Banking in Canada is straightforward. In order to make easier life for customers, banks offer services such as online banking and automatic banking machines (ABM - ATMs in the USA). For the purpose of finding the best deal, shop around and ask people to recommend a bank to you.

Without a bank account, you can't survive in the long-term in Canada. You probably need one in order to draw your salary. The account may also be useful for the purpose of rent or accommodation, pay for electricity and gas, getting a phone line, and may other requirements.

Created in 1967 to provide deposit insurance and contribute to the stability of Canada's financial system, the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) is a federal Crown Corporation. In Canada, all banking institutions members of the CDIC guarantee savings deposits for up to CAD$60,000 per depositor.

After selection of your bank according to your wish, make your way to one of their branches and tell them the kind of account you would like to open.

Two Government Issued pieces of identification (e.g. a passport, driver's license, Provincial Health Card, Social Insurance Card) and proof of address (usually requested in the form of a utility bill) should be provided as credentials for your bank account.

If you are a foreign resident then you should also provide a reference from your previous employer or Host University or educational institution or your previous bank.

Following is the list of the biggest Canadian banks.

• Bank of Nova Scotia (www.scotiabank.com )
  
  
• Bank of Montreal (www.bmo.com )
  
  
• Royal Bank of Canada (www.royalbank.com )
  
  
• TD Canada Trust (www.tdcanada.com )
  
  
• Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (www.cibc.com )

The offices of all the above listed banks are located in most Canadian cities. There are also many regional banks, credit unions, and international banks such as HSBC, Citibank, ING Bank, UBS, etc.

When comparing with brick-and-mortar banking, online banking is easy to use since we can perform the banking transactions sitting in our home instead of walking down to the local bank in case of offline banking.

Cost of your Internet connection is the only thing you should invest in case of online banking, in contrast, if you phone in transactions to your bank, they might charge you for their service.

Cost required in building branches and hiring staff gives an advantage for companies entering into establishing banking industries using online banking.

Of course, if a company were to do this, then they would have to emphasize the fact that they don't have any branches in the country. But this could quite simply mean much lower rates and smaller fees in general for you.

The overall statistics show that Canadians have taken very well to online banking. 57% is not a small market share at all; it shows that online banking is well-liked among households that have Internet access.

But the households without any Internet access are missing out; but the bank branches aren't going to be knocked down anytime soon.

So the people who don't have any Internet access can still be safe in the knowledge that they can still pop down to their local branch and make all the transactions that they need.

Just like everywhere else in the world where the Internet is readily available, online banking in Canada is on the rise. In 2003, according to statistics, 57% of households that are having Internet access in Canada did some form of online banking.

This signifies that online banking in Canada has overtaken telephone banking. More and more Canadians are flocking to the Internet to monitor their accounts, instead of using the phone.