Below is a personal anecdotal experience with Neo Financial. I am writing this as I have realized that NEO Financial is a unregulated financial services company that skirted Canada’s highly regulated banking industry and is under no direct supervision.
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In 2010, I signed up for an HBC Mastercard, issued by Capital One, as a backup independent of my bank. I used it occasionally to keep it active.
In 2021, The Bay switched to Neo Financial, a Canadian FinTech company. Intrigued by their modern slick web interface, I gave it a try. They offered a 2.5% savings account, so I moved my emergency fund into a Neo Money Account through Concentra Credit Union, a CDIC member with a dedicated account number.
Later, I switched to their 4% High-Interest E-Savings account (Through the Peoples Bank of Canada another CDIC member bank). Neo expanded into investing and mortgages, though I only used their credit and savings services. I might have contacted customer service once in three years.
Then, on May 2, 2024, I had a question about my April interest—it didn’t seem right.
I phoned support on three separate occasions everyone understood the issue and no one had a proper answer or explanation for me. It was always I had to submit your request to another department which I couldn’t speak to and they would get back to me. No one ever did.
The email addresses I had used previously to contact support were bounced back. The letter mailed their head office location was not replied to.
By the end of May 2024 I was completely fed up with the lack of response, I had decided to withdraw all my funds. It then took me an hour on the phone to close my account. In short, it was the worst customer service experience I have ever had with a financial company in my life. I felt lucky that I didn’t have any major issues and got all my money out.
(I later found out from an actual bank what happened which was quite minor and easy explainable, but no one at NEO Financial could do this given multiple chances over the course of a month)
Financial Institutions deal in two products. Currency and Trust and I had lost all Trust in NEO Financial.
My former journalist mind then switched to: