UPDATE: This article is historical, from 2013. I no longer invest with RBC Direct Investing.

I’ve used a variety of online discount brokerages and I’ve found that even though they all seem to offer the same products and allow you to do the same things there are small differences. So before I try certain investments for the first time, I like to clarify the details with the brokerage. I prefer to do that in writing. Then I can review exactly what they said and not just assume I heard something they never actually stated. RBC Direct Investing allows me to contact their support team using a secure email system; I can send them a message from within my RBCDI account and they reply within that system.

Do Other Online Discount Brokerages Offer a Secure Email System?

BMO InvestorLine offers a similar secure email system called MyLink.

CIBC does not offer a secure email system. You can write to them with general questions at their listed email address but they will not answer questions that they feel require more security. Instead you’ll wait for their email reply which will just tell you to phone them!

How to Use the Message Centre to Send a Secure Email to the RBC Direct Investing Support Team

1. Sign in to your RBC Direct Investing account.
2. Click on the My Home tab.
3. Under the Your Communications bar, click on the appropriate phrase.
   For example, I click on: You have messages
4. Under the Bar called RBC Direct Investing – Need Help?
   Click on the middle link: Send Secure Email
   OR
   Click on the Customer Support link in the top right side of the screen.
   Scroll down to the Send us a secure e-mail heading and click on the link to the Secure Message Centre.
5. From the drop-down To: list select
   RBC Direct Investing
   (or RBC Royal Bank; RBC Dominion Securities; RBC Wealth Management)
6. When you select RBC Direct Investing you will get another set of choices.
   In the Subject: box, select the radio button beside one of the following:
   • Account Opening
   • Transfers
   • Trade Inquiries
   • Fees & Commissions
   • Account Maintenance
   • Other Inquiries
7. In the Message: field, type your question. There is a limit of 3000 characters.
8. The system will automatically add your name and the date before sending the message.
   (It was interesting to me that it does not add your account or client number. BMO InvestorLine’s SecureLink adds your account number.)
9. Click on the Send link.
   Your message will be saved.
   

To See Your Sent Messages

1. Click on the My Home tab.
2. Click on the You have messages link.
3. Your Sent Messages are listed in a table. You can sort them by date, subject, type and to (who you queried) by clicking on the appropriate arrowhead.
4. If your query was important, you may wish to copy it into a document and save it for further reference. I am not sure how long messages are stored online in the RBC DI Message Centre.

I found it amusing that if I I’m in the Message Centre screen and I click on the link Learn More About the Message Centre, I get an error message instead of more information. (I was hoping to find out if messages are automatically deleted after a certain amount of time. At BMO InvestorLine messages are deleted after 90 days so you have to cut and paste them into a document and save it elsewhere if you need them longer than that.)

To Read Your Responses from RBC Direct Investing in the Message Centre

1. Click on the My Home tab.
2. Under the Your Communications bar, click on the link: You have new messages
3. The Message Centre will open.
   It is Divided into sections including
   • New Messages
   • Viewed Messages
   • Sent Messages

   Click on the Subject line for the reply you wish to read.

4. You can sort messages by date, subject, type and to (who you queried) by clicking on the appropriate arrowhead.

Related Reading

• How to Send a Message Using BMO InvestorLine’s MyLink Secure Email Service

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Have you used the Message Centre? Did you find it did the trick quickly and easily? Please share your experiences with a comment.