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How I Got $200 and 50 Free Trades from CIBC Investor’s Edge for a Self-Directed Brokerage Account

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As I mentioned previously, for the first time ever we’ve actually got more money than we need. Ok, yes, we’ll need it eventually: we have children; they are not in high school yet, much less married, introducing our grandchildren, buying their homes and all the other joys of life. And I guess we’ll need to get rid of the avocado green toilet and sink one of these days as the corrosion, though hidden, is getting worse on both. Still, in theory, we’re (temporarily) awash with cash. I decided we should take some of it and put it into something, either GICs or bonds or the stock market, in a non-registered investment account. So I went shopping for the best bonus I could get and ended up with $200, 50 trades and a CIBC Investor’s Edge brokerage account.

Why Was Getting This Bonus Significant?

Well because CIBC Investor’s Edge is not offering a bonus right now!

All I could find in the way of “deals” at this time was a bonus at BMO InvestorLine. It was reasonable: $50, 50 trades that have to be executed practically before the cash is deposited in your account, and a year’s subscription to the Globe and Mail online. But $50 didn’t sound like much and I’m not actually partial to the Globe. (I know: Blasphemy from a financial writer, right?)

And our combined assets with CIBC would get us $6.95 trades. I don’t “trade” much, if at all, but I do occasionally buy shares and ETFs with new money and with dividends. A $3 savings isn’t huge but it’s pleasant.

I do dislike the fact that CIBC Investor’s Edge doesn’t offer, currently, access to buy GICs from Home Trust unlike BMO InvestorLine and RBC Direct Investing. I intend to lobby them to add that choice, though!

I also prefer some of the ways InvestorLine displays our holdings and transactions. But given we rarely actually DO anything with our investments (since we are in it for the long term) it’s not a big concern.

How Did We Get the Investor’s Edge Bonus?

After procrastinating for a few days, we decided we would open the non-registered brokerage account at CIBC Investor’s Edge if we could get them to at least match the BMO InvestorLine bonus.

So I phoned Investor’s Edge and asked what they could offer.

The first representative said she thought they might be able to make me an offer, so she transferred us to a person “qualified to make us an offer.”

This person could offer:

  • $100 and 25 free trades if we transferred $25 000 into a new non-registered brokerage account; or
  • $200 and 50 free trades if we transferred in $50 000

Since $200 is more valuable to me than $50 and the Globe and Mail, we decided to accept.

Now if you’ve been reading along hoping to get the code for the Bonus from me, I’m sorry to say you’re out of luck. Instead of providing a code to apply online, the representative applied on our behalf. They will mail us out the paperwork to review and sign. They’re even including a postage-paid envelope (because they know cheap @($*$ like us would probably renege on the deal without one.) We also have a direct phone number if we need to discuss the process with this person.

On the other hand, I can’t see any reason why you can’t get the same deal just by phoning. We didn’t provide any other new business to CIBC or Investor’s Edge.

Anyway, I think it was worth spending 10 minutes on the phone to get the offer and provide all the identifying info needed to open the account.

What Information Did We Need to Provide to Open the Brokerage Account by Telephone with Investor’s Edge

Speaking of which, the info we needed to provide for the joint brokerage account included

  • our names
  • telephone numbers
  • mailing address
  • employers’ names and addresses
  • job titles
  • average annual income
  • approximate liquid assets
  • approximate fixed assets value (e.g. house value)
  • approximate debt (none!)
  • social insurance numbers
  • driver’s license numbers

They also requested permission to check our information with a credit bureau. (I think he said Equifax but I’m not sure.)

This is all the same information we get asked for whenever we open a brokerage account so none of it was a surprise.

And Now We Wait

So we’ve done all we can for now. I guess if Canada Post continues its habit of only delivering mail when the weather is good we may not get the papers till early next week.

We’ll see.

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Have you talked your way into a bigger bonus from your brokerage? Were they happy to offer you a good deal? Please share your experiences with a comment.