Terms and Conditions

Interest Payments
For convenience, Equitable Trust pays monthly interest directly to your bank account and issues interest cheques for maturing GICs to the address provided by you. However, if you purchase GICs through a deposit broker, your final interest cheques are sent with the principal cheques to the broker. Penultimate interest cheques are combined with final interest cheques when their due dates would be less than one week apart. Cheques are usually remitted about two weeks in advance of their due date.   

Maturity
Our system automatically ensures that all GICs mature on an Ontario business day. A five year GIC maintains its eligibility for CDIC coverage even though the maturity is extended to the next business day, provided that the application specifies five years. Confirmations should not be returned to us at maturity. Usually, clients have us hold the principal, and often the interest, for their instructions, if dealing directly with Equitable Trust. Otherwise, maturity cheques are remitted through the agent. Principal cheques are not combined with the final interest cheques for long-term GICs.   

Issue Date
Short and long-term GICs are issued as of the date funds are received by us. If the cheque used to purchase a GIC is dishonoured, the deposit is cancelled and you and your agent informed.   

Assignability, Negotiability and Transferability
Our GIC's are neither assignable nor negotiable. GICs may only be transferred upon the death of the registered owner or where there is no change in beneficial ownership (usually between individuals, and their brokers or trustees). However, all documents required must be properly authenticated and acceptable to Equitable Trust. Because we issue confirmations rather than actual certificates, bonds of indemnity are not required when they are lost.   

Redeemability
Unless otherwise indicated on the face of the confirmation, GICs are not redeemable prior to maturity except in the case of the death of a registered owner (or life tenant of a trust, if admitted). Properly authenticated documents must be provided in case of death.   

Registration
The registered owner may be an individual person, two or more individuals as "Joint Owners with Right of Survivorship" (JOWRS), sometimes expressed as "and Survivor", Trustees, Trusts, Estates and Executors of Estates with or without life tenants admitted, Companies, Firms, and Societies. "Tenants in Common" is not an acceptable registration for us, except in Quebec, because of the difficulty in determining the exact ownership share of each party upon death. We accept “or” as well as “and” in joint registrations, but you should be aware that a registration with “or” means that either party can give a receipt for the funds without the consent of the other party.   

Non-Residents
Non-residents are accepted as clients but their full address must be given, even though the mailing address of the client may be in Canada or in a third country. Non-resident withholding tax is withheld for all investments taken out for less than five years. Where clients give a mailing address outside Canada but advise they are Canadian residents, they must declare this in writing.   

Terms and Conditions
The specific terms of each GIC are printed on the front of the confirmation, and the back contains the general terms and conditions.