Blessed by the Potato

For the longest time, TD Direct Investing was the only game in town if you wanted to invest in a low-cost way in an RDSP. Big Cajun Man detailed the quirks of these accounts (and has provided lots of info on RDSPs in general).

Fortunately, there’s some competition now: National Bank Direct Brokerage is now offering RDSPs.

And NB is Nest Wealth‘s custodian broker, which means that there’s now a robo-advisor option for RDSP! I’ve long thought that the robo-advisor method would be really welcome for RDSPs, but it just hasn’t been an option for the first several years. I’m glad to see that it’s now possible, though there will be some manual processes to make it happen on Nest Wealth’s end (so you won’t yet see a link on their site — you’ll have to contact them and ask).

A few details: RDSPs are only available to those on their top-tier, $80/mo plan. That’s normally for accounts over $150k in assets, though you can opt to pay it if you want to open an RDSP even without the assets. Of course, you’ll have to decide if it’s worth it vs. using TDDI or NBDB (or high-fee mutual funds with other banks) if your accounts are small. There’s a $100/yr admin fee for additional accounts, and since your RDSP isn’t likely the only account you’ll have with Nest Wealth (e.g., if you’re opening one for your kids, then you may have your own RRSP/TFSA as well), you should expect that as well when doing your cost-benefit analysis. Still, that should be welcome news for a few people!

Update July 30, 2020: it looks like Nest Wealth has stopped supporting RDSPs (h/t Robb Engen). However, WealthBar now claims to offer them. They are likely also using National Bank as their custodian for RDSPs (they have several custodians in their roster).

Disclosure: I’m a member of Nest Wealth’s affiliate program and have used the affiliate link above — see the side bar for more.