Original Research
This is our research corner — the work that goes beyond standard rate comparisons. Each entry is a hands-on survey or original analysis produced by the Canadian Money Guide research team, independently sourced, and reproduced here without charge.
Most "best rates" pages on the internet are outdated, auto-scraped, or quietly sponsored by the banks they rank first. We don't do any of that. Every rate we publish is checked against the institution's own rate page on the day we publish, and our methodology is documented in plain English so anyone can verify it.
Latest Surveys
| Survey | Published | Why It Matters |
| Savings Rate Survey Q3 2026 | October 5, 2026 | We manually verified HISA and GIC rates at 14 Canadian financial institutions on October 2, 2026. Includes a 12-month rate trajectory, comparison to the Bank of Canada policy rate, and forward-looking analysis for Q4 2026. |
| Savings Rate Survey June 2026 | June 1, 2026 | The original survey: 17 HISAs and 20 GIC issuers. This edition is archived; the Q3 2026 survey above is the current snapshot. |
How We Do Research
For each survey, we follow the same five-step process:
- Sample at the same time. Rates move quickly. We snapshot on a single date (usually a Wednesday) and avoid weekends so the data is internally comparable.
- Use primary sources. We don't trust third-party data. Every rate is checked against the institution's own published rate page on the sample date — usually the same page a customer sees when they're shopping.
- Cross-reference with aggregators. highinterestsavings.ca and the Bank of Canada policy-rate page are our consistency checks. If our rate for an institution differs from theirs by more than 5 basis points, we re-verify before publishing.
- Document the methodology. Every survey includes a "What This Survey Doesn't Cover" section. Limitations are part of the deliverable, not a footnote.
- Update on a schedule. The rate survey runs every quarter. Ad-hoc analyses (e.g., the BoC rate decision impact on HISA yields) are published as the data warrants.
What We Don't Do
For honesty:
- We don't accept payment from any institution in exchange for inclusion in a survey.
- We don't publish a number we haven't seen on the source page that day.
- We don't extrapolate or predict beyond what the source documents say.
- We don't rank by affiliate commission. Survey ordering is by rate, by sample date, or by product structure.
If you find one in our work, tell us — we verify and fix within 48 hours and log the change on our corrections page.
Where We Get Cited
Our research has been used by Canadian personal finance writers, journalists, and a few academic surveys of the Canadian retail-banking market. If you'd like to reproduce a chart or dataset, the data is yours to use; please cite the survey URL and the verification date.
This research corner is a work in progress. The next edition (Q4 2026 / year-end) is scheduled for January 2027.