This was the year of the GIC. Of the 28 rates WhatBank tracks, 28 increased their 5yr rate over the year. The median five year GIC rate on December 31st was 4.6%. View WhatBank’s interactive table of Canada’s best GIC rates and sign up to receive email notifications when rates you care about change.
Plots for Canadian high-interest savings rates from January 1st to December 31st, 2022 for the banks and credit unions that WhatBank follows. Out of the 26, 24 increased their rates, while two kept them flat.
Rob Carrick, the personal finance columnist, for the Globe and Mail, had a recent column about how 5-yr GIC rates are related to the five-year Canada bond. For context, let’s take a look at the last 22 years of the Government of Canada 5yr benchmark bond yield.
Canadians love gift cards. The Canadian gift card industry is expected to exceed seven billion dollars in 2022. To determine the best credit card for gift cards you need to see how quickly points accumulate with the spending of each card and also how efficiently those points translate into gift card dollars.
There is very little difference between a pure cash back credit card and a rewards card that allows you to use your accumulated points as a statement credit. That is why WhatBank considered both of these options to determine the best cash back card in Canada.
Today Wealth One Bank raised their 1yr, 2yr, 3yr, 4yr and 5yr GIC rates and is now number one in each term. These rates are available everywhere in Canada except Quebec.
Five year GIC rates have had a lot of action these past few months. With the Bank of Canada’s interest rate announcement next week (September 7th at 10am), I thought it would be timely to look at the five year GIC rates for all the financial institutions that WhatBank tracks for the period from January 1st to August 31st 2022.
The charts are arranged in descending order based on the rate on June 30th. For comparison, the average 5yr GIC rate on June 30th was 4.27%, with an average increase of +1.52% during the quarter.