Investments
Guaranteed Investment Certificate (GIC)
Guaranteed Investment Certificate (GIC) is another name for fixed term deposits.
Tax Strategies
Tax Strategies usually offer higher interest rates than traditional savings accounts which can help you grow your money faster. They are immediately cashable and guaranteed. These are usually offered by internet banks. Intuit offers high interest savings accounts for individuals and businesses through Manulife Bank and ING Bank.
Guaranteed Income Annuities (GIAS)
Guaranteed Income Annuities (GIAS) are issued by Insurance companies and look just like GICs, but have some extra features that include creditor protection, named beneficiaries and payment options.
Segregated Funds
Segregated Funds are similar to mutual funds, but are offered by insurance companies and provide added features such as maturity and death benefit guarantees. They can also bypass probate fees if the beneficiaries qualify as members of the deceased’s immediate family. These features make segregated funds useful for estate planning.
Mutual Funds
Mutual Funds are large pools of money from many different investors that provide a broad range of stocks and bonds to invest into. This larger pool of money allows most individual investors the ability to access a more diverse portfolio than they could with only their own funds to invest. A fund manager or team of managers is appointed to decide where and how this money is invested. Each fund has a mandate of the type and/or amount of investments it can invest into. Funds also have styles of management such as Growth, Value, or Blend. Investors own a unit of each of these funds. Fund units are redeemable anytime, however, there may be deferred service charges based on the structure of the fund.
Term Deposits, GICs or GIA Term Deposits
Term Deposits, GICs or GIA Term Deposits are investments deposited into a financial institution, such as Banks, Credit Unions or Trust Companies for a fixed period of time and offer a guaranteed interest rate for that period of time. They may or may not be redeemable before the fixed period is over. Fixed terms can be as short as 30 days or as long as 10 years. Some financial institutions may offer longer terms. Depending on the type of term deposit there may be a penalty charge for early redemption.