After a fashion. Mundane but I just gotta share it. My wife and I closed a bank account yesterday. We took the balance in the form of a cashier’s cheque. The balance ended in 3 cents. They have abolished pennies here, while still calculating things in cents and they are supposed to round the balance up or down if in cash. I don’t know why the cheque was not to the cent but that was their problem. I told them to forget it, but they said they couldn’t properly close the account. After some discussion, they gave me a nickel.
You’d think that they would have still had a few pennies lying around.
When I got divorced a number of years ago, I cashed out our brokerage account and gave half of the money to the ex. But…the account gained like seven cents between when the check was cut and the account was closed so I had a balance. So I would get a paper statement every month showing the balance. I finally called them up to have the damn thing closed and in order to do that they sent me a check.
Granny always said “Pennies make dollars.”
I closed my account at the State Bank of Victoria, because they were incompetent and I didn’t trust them with my money.
And their computer system used to crash every couple of months.
They didn’t pay out /anything/. Because the act of closing my account deleted my address, so they couldn’t send me the balance.
They lost all their money a few years later (under government direction, but still…) and were taken over by another bank. Guaranteed, so no deposits were lost. I was not surprised.
Pennies are not legal tender in Canada, since a few years ago.
I don’t get it. They gave you a check for $X.03 - why did you need pennies?
Pennies are not in wide circulation and are no longer produced. The Currency Act has not been amended to exclude pennies from current legal tender.
Section 7 indicates any coinage issued under the Royal Canadian Mint Act is current coinage
Section 8 (1) indicates all coins and currency designated in section 7 is legal tender
Section 8 (2) sets limits for the amount of legal tender for payment, for pennies it is legal for payments up to 25 cents [8(2)(e)].
There is a mechanism for recalling notes and coinage and removing it as legal tender, outlined in section 9. Which would override the “currency” status under section (7), however the Governor in Council has not exercised this mechanism for the penny in Canada.
If you still have pennies around, businesses may choose not to accept them (transactions generally being offers to buy and not settlements of debt), most banks will. If a major consumer bank will not accept or redeem the pennies, they can be redeemed at the Bank of Canada.
Cheers,
-DF
No. For reasons I don’t understand* they cut a cheque of X., leaving .03 in the account and preventing them from closing it. I told them to forget it but they couldn’t.
*My conjecture is that they were so accustomed not dealing in cents that they did it reflexively and didn’t want the bother of cancelling that cheque and printing a different one.
The late Countrywide Bank had one of the best online savings accounts available. No fees, interest at or near the highest, and a fast ACH transfer. Then Bank of America bought it out.
B of A sent a notice that they were going to transfer the online savings account to a B of A money market account that had negligible interest and a monthly fee. So the day after the next interest payment date, I transferred the entire balance out and faxed them a letter to close the account. A week later an envelope came from B of A with a cashier’s check for $0.03. I had hoped that closing the account right after the interest date would clean it out. But, bless B of A for making sure I got every penny I deserved.
Yes, I deposited the check in another account.
Pennies as coins are no longer minted, but the cent as a unit of account for non-cash transactions is still valid, so I don’t know why they couldn’t make the cheque out to the penny. As are mills (1/10th of a cent) used in property tax “mill rates” and in retail gas pricing. If you buy something with a debit or credit card it’s still charged to the cent - it’s only cash that’s rounded up or down.