*Updated February 11th 2020

Tangerine Bank Review:

One of the best no-fee banks these days is Tangerine!

This is where I personally choose to bank so today, I’m going to give you a deep dive into all things Tangerine.

What they offer, whether it’s good or not (in my opinion), and why you might want to choose it for your own money storage needs!

Fees

First, let’s talk about the fees. This is one of the top things I look at when I’m evaluating a bank. I think it’s ridiculous that banks charge for the privilege of holding our money. We might as well just keep it in a Ziploc bag under our mattress instead!

With Tangerine, there are no account fees.

They actually have a pdf on their website that lists all their fees with their ‘fair fees’ disclosure on the top of it.

They say that their company stance fees is that they should be fair, disclosed in advance, and balanced; relative to the benefit received. (I mean, legally, they HAVE to disclose their fees, all the banks do. So maybe it’s a marketing thing to present it in this way but, I’m an optimistic person and everything I’ve seen about tangerine leads me to believe that this is pretty genuine.)

It IS super helpful that they’re pretty clear about everything and conveniently provide this one page overview.

I’m not going to go through all the fees they have, but I will highlight their E-transfer fees.

Interest:

As mentioned in my last post Canadian Bank Reviews (Where to stash cash), Tangerine is one of the banks with Interest rates on the higher side.

For their chequing account, their interest is 0.15% and for their savings account it’s 1.15%

Compared to brick and mortar banks, this is great, compared to other internet banks, it’s pretty much on par which is all we can ask for!

Again, they list their interest rates pretty clearly on their rates page so check it out there!

Products & Offerings:

Tangerine is a pretty full-service bank with a lot of product offerings. This means you could get just about any of your banking needs filled here: investment accounts, mortgages, lines of credit, the whole shebang.

What I really want to highlight though, is their credit card.

Tangerine has one of the best cash back reward cards in Canada.

That’s right - I said it!

With Tangerine, you get to CHOOSE cash back categories. You get to pick 2 categories that you’ll receive 2% cashback on those. Then on everything else, you’ll receive 0.5%! If you put your rewards towards paying your credit card balance, you get an extra 2% category as well!

There’s no fees or limits with this either, you can earn as much cash back as you spend! I love that this card is so versatile, it’s a great option if you’re looking for a cashback card!

Customer Satisfaction:

From what I can tell, Tangerine is pretty great to it’s customers. Personally, I’ve always had good experiences with them, and heard that within my social group also. But (more objectively), if we look at the general banking satisfaction in Canada they seem to be doing pretty well also.

They’ve won the J.D. Power Survey for Customer Satisfaction 8 years in a row.

Both in terms of being the top ranked in it’s category, and also with the highest overall score in customer satisfaction. (Assuming the scale was the same) You can see here that TD comes in with a 789 in the big bank category, and Tangerine with a 827 mid-size category.

Usability & Gimmicks:

Something I really care about when I’m reviewing things is the day-to-day usability.

I love that Tangerine has …Tangerine calls them ‘Recipes’ which I think is a totally weird way of phrasing it, but I’m going to call them ‘gimmicks’ I guess? Basically just these cool little ways of treating your accounts.

You can set up automatic ‘rules’ for things, like sending a certain percentage of your paycheque to savings, or rounding up your purchases or ‘saving’ when your favourite sports team wins? I don’t know. Some of them are pretty weird, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend all of them but they’re still a cute idea.

You can tell they have actually paid attention to what’s happening in the fintech world because there are tons of apps popping up that do things like this for you. (Meaning there’s obviously a market for these types of saving tools)

This proves to me they’ve number one, got a sense of humour, and number two, are working to advance themselves and keep up with the times. 2 things that are important to me in choosing a company!

The Tangerine App:

I also want to mention here that the banking app for Tangerine is also pretty great! I do most of my banking on my phone, so app usability is definitely a sticking point when it comes to choosing a bank. Again, not the TOP consideration, but it certainly helps when you can easily integrate day-to-day banking into your life instead of it being a terrible chore!

Alright, now let’s talk sign-up bonuses.

Sign-Up Bonuses:

Again, not the top thing to consider because you want to choose your bank based on the long-term experience and not just the first 6 months; however certainly something to think about because Tangerine has got some AWESOME beginner bonuses!

When you sign up with them, you get 2.75% Interest on your savings accounts for the first 6 months. You can also get a $50 referral bonus for you and a friend if you use their ‘Orange Key’. When I signed up to Tangerine, there were also additional perks like $50 for depositing at least $100, and $150 for switching over my payroll deposits for at least 6 months.

These additional perks seem to ebb and flow depending on the time of year, but they do seem open up these additions repeatedly so just do some googling and hopefully you’ll get lucky with the timing!

Conclusion:

Overall, Tangerine is a pretty good choice. (I mean, I personally bank here so was it really a surprise that I liked them?) I think they’ve got some great offerings that cost you nothing, and with the additions of having good interest rates, unique savings strategies, and a great app interface, it seems like a no brainer.

The only thing that would make it better is if they followed suit with simplii and offered free Interac transfers!

Let me know in the comments down below, what is your opinion of Tangerine?

Do you think you’ll make the switch? and Do you love or hate the little gimmicks that offered these days?