Bring your money together with a joint account

For those merging lifestyles, living spaces, or romantic relationships, one of the most important decisions to be made is how to manage and budget for household finances. A particularly useful and simple tool to help share expenses, budgeting, and savings goals with others is a joint account.

While a joint account acts like a traditional individual savings account, the difference is that it’s shared by two or more people. It’s not a credit product, so you don’t need to worry about a joint account’s effect on your credit score. However, opening a joint account means all account holders have equal access to its funds—giving them the ability to withdraw the entire balance. Needless to say, it’s important that the decision to open one is made carefully and intentionally with those you truly know and trust.

Once you’ve made the proactive decision to share and manage your finances together, a joint account can offer a number of benefits:

Shared access

Sharing your money, and the decisions that come with it, can instil a greater sense of trust and a feeling of “we’re in this together.” When you share the same values and priorities for the things you purchase or save for, financial collaboration can give everyone involved a sense of empowerment about their partnership.

If you have shared goals, like buying a home together or renovating a kitchen, you can set up a savings goals to save up for each of them jointly.

Simple bill tracking

There’s nothing like the ease of paying your bills from a shared account where you pool your resources. When you split things like rent, mortgage payments, internet and streaming services, car payments, or home repairs, it can be a hassle to keep track of who owes whom what, and to move money between accounts to pay different bills.

A joint account offers a simpler and faster way to pay bills, by eliminating the guesswork (and the tedious receipt and calculator work).

Money protection

Just like your rental, home, or car insurance, the money in your Savings Plus Account comes with its own kind of protection. At EQ Bank, your deposits are held by Equitable Bank, a member of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC). Eligible deposits are covered up to $100,000, per insured category, per depositor. That means your joint account deposits are insured separately from your individual savings account deposits. So if you have $200,000, you can divide that into an individual Savings Plus Account and a joint Savings Plus Account to receive up to $200,000 in CDIC coverage—your hard-earned money is automatically safe and secure, with no need to opt in.

Streamlined legal affairs

While it's a topic we don't like to think about, a joint account can help minimize or avoid probate fees in the event of an account holder's death. A joint account allows the remaining account holder(s) easy access to funds without having to contend with lengthy legal processes.

A joint account can also be a useful tool in scenarios like when a family member has a disability that may make it difficult to handle their finances on their own.

There are numerous ways couples, families, and roommates alike can handle shared money management—the important thing is to choose the tools that work for you. If you’re already an EQ Bank customer, you can set up a joint account in a matter of clicks. Not yet a customer? Signing up for a new account takes minutes. So go forth and manage, spend, and save together.