New credit tools and membership updates at Neo

Announcements
1

Hello Neo Discourse community!

I am pleased to announce a batch of new products, updates, and changes coming in the fall and early winter, all of which are intended to provide Neo customers with a clear path to move their finances forward.

Why we’re making changes

Most Neo customers care about progress: graduating from secured credit, earning higher limits, unlocking better savings rates, and graduating to more rewarding cards over time.

That’s the experience we want Neo to be known for — and we’re reshaping our services to deliver it in a meaningful way.

We’re aligning memberships towards people who want forward motion: the products and perks that help you build credit, access more when you need it, and grow your wealth with Neo over time.

Basically:

  • Faster credit progress — higher limits and more frequent limit increases
  • More features — including Neo Advance and cheque deposits (finally)
  • More focus — we’re going to structure our memberships so they are more accessible to more active customers

Additional details, dates, rates, limits, are all available here.

Neo Mastercard

Our Neo Mastercard, secured or unsecured, is going to focus even more on getting cardholders higher limits and faster credit progression: All existing Neo Mastercard cardholders will receive a credit limit increase and the 1% cashback for groceries and gas will be removed. If you still want that cashback, you can always use the Neo Money pre-paid credit card which is free with the Neo Chequing account and has the same earn rate of 1% on gas and groceries.

Neo Memberships

There will be a new Neo membership called Start, which will sit between Essentials (the free tier) and Build. Start is designed to be entry-level membership and will offer features like credit score monitoring, unlimited e-transfers and Neo Advance. Start will be free if your payroll is with Neo, and the definition for payroll will be pretty liberal (we’re still finalizing this). Perhaps most importantly, users who choose a higher membership will be eligible for higher credit limits.

All memberships will have a small price increase and, from January, there will be a $1 fee for e-transfers for users on the Essentials membership. This is sadly necessary because of a portion of the userbase that use Neo for nothing but e-transfers (running community bingos and things). The important thing is that most people who use Neo as intended will not be impacted by these fees. Also, our highest savings rates will now require a membership, it won’t be enough to simply have $5,000 or $20,000 in your account to increase your rate.

Neo Advance

Members get access to a 0% interest safety net to advance or overdraft up to $500, on their Neo Chequing account. When your bills show up before your paycheque does, Neo Advance helps bridge the gap without sending you backwards. The usage of the account will be shared with both bureaus, so it can improve your credit history.

Other Features

Rent recognition, cheque deposits, cash deposits, seamless secured graduation, and many other community-requested features are on the radar and will be available in the future! Looking forward to announcing them in a little more detail as we get closer to their full release, but they will all tie into memberships in different ways.

What do you think?

There’s a lot of changes here! If you’ve got questions, please ask them. Our intention is to help customers progress faster and these features should do that. All other changes are intended to enable these features. Let us know what you think!

— Grant & Jamie & the Neo team

2

I think it’s gonna be pretty bad for the kids and teens using JA Money (IIRC now “Neo Chequing for Youth”). I think a small amount of free withdrawals and etransfers ought to be free, or kids and seniors (those without pay or free ways to get membership) should get an automatic bump to Neo Start or Neo Build. I think with this change Neo is losing advantage over PC Money, EQ Bank and Haventree and I hate to say it but this is gonna hit many customers with a surprise and likely turn Neo into the next CapitalOne.

For example all big 5 offer free (usually unlimited) student chequing from 13-25 and up until graduation for free. e-Transfers are now the standard default way to transfer money. I don’t think the new rates would be any help especially since Neo doesn’t have a main distinguishing feature except “Build Credit” (which is what CapitalOne and local Credit Unions does and is highly competitive) and “High Cashback” (World Elite no way for 0 annual fee). Chequing and Savings are being beat by competing Fintech and CUs.

3

Pretty sure all Big 5 have limits over amount of transactions and almost never etransfer fees

4

When will all this take affect?

5

Good ideas.

I agree, unlimited interac is nice to have, also I see a line of credit upon graduation is a nice way to build loyalty.

6

Great new features; I already ask on Reddit, but will ask here too; will the monthly eTransfers will raise from 50 in the near future? Thanks

7

Are we essentially saying Neo MasterCard is getting phased out and for any bonus cashback earned by boosts are not effective from October 1?

8

For those with a certain balance in combined savings and chequing accounts, it would be appreciated to waive fees for most activity including interac transfers.

9

Great news
The only reason I kept my BMO checking is for check deposits / photo check deposit and higher credit limit on our World Elite Mastercard.
I was waiting for this so I could finally move all our accounts out of BMO

Kelly

10

These are fantastic new features, I’m super excited. We just migrated all of our banking to Neo (finally), so definitely good news.

11

Sounds really interesting.

12

Curious about changes to the World and World Elite Mastercard. It was mentioned on the public site that “Rewards for the Neo World Mastercard® and Neo World Elite® Mastercard don’t change.” Does this mean that Cashback benefits for the World and World Elite remain the same?

It was not super clear, so just wanted to double check. As it would entice people to perhaps get the World Elite Card with the annual fee since it provides so much benefits.

13

We want Neo’s distinguishing feature to be that we actually help users make financial progress, wherever they’re starting. For the ~8m Canadians struggling to access traditional credit, that might mean getting their first card and having a path to higher limits. For someone growing their savings, it could mean earning 2.75% regardless of their balance. For someone buying a home, it could mean accessing a more competitive mortgage rate that makes ownership more affordable.

And for others, like me, progress can mean earning as much cashback as possible to add to savings or offset the cost of living. World and World Elite remain strong cashback cards, further boosted by the Neo partner network. My wife and I earned more than $200 last month, which worked out to well over 2.5% overall of our spend.

Also, sincere thanks for note on students, we are going to make Start free for folks who are under 18! Also, the current definition of payroll should make Start free for seniors who can add a direct deposit.

14

Most of the dates are in this post! Generally, it’s October 1. The features will roll out as soon as we can get them through beta testing.

15

Thanks for the feedback, I’m hoping so too. Advance is a great, small line of credit that’s super accessible.

16

I’m catching up haha I’ll add the answer from Reddit here too. Thanks for asking!

As for e-transfers, the upcoming Start membership should solve that, you’ll get unlimited e-transfers with that membership (or with Build or Grow). Insiders get Grow for free, so you should be set :smiley:

17

Actually, would it be plausible to bump it up to 19 (different provincial definitions of majority) or 25 (Big 5 and CU Student accounts)?

18

If I got an increase around 2 months ago would that still be applicable to me ?

19

Thanks for the note, and welcome to the community!

What’s happening is really a shift from opening up the doors based on balances held and towards opening up the doors based on inflows (payroll). Receiving deposits straight into Neo will get you Start for free, which will is planned to unlock unlimited e-transfers. Does that sound good?

20

Oh yeah, simple age-based systems can be adjusted no problem. I guess I did an Albertan faux-paz and forgot that the age of majority is higher in most of Canada. Current plan is 18 because that’s when people finish high school and their lives start to look really different, but we’re going to try and model out all the different versions of that. We’re making a pretty big investment in engaging post-secondary students this year, so there’s definitely a case for extending that benefit.