RBC Business Accounts: Overview, Rates & Fees

Checking out Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)business account options? Here’s what you should know about their rates, fees and more. Plus a humble introduction to the Wealthsimple Corporate Account.

The Royal Bank of Canada was founded in 1864 as the Merchant’s Bank of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It became known as The Royal Bank of Canada in 1901. With 84,000 employees servicing 16 million clients in North America and 34 countries worldwide, RBC is one of Canada’s largest banks, with approximately $1.4 billion assets under management.

An Overview of RBC Business Accounts

RBC has a range of business accounts. We are providing you with an overview of the different options in one place. Your trust is important to us. That’s why we always do our best to be fair and provide complete, up-to-date and accurate information. You should know that RBC may change their product features or fees at any time. To complete your homework, we recommend visiting their site to continue your research.

RBC Small Business Banking Options

RBC has a range of banking options in both Canadian and U.S. Dollars, and even has an option for community or not-for-profit groups. All of these accounts are for a typical savings/chequing account available at a traditional financial institution. The fee is $3.75 month for the community/not-for-profit groups. For small businesses, fees range from $5-$100 per month, with different levels of free transactions depending on how active your business banking will be. They also offer a U.S. Dollar Business Account with a base fee of $9 USD, that is waived if you maintain an account balance of at least $2500 USD and then fees per transaction.

RBC Corporate Banking Options

For large corporations, RBC offers services like e-payment and e-deposit, detailed statements and other cash management services. For example, the RBC Ultimate Business Account offers unlimited electronic transactions, 100 paper transactions, and no minimum balance required for a $100 per month fee. They also offer RBC Premium Online Banking for businesses who like a digital option. They also offer a corporate trust account. They also offer specialty banking options such as international accounts and online foreign currency accounts.

RBC Financial Services Corporate Options

Since RBC is a chartered bank, it can offer financial services like business loans and lines of credit, corporate credit cards and bridge financing. The offer a dedicated business advisor and the RBC Ventures program assists businesses to grow.

RBC Business Investment Options

Businesses may need to invest surplus funds for short or long-term, and RBC offers an array of term deposits, Guaranteed Investment Certificates in a variety of terms, Market-linked GICs, Federal and Provincial Treasury Bills, and different Bond options. They prefer to provide customized solutions for business investments.

A humble introduction to Wealthsimple

While we have your attention — we’d like to introduce you to Wealthsimple. We offer smart, simple investing, including a Corporate Accountwithout the high fees associated with traditional banks and there’s no minimum amount needed to open any of our accounts.

Get started with Wealthsimple Invest and we’ll create a diversified portfolio of low-cost ETFs that perfectly match your risk tolerance and investment goals. Our cutting-edge technology and unparalleled customer support comes at a surprisingly low fee. Put your business surplus to work for you, and take advantage of the lower tax rates for corporations when you withdraw the funds.

Our expert financial advisors are always available when you need them. They can help plan your financial milestones and answer questions you might have about potential risks or what sort of investment accounts you should have.

Investing is just one part of your financial picture. So, we’ve introduced more ways to reach your goals and manage your money. High interest savings, commission-free trading. And features — like automatically investing your spare change— that make it easier to save for your future. That’s because we believe that everyone should have access to the tools they need to make smart financial choices.

What to look out for in a Corporate Account provider

Where you open your corporate account could mean a difference of thousands of dollars. Even tens or hundreds of them. That’s because different financial institutions charge different investments and fees. Not to mention different levels of smart technology and human advice.

If you are looking for a one-stop-shop solution for your corporate financial needs, Wealthsimple may not meet your needs. That’s okay. We don’t try to beat the banks at bank-stuff like loans, lines of credit and credit cards. However, if you have surplus cash that you want to put to work for you business, then you’ve come to the right place. We may not be able to replace all the traditional banking services, but we can sure complement the traditional banking services by making your money work harder for you with less fees.

Fees

Management fees can be a mortal enemy of investment growth. Because they often look so minuscule, they’re deceptively destructive. Small fees make a huge difference; one Toronto-based investment advisor showed that a fee of just 2% could decrease investment gains by half over the course of 25 years. And studies regularly demonstrate that fees are directly predictive of returns in a very simple way; the higher the fees, the lower the returns.

Investment choices

Corporations have different liquidity needs than private investors, so we offer you a range of financial investments, including cash, stocks or bonds. A number of factors will dictate how you invest, including your risk tolerance and investment horizon, aka, when you need to access the money.

If you think you may someday want someday to invest your surplus funds in investments that yield a bit more than a savings account, you may want to find a place that offers low fees as well investment choices that allow you access to the stock and bond markets.

Smart Technology

A lot of pizzas are pretty good, but some rise to the level of dude, this pizza is so good. Automated investing services of the same way. They employ different technologies and algorithms to optimize account performance. Some are smarter than others in that they’ll perform portfolio-supercharging tasks like automatic portfolio rebalancing and tax loss harvesting at no extra charge. Make sure that whichever investment provide you choose offers the most advanced technology available.

Methodology:

The information on this page was compiled by Wealthsimple in July 2019. In order to uncover this information, we looked at the RBC website, press releases and third-party sites. The information collected is provided for educational purposes only, as at the time of publication and is intended for Canadian investors.