Yup! Lucky you!
What is the increase ?
@RonanF, that’s correct! There won’t be any changes to the rewards on the World Elite or World Mastercard.
The only cashback change will occur on the Neo Mastercard. Which will change from 1% on Gas and Grocery to 0%. However, those using the Neo Mastercard will still have access to the partner network rewards.
The solve for the reduction in Neo Mastercard rewards would be to use the Neo Money Card (accessed through a Neo chequing account) for gas and grocery purchases to still capture the 1% cashback.
Wow! That’s a lot coming out and all of it seems pretty amazing. I’ll have to keep mental note of the change in cashback for gas. I see about the credit limit increase for mastercard, any ETA on when that’ll be hitting accounts? One thing I’d like to see is perhaps more information for people like myself who started with a secured card and have since been given a credit increase, does that mean we’re still with a secured card? Do we need to switch? Perhaps a graduation email to educate those who’ve “graduated”. Just a thought.
The CLI for Neo Mastercard users should be out in the next 30 days.
For those who had a secured limit that have been given an CLI, they are now “partially secured”. So, not full graduation yet, when that happens a customer will get their security funds back. That is still to come.
Does that answer your questions?
It does indeed! Thank you Grant!
My partner and I started with Neo for the cash back, especially the improved cash back with chequing account balances. We also enjoyed the free Build to get us a higher savings interest.
It seems that Build is now being locked behind a $120 per year pay wall, or behind a credit card neither of us meet requirements for. This unfortunately means we now just get a reduced interest on any savings from 2.5% to now 2.25% (but only if I move my payroll to Neo).
My partner also has a secured credit card, which seems to now come with a $60 per year fee, and offers no additional benefit considering they were just denied a credit increase.
These changes don’t seem beneficial to us, as there don’t seem to be any additions to the programs, only more fees for things that used to be free.
While I can’t say that I’m thrilled about losing the cashback on my Neo Mastercard, I think the shift from making giving it that piddly little cashback to making it more about increasing your credit limit faster, thus making it easier to reduce your utilization would give the Neo Mastercard a different, but still useful, value proposition.
Though, I guess I wonder, could this help members who have the more elite cards like the World Mastercard and the World Elite Mastercard?
All of it, from Advance to the memberships. It will be interesting to see how it all works out - though I do believe there should be a minimal amount of free etransfers for people/youth/adults/seniors legitimately using the accounts and not abusing the “free etransfers”.
Pretty excited to hear all of this. I’ve started the transition of moving everything to Neo. How do we specifically know if we are eligible for limit increases if we are on a secured card?
Is my understanding right and really appreciate it if clarity is provided. Thanks
Me and my friends have been using neo since long time. There is a growing frustration among everyone about frequently changing things like membership tier and sudden fees and stuff. I honestly dont think the 1$ interac fee will land good among users. I hope you reconsider some of these changes.
Hi Jamie, that’s very sad. This is a big part of why I had gotted my Neo mastercard initially. To see this going down to 0 and then adding the sudden change to the grow membership is frustrating. Im sure Neo has reasons but this all seems very sudden. For the insider community we were going to have access to the grow membership the way it is (without feees) until earlynext year - so are those fees on octo 1st in effect for us in thepilot group too?
What continues to have the cashback and is it different between essentials and grow?
Thanks
Dee
I’ve looked at all the changes and with them I’m completely moving away from neo.
There’s basically nothing neo has over any other bank now and if anything is worse in just about every way.
Wealthsimple just launched savings accounts that are 2.5% without needing any monthly fee. Now with neo you have to pay to get even that.
Before it sucked that you had to have more money to get more savings, but at least it cost you nothing. Now it’s just straight robbery from every angle. You’ve completely removal all the valuable parts of neo and put it behind a paywall.
I know koho does similar things for their accounts but this is so much worse because you have to pay for an e-transfer. I haven’t seen an e-transfer fee even from the big banks in a long time. They give you at least a few every month. But $1 a transfer on top of everything else is crazy. Especially now that there’s no way to get any membership for free other than paycheque deposits. And that’s the most basic tier.
Goodbye neo, you’ve really slowly destroyed anything good you had. Time to transfer my money
Hi Grant
Thanks for this update.
My comments ( my perspective is from the “just retired perspective” so may be not relevant to some of your targeted customers)
- The limit increase is welcome. Good move
- Yes Cheque deposits is a great add on and will be using that
- The idea of a pre paid credit card does not make sense to me, I certainly would not use it ( remember I am old retired guy so may be good for others)
- Feed back when I logged in I was trying to see my credit card options. I did not see them while logged in. I went out to your public webpage and see them there. Easy suggestion simply put a link while logged in my portal to the credit card options so I can see that I am on the right track.
- I think the $500 forgiveness on overdraft is a very good option, I will not use it however the message it sends to the users is great. We are not the big Ogre bank you are used to. Nice thinking on that one. Should really play that up.
- One other small IT glitch. I logged in to my MAC and needed to validate my account when I logged in and had the text message sent to me with the 6 digit code. I accidentally mistyped it. I could not fix it it would not let me overwrite/rewrite it. I had to logout and do it all over again. Small thing but your IT guys should know
Hope this feed back is helpful
Barry
I’m assuming you’re using a World card, and the World card is largely unaffected by these changes and will continue to focus on cashback. Boosting the card with balance in your chequing account still applies.
You’re right that we’re removing the waiver for the Build membership and some people will have to choose if they want to pay for the higher interest rate. The difference for most people is relatively small ($10,000 will earn $275 / year on the highest rate and $200 / year on the lowest rate) and like you said, users can choose to set up their payroll if they want a cheap and cheerful bump.
Was your partner not paying for the Build membership? That’s generally a requirement for a secured card.
Assuming they’re using the Neo Mastercard, they’re going to get a credit limit increase offer immediately and will be able to improve their credit fast with lower utilization, without having to add more security funds. With a little patience, they’ll graduate to unsecured faster with the new system and can decide then if they want to keep the membership.
Does that address any of your concerns?
We talked to Neo Mastercard users and the strong majority wanted higher limits on the cards, even if it meant less cashback, so that’s exactly what’s happening. Neo Mastercard users in good standing will get a credit limit increase very soon, and we will be able to progress people faster going forward.
This particular batch of changes isn’t affecting the World or World Elite cards (which will remain focused on cashback), but maybe that’s something to consider for the future.
We honestly don’t expect many people to pay for e-transfers because they’re free with a Start membership which is free with payroll into Neo and the definition of payroll is very inclusive (seniors benefits and part-time work will be sufficient). We are also going to add a free option for youth because they often don’t have any income sources.
Do you have any concerns with that plan?
Woohoo! Stoked to hear you’re making the switch. If you’re on the Neo Mastercard (not the World or World Elite) then you’ll be receiving a credit limit increase offer very soon and then you will be on mixed.
Enhancing clarity around credit progression is a top priority for us, we’re just trying to figure out how to communicate such a complex thing clearly. We do currently contact people proactively (except in QC where this is not allowed) and let me them know when they’re eligible.
Totally appreciate that we’ve been making a ton of changes. Neo has been around since ~2020 and we’re building extremely fast to provide all the features that our competitors have built over hundreds of years.
E-transfers are super important to most Canadians and we don’t expect many people to pay for them. They will be free with Start and Start will be free with payroll (and our definition of payroll is pretty generous). We’re also planning to make them free for youth under 18.
Does that system work for you and your friends?