the non-preferred tax treatment of dividends held in TFSAs, I got rid of those a few years ago).

The big difference that’s obvious immediately is while QTrade keeps the USD and CAD accounts separate — different account numbers, different screens to navigate — Questrade combines CAD and USD assets in one account. This has the pleasant side-effect of reducing the total number of accounts I have.

I haven’t investigated (yet) how values of accounts and portfolios are reported in Questrade6. I’m expecting that they will allow you to see your account and portfolio values in either USD or CAD7.

One of the irritants I had with QTrade is that they never, ever showed the USD/CAD exchange rate they were using to display the overall CAD value of the portfolio. It appeared they were using a rate that was consistently 1.5% below the spot rate.

And another irritant I had with QTrade is that I could not get RRIF payments natively in USD, something I was told was possible before I opened the RRIF in the first place8. Questrade claims they allow this on their public website, so I’m hopeful. More to come at the end of this month, hopefully.

HISA support

High Interest Savings accounts are an important part of my portfolio holdings since my decumulation strategy depends on them. QTrade has an extensive list of free to trade HISAs (I covered them here) but Questrade doesn’t provide access to this class of product. Instead I have to use ETFs. But since all ETFs are free to trade on Questrade, this shouldn’t really make a big deal of difference. In some ways, it’s better because QTrade restricted HISA purchases to a minimum of $1000, whereas most of the cash-oriented ETFs have an entry price of either $50 or $100 per unit.

I find it difficult to get answers to super-specific questions about various platforms, so if you have questions about any of the platforms I use/ have used (namely, BMO Investorline, Interactive Brokers, Wealthsimple, QTrade and Questrade), then feel free to ask away at comments@moneyengineer.ca.

  1. For an example of coherent and attentive customer support, you’d have to look at Wealthsimple ↩︎
  2. Their website appeared to be getting crushed at times…weird sporadic and non-repeatable error messages ↩︎
  3. Last week on one of my calls, I started at position 370 or so. That was a 90 minute wait. But at least I could write blogs while I waited, something that is really irritating to do when you have to listen to hold music. ↩︎
  4. Possibly browser-related, but c’mon, it’s 2025 and I was using OSX Safari! ↩︎
  5. RRSP season, and their generous promo ending… ↩︎
  6. I have accounts, but until the in-kind asset transfer completes, I have no assets. ↩︎
  7. Taking a peek at the mobile app while I write this, I see options for account balances to be reported as “Combined in CAD”, “Combined in USD”, “CAD” and “USD” so it appears my expectations will be met. ↩︎
  8. After two months (!) of back and forth with QTrade, I was told — last week — that this is possible using the exact same method I unsuccessfully attempted in January. ↩︎

ETFs for parking your money safely

RobH21 Comments

Since my new DIY broker (Questrade) does not support the purchase of high interest savings accounts (HISAs), I need to find a free-to-trade alternative. 5% of my retirement portfolio is invested in what is characterized as “cash”, but I expect that money to earn some sort of return with essentially zero risk. (Another 15% of my portfolio is in the bond market, which, as we all learned in the last few years, has its downsides1.)

Questrade (like Wealthsimple) offers free trades of all ETFs. So it makes sense for me to go looking for ETFs that invest in safe havens. Here’s what I turned up for investments in Canadian dollars, based on some Google searches and some reading of similar questions posted in the public domain. Not all of them are what I would call “equivalent” to a HISA.

Fund SymbolFund CompanyWhat it invests inMERCurrent annual yield2Commentary
CASHGlobal X“high-interest deposit accounts with one or more Canadian chartered banks”0.11%2.68%This invests in the HISAs I currently invest in
CBILGlobal X“short-term Government of Canada T-Bills”0.11%2.88%Not a HISA but a safe investment
HISAEvolve“high-interest deposit accounts”0.15%2.71%Equivalent to CASH but with a higher MER
MCADEvolve“Canadian dollar high-quality short term debt securities (with a term to maturity of 365 days or less)”0.20%3.17%Very short term bond fund. 18% of holdings have due dates of less than 30 days
ZMMKBMO“high-quality money market instruments issued by governments and corporations in Canada, including treasury bills, bankers’ acceptances, and commercial paper. 0.13%3.6%Not a HISA but a very short term bond fund3. 31% of holdings have due dates of less than 30 days.
CAD ETF Candidates for investing Canadian dollars

Based on this quick analysis, ZMMK looks pretty attractive — a lot of very short term (and hence safer) debt as compared to MCAD, excellent returns. It is clearly a riskier investment than something like CASH or HISA. Between CASH and HISA I lean to smaller MERs every time, so CASH wins. CBIL might be a sort of happy middle ground…a T-Bill ought to be as good as a bank. All of these ETFs have a pretty stable NAV, either $50 or $100 per unit, so there should be little to worry about in terms of capital gains.

Since I hold a lot of USD, (not convinced this is a good idea), I need to do the same exercise for USD safe havens.

Fund SymbolFund CompanyWhat it invests inMERCurrent Annual Yield4Commentary
HISUEvolve“primarily in high interest US dollar deposit accounts”0.11%4.05%This invests in the HISAs I currently invest in
HSUVGlobal X“primarily in high interest U.S. dollar deposit accounts with Canadian banks…not currently expected to make any regular distributions”0.2%n/aGlobal X “corporate class” ETFs convert interest payments into capital gains. This sort of ETF makes sense in a non-registered account to minimize taxes.
ICSHBlackRock“broad range of short term U.S. dollar-denominated investment-grade fixed- and floating-rate debt securities and money market instruments”0.08%4.31%Not HISA but 46% is invested in debt with less than 30 days maturity
MUSDEvolve“primarily in U.S. dollar-denominated high-quality short term debt securities (with a term to maturity of 365 days or less).”0.20%3.49%Similar in strategy to ICSH, but only 20% in debt with 30 days maturity and only 40 holdings.
UCSHGlobal X“primarily invests in high-interest U.S. dollar deposit accounts, which provide a higher interest rate than a traditional USD savings account.”0.16%4.08%HISA-like, based on term deposits
USD ETF Candidates for investing US dollars

ICSH is the clear winner in terms of return, but, like ZMMK, a little riskier than a simple bank account. It has a nice broad portfolio (363 individual holdings) which makes it feel safer. HISU looks like the straight-up HISA replacement.

What ETFs do you use to park your cash? Let me know at comments@moneyengineer.ca.

  1. Excellent graphic of historical returns available at https://themeasureofaplan.com/investment-returns-by-asset-class/ ↩︎
  2. Take the latest monthly distribution, divide by the unit price, multiply by 12. If BoC holds their interest rates steady for the year, you could expect to achieve this rate for the next year. As of March 3, 2025. ↩︎
  3. “Commerical paper” refers to very short term debts, 30 days average maturity. Like a credit card debt, maybe. ↩︎
  4. US based funds like this one report a “30 day SEC yield”, it represents “interest earned after deducting the fund’s expenses during the most recent 30-day period by the average investor in the fund”. ↩︎