It takes time to read through, here are some points posted from somebody

I opened an account on NBDB. Here’s the process:

1. Use their portal to open a brokerage account online. I opened CAD and USD TFSA.

2. Wait for a day for them to have the account opened, post which you receive an email with the account number and instructions to set up the online credentials.

3. Fill this form Electronic Funds Transfer and send it to directbrokerage@nbc.ca along with a void cheque. This gets setup in a day

4. Login to brokerage account and follow this YouTube video to fund your USD account using Norbet’s Gambit.

I've been with National Bank Direct Brokerage for just over a year.

Here are my thoughts:

Advantages

- Yes, the pricing is real. Previously the pricing for "active" traders was $0.95 per stock trade, but that required 100+ trades every 3 months. ETF's were previously free as long as the transaction was for 100 shares or greater. Now it's $0.00, with no account or share minimums. This is surprisingly good.
- If you place a minimum of 10 trades/month, you get access to Market-Q with Level 1 quotes for free. Level 2 quotes require 40+ trades per month, otherwise, you are charged $60.00.
- They have Distinctive Services where you get access to a dedicated group or dedicated account manager (depends on asset level). The minimum asset level was $500K for Advantage Direct Brokerage and $1M for Private Direct Brokerage. I understand these asset levels will be modified to make it more restrictive going forward.
- If you qualify at the Private Direct Brokerage level, you get access to better margin rates, free personalized reports like gains/losses, foreign reporting, no fees for lump-sum withdrawals from an RRSP, RRIF or LIRA, dedicated account manager, etc.

* Note: In order to get the pricing, your statements must be delivered electronically and your orders must be placed electronically.


Disadvantages (for me at least)

- National Bank Direct Brokerage does not have a "native" app to access their trading platform. You essentially have to login through the website. This means, there's no dedicated mobile app.
- NBDB does not have trailing stop losses
- NBDB does not support multi-legged options trades. You must enter trades separately.


Any other questions, let me know.

ucanread wrote: ↑ I'm glad you have been having a good experience with them. I got a few questions.

1. You said you are able to use the funds without having to wait long (~5 minutes) which I think is as good as having a big bank account and their direct investing platform. I bank with EQ and wonder if I can do this? Do you initiate the transfer at NB side or at EQ side like a Bill Payment?

You would initiate the transfer on the NBDB side as a direct debit from your bank account, which is usually withdrawn in a 2 - 3 business days. In my experience, and from what their reps have told me before, they will approve your buy orders as long as you have enough pending bank transfers initiated to cover the cost of your purchases (since the cash transfer will arrive in time for the settlement date), however, it goes to a representative for manual approval (no cost) which is where the ~5 minute delay kicks in. I did at one point have around $35K or so of cash inbound into NBDB and they let me trade with all of it, although I am not sure if they will always 100% approve if the inbound transfer is significant relative to your total account balance (e.g. if you transfer in $500K with a $25K account balance...). If you open a margin account, you won't have this issue (unless you don't have enough margin to cover), so I think that's a simpler solution with no real downside (as long as you are not worried about lack of self control...).

I think I looked for a bill payment option to fund from Tangerine and didn't see one, but not sure if I might've missed it. I think it's better to initiate from NBDB's end anyways for the above reasons, except that I am a bit paranoid about direct debits and accidental NSFs (I did this once accidentally when I selected my RBC instead of Tangerine bank account and got hit with NSF fees on both RBC and NBDB's ends, which both waived on request as a customer in good standing).

2. As far as I read, the USD/CAD accounts are separate unlike the Questrade or IBKR where both currencies can be held in one account. Is that correct?

Correct. They will share the same account root so practically, I am not too sure what difference there would be although it wouldn't hurt to be able to see everything in a single account for convenience. For registered accounts and I believe margin accounts as well, the buying power is linked between the two $CAD and $USD accounts, for what it's worth. For some reason it's not linked for regular cash accounts, although there isn't a huge impact since you'd have to convert funds manually anyways (just a question of whether you convert before/after the trade).

3. I was watching a Norbert's Gambit video for NBDB and the author said it requires 4 days to settle and you need to call them to complete the journaling process. Can you explain a bit about the NG process and time duration specifically?

Unfortunately I am not sure as I have never actually done this. I have just swallowed the FX rate mark-up (~2.5%) since I am lazy, which will probably earn me some judgement on this forum but I can live with it as a one time cost for funds I will invest over the rest of my lifetime. I have asked them to transfer $CAD stocks to my $USD accounts many times; what they have told me in the past is that they can't complete the transfer until after the purchase has settled and then it's usually effective the next business day once initiated (but they did tell me, I think, that once they have initiated the transfer you can sell the stock in the other account even if the journal over hasn't shown up on your account yet). You can request to transfer shares from one account to another via secure messaging and they will usually respond and initiate within the one business day, which I prefer over calling even though it's less immediate. So I think it is very much doable but the reason I haven't bothered is that I am usually investing in small increments (paycheque to paycheque) so to me the process seems a bit onerous to do frequently.

4. Am I able to use snap quotes without subscribing to any market data packages?

Sorry I am not totally sure what this means - like, real time quotes or?

5. How do you like their monthly reporting (statements) and the platform for screening stocks/ETFs?

The statements are fine, the format is a bit more aesthetically pleasing than I recall my RBC Direct Investing statements being but either way they have the usual necessary information. I don't really rely on them much, mostly I just download the account activity for non-registered accounts in order to pull it into my Excel template for ACB tracking (they give you ACB information in your T5008 but for $USD accounts it is all in $USD rather than translated to $CAD at spot rates so kind of useless. I don't really use the screening tools. I do sometimes download the Morningstar company reports that they have for a lot of (non-small cap) stocks, which I like to read through from time to time. I am not a super active investor, I just invest in broad market ETFs and stocks of companies that I like.

One thing I will critique, indirectly related to the question on statements, is that the portfolio allocation and performance visualization tools are not the most sophisticated.

Background: I'm not an active trader rather an ETF investor so my requirements are pretty basic.

TIA

CAD and USD are separate.
Purchases and Sales are free (stocks and ETF's)
To get free level 2 quotes in Market-Q, you need 40+ trades per month regardless of asset level.
No cash back.

smartie wrote: ↑ In tddi, you can set up account level drip, so all stocks under that account will have drip

Thanks. TD's method is definitely much easier than NB's. With NB, you have to call in each time you buy a different stock and want the dividend reinvested. It's a total PITA.

Eaglesfan99 wrote: ↑ One other question that I forgot is does NB have a 30 min delay on their quotes or is it real time?

Real time on the web and streaming real time via Market-Q.

Just got back from the branch and the advisor explained that if you have a minimum of 250K with NBDB, you qualify for free banking, a line of credit at prime (subject to approval) as well as a free premium MasterCard (platinum, world or world elite)

Not a bad deal!

Since national bank don't charge fee to sell your holdings, you can just sell your holding at year end, eft your balance out, deposit the cash to your new registered account at no cost and no lost of contribution room.

sprinter wrote: ↑ Thanks for providing an update. I plan on using the bill pay feature from CTFS MC (and collect some rewards along the way).

If anyone is interested...CTFS MC has NBIN and it accepts the 7 digit account number. I haven't tested it yet, as I just got activated. From what the phone agent mentioned, bill payments "will be accepted in the beginning, for a small amount to get you started. Funding from bill payment will not be accepted on an ongoing basis".

Did anyone experience any issues using bill payment only as a funding source?

Never experienced issues.

MtX wrote: ↑ Also confirmed both went thru.

Payee "National Bank Financial Institution", sent $20 on Aug 31 before my 830PM cutoff time and the funds settled in my NBNB cash account on Sept 1
Payee "NBIN" (National Bank Independent Network), sent $5 on Sept 1 before my 830PM cutoff time and the funds settled in my NBNB cash account on Sept 2

I tried sending back a small test withdrawal tonight, using the "Transfer" button to my linked (external) bank account. There was no fee mentioned after I clicked confirm, and I did not see any fees added against my account. However, the withdrawal will only take place on September 8th, given the stat holiday. I will report back if I am charged a fee then.

It looks like the $75 fee is for a wire transfer, not an EFT using your linked account.

The website lists a $50 fee for RRSP/RRIF withdrawals. For a TFSA, the FAQ section states that you can withdraw from your TFSA by selling some holdings, moving cash to your Cash account, and then using the transfer button. It does not indicate any fees associated with doing this.

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