Opening Bank Accounts!

Bank Accounts in North America are different from those in India. They are extremely different and each bank has different offerings. It is important to shop around and make informed decisions. Bank accounts are very essential for setting up your base and the statements can serve as a good proof of residence.
Canadians mostly bank through Automated Banking Machines (ABM), Phone Banking and Internet. There are regular branches as well that you can visit for your banking needs. There are two basic types of accounts a Checking Account and a Savings Account. They have several varieties to them as well, however, from what we have gathered thus far, is that a Checking Account is very much like a Current Account back home and it can be used for your daily transactions. You don't earn a lot of interest on these accounts and you do need to maintain a minimum balance with some banks in order to enjoy fee less transactions.

A Savings Account is more like a fixed deposit account and you have very limited amount of transactions that you can make in a month with these accounts. These accounts earn interests in the range of 3.5% to about 4.5% depending upon the type of account chosen.

Both the bankers that we met, were exteremly polite people. They not only gave us valuable tips on banking but also on general things to do before we set ourselves up.

A good tip to people immigrating to Canada is to convert your local money into Canadian funds. This makes it faster for your money to clear as well as ensures that you don't lose out in conversion fees.