I have been using Tangerine bank's (former ING Direct) services for a couple of months now and I have to say that the experience so far is good. I signed up with it, primarily because a friend of mine invited me to open one, and we both got a $50 bonus. I also was convenient it was a good bank since it was acquired by Scotiabank and is operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary. You don't need to physically go to their "cafe" (branch) to enroll. What I did was just sign up on their website, took … [Read more...]
Scotiabank StartRight Program Experience
We applied online 6-7 weeks before we were scheduled to leave for Canada. (To apply, go to the ScotiaBank StartRight Program site) The branch that we chose mailed us our "Welcome Package", consisting of some brochures and also our account information. You have an option to either wire your money (up to CAD 50,000, one time only) or deposit it when you arrive at Canada. We opted to just get a CAD bank draft in BPI and deposit it when we arrive. (We were told by someone, I forgot who, that if you … [Read more...]
Canada New Immigrants: How to Apply for Child Care Tax Benefit and the GST/HST Credit
One of the very first thing that we did (after getting our Social Identification Number) after landing in Vancouver as a new immigrant is to apply for the Child Care Tax Benefit (CCTB) and the GST/HST credit. The CCTB is "a tax-free monthly payment made to eligible families to help them with the cost of raising children under age 18." while the GST/HST credit is "a tax-free quarterly payment that helps individuals and families with low and modest incomes offset all or part of the GST or HST … [Read more...]
LTO/DFA Red Ribbon Authenticated Driver’s License
For emigrating Filipinos who wants to get a driver's license in a different country, you might need to get an LTO/DFA red ribbon authenticated driver's license to prove your driving history, (although this will depend on the country or province that you're going, in my case, British Columbia doesn't need a red-ribbon authenticated certificate anymore, they will based it on the date of issue on your driver's license. My husband and I still went to LTO and DFA to get one, just in case we would … [Read more...]
Claim Your Pag-ibig Provident Funds If You Are Permanently Leaving The Country
For emigrating Filipinos who have been remitting their Pag-ibig, you can claim your Provident Benefit from Pag-ibig (under the grounds of Permanent Departure From The Country), please check Pag-ibig's link to Provident Funds for more info. Some tips: You need to make sure to check if your contributions are already consolidated, ours (hubby and mine) were not consolidated yet, go to the branch where your latest employer is assigned to, and ask to merge and consolidate everything. For … [Read more...]