President’s Choice Financial, commonly shortened to PC Financial, is the financial service brand of the Canadiansupermarket chain Loblaw Companies. Two different wholly owned subsidiaries of Loblaw Companies provide services under the President's Choice Financial brand: Mastercard credit card services are provided by the federally chartered President's Choice Bank and insurance is provided by PC Financial Insurance Brokers.
Services
Mastercard credit cards
President’s Choice Financial Mastercard credit cards are issued by President's Choice Bank, a subsidiary of Loblaw Companies. PC Mastercard has no relationship to CIBC, although cash advance fees are waived at CIBC bank machines. PC Financial MasterCards are embedded with PayPass technology. In November 2014, Ugo Wallet, a mobile wallet app for Android was launched in partnership with TD Canada Trust. In addition, users can store PC credit cards on Apple Pay and Android Pay.
Insurance
President's Choice offers auto insurance and home insurance, underwritten through a broker model by a number of selected Canadian insurance companies, pet insurance, underwritten by SecuriCan General Insurance Company, and travel insurance by Travel Guard Canada as managing general underwriter and agent for American Home Assurance Company. President's Choice discontinued their home and auto insurance offerings to new customers in 2009 for a brief period as structural changes were made. During this time, the previous partnership with Aviva came to an end. Their home and auto insurance products returned under a separate "broker model" in January 2010. Home and auto insurance are offered in Ontario, Alberta, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.
Former services
Consumer banking
Standard consumer banking products were provided as a joint venture with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce which began in 1996. CIBC offered lines of credit, loans, Registered Retirement Savings Plan, and mortgages using the President's Choice brand under license, except for between January 2001 and October 2005 when banking services were provided by Amicus Bank. Services were available in all Canadian provinces, except Quebec. All PC Financial bank accounts had the same bank number as CIBC, and were located under one transit/branch number. To benefit from its low-cost and -fee structure, clients performed their banking transactions on the Internet, at a PC- or CIBC-branded ATM, by telephone, or in person at a limited number of locations. PC Financial has no branches; rather transactions were conducted in person at pavilions located inside Loblaw-affiliated stores., there were 234 pavilions in Canada. President's Choice Financial consumer banking services were ranked by J.D. Power and Associates as having the highest customer satisfaction among mid-size Canadian banks in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. On August 16, 2017 it was announced that Loblaw Companies and CIBC had mutually decided to terminate their joint venture to provide consumer banking products. All PC Financial mortgages, loans, investments, and bank accounts were transferred to CIBC's new direct banking brand Simplii Financial effective November 1, 2017. PC Financial's credit card and insurance products were unaffected by the decision, and continued to be offered by subsidiaries of Loblaw Companies. At the time of the announcement the consumer banking products had approximately 2 million customers. PC Financial's consumer banking services were operated by CIBC so, through CIBC, it was a member of the Canadian Bankers Association. CIBC is a registered member of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, a federal agency insuring eligible deposits at all of Canada's chartered banks, and the coverage extended to PC Financial banking products issued by CIBC.
As required, President's Choice Bank has an independent Ombudsman to review customer complaints. In 2014 the office received 6 complaints, 2015 the office received 9 complaints, and the same number in 2016 was 9 complaints.
Points
Customers with President's Choice Financial Mastercard products collect PC Optimum reward points on all purchases with their credit cards.
