Our Process — Drayton Banking | Exactly What Happens When You Bank With Us

Our five-step process was designed by our founding team in 2014 and refined through 19,000+ client onboardings. Every step below is documented in our internal operations manual — and now it's documented here, for you. We believe you should know exactly what you're signing up for before you sign anything.

Step 1 — Day 1

What Happens in Your First Meeting?

You book a free 30-minute call or in-person meeting with one of our personal banking advisors. No forms, no commitments, no upselling. You can book online, call, or walk in — whatever's most comfortable.

We ask about your financial life — your goals, your frustrations, what's working and what isn't. We share our fee structures (published online already on our Services & Pricing page — we have nothing to hide) and answer every question until you're satisfied. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you.

That last part surprises people. We've turned away prospective clients when we genuinely believed another institution could serve them better. It happens maybe twice a quarter, and every one of those people has referred someone else to us later. It's one of the reasons 72% of our new clients come from referrals — trust compounds just like interest does.

During this meeting, your advisor will cover four key areas: your current banking setup (accounts, cards, loans), your short-term goals (next 6–12 months), your long-term financial picture (homeownership, retirement, education savings), and any immediate frustrations you want solved. You'll leave with a clear understanding of whether Drayton Banking is the right fit — and if it is, exactly what happens next.

Step 2 — Days 1–3

How We Build Your Personalized Banking Plan

We review your current banking setup — statements, fees, rates, products. We identify what's costing you money, what's earning below market, and what's missing entirely. This isn't a sales pitch. It's a forensic audit of your financial infrastructure.

For mortgage clients, this includes our mandatory 90-minute consultative session with the Mortgage Reality Calculator. We model your costs under 3+ Bank of Canada rate scenarios, show you the difference between what you can borrow and what you should borrow, and present every document in plain language at an eighth-grade reading level. You can read more about how our Transparent Mortgage program works, or see it in action through our client case studies.

For savings clients, we model your projected earnings under our rates versus your current rates. Not a pitch — just math, side by side. We'll show you exactly how much more (or, in rare cases, less) your deposits would earn at Drayton Banking over 1, 3, and 5 years. If your current bank is offering a better deal on a specific product, we'll say so.

For newcomers to Canada, this review includes an International Credit Recognition assessment. We evaluate your financial history from your home country and map out a Credit Acceleration Roadmap designed to get you to a 650+ credit score as fast as responsibly possible — most New Roots clients achieve this within 9 months.

You receive a written Banking Plan. No jargon, no surprises. Just a clear picture of where you stand and where you could be. The plan includes specific product recommendations, projected cost savings, a timeline for implementation, and your advisor's direct contact information for follow-up questions.

(One client told us her Banking Plan was the first document from any financial institution she'd ever read without needing Google. That's the standard we hold ourselves to.)

Step 3 — Days 3–5

Is Switching Banks Actually Painful? (No — Here's Why)

Short answer: no. We handle the paperwork. Long answer: we've spent a decade building a transition system specifically designed to eliminate every friction point that makes people dread switching banks.

We help you redirect payroll deposits, set up bill payments, and transfer automatic withdrawals. Your dedicated advisor manages the transition and checks in at day 3, day 7, and day 30 to make sure nothing slipped. Each check-in follows a standardized verification checklist — we confirm every pre-authorized debit, every direct deposit, and every linked payment has transferred correctly.

Average full transition time: 5 business days. We do the heavy lifting. That includes contacting your employer's payroll department on your behalf (with your authorization), generating pre-formatted letters for any billers that require written notification, and maintaining a 90-day monitoring window where we flag any transactions that still reference your old account.

People assume switching banks is like changing phone carriers — hours of hold music, lost information, surprise charges. We've onboarded over 19,000 clients since 2014. We know exactly where the friction points are, and we've built a process that removes every one of them. Our case studies include real transition timelines from clients who've made the switch.

And if anything goes wrong during the transition — a missed payment, a delayed deposit — your advisor owns it. Not a department. Not a ticket number. A person whose direct line you already have.

Step 4 — Weeks 1–2

Everything You Receive in Your First Two Weeks

Here's exactly what shows up on your doorstep, in your inbox, and on your phone in the first 14 days. This isn't a marketing wish list — it's a tracked, accountable checklist that your advisor works through item by item:

✓ Fee comparison documentation — a personalized side-by-side showing exactly what you were paying at your old bank and what you'll pay now, broken down by product and by month
✓ Debit card with contactless tap-to-pay — activated and ready to go, linked to your fully configured chequing account with your chosen transaction alerts
✓ Mobile banking app activation — including mobile check deposit technology, biometric login setup, and a guided walkthrough of every feature with your advisor
✓ Real-time activity alerts — push notifications configured for every transaction, large-amount thresholds, international charges, and low-balance warnings, all customizable to your preferences
✓ Direct phone number for your named personal advisor — not a call center, not a department, a person. The same person who built your Banking Plan and managed your transition. Learn more about our advisory team.
✓ Interac e-Transfer setup — auto-deposit enabled, contact list imported, daily and weekly limits configured based on your account tier
✓ For mortgage clients: mortgage pre-approval letter, loan amortization tables, side-by-side rate scenario comparison, and a take-home summary of your Mortgage Reality Calculator session. See our Transparent Mortgage details.
✓ For newcomers: Credit Acceleration Roadmap, secured credit card, International Credit Recognition assessment results, and your first quarterly Credit Health Report. Full details on our New Roots Newcomer Program.

That's not a brochure promise. That's a checklist our advisors work through with every single new client. If anything is missing by day 14, your advisor already knows — and is already fixing it. Our internal SLA requires 100% checklist completion within 14 business days, and we track completion rates monthly. Current completion rate: 99.3%.

Step 5 — Ongoing

Why Our Clients Stay for 7+ Years (and What Happens After Month One)

This is where we're different from everyone else. Most banks consider onboarding "done" once you've signed the paperwork. For us, onboarding is just the foundation. The relationship — the proactive, ongoing, evolving relationship — is the whole point.

Your advisor checks in quarterly. Not with a sales pitch — with a genuine review of your account activity, fees paid, interest earned, and any changes in your financial situation. Your credit score monitoring reports arrive every three months. Your fee comparison is updated annually so you can see, in writing, that you're still getting a better deal than the Big Five alternatives. If interest rates change, we call you — not the other way around.

We measure success in years, not transactions.

Our average client relationship is 7.4 years and climbing. We've had clients who joined in 2015 as renters, bought their first homes through us, opened RESPs for their kids, and are now planning their retirement accounts — all with the same advisor. One couple recently told us they've had three different "relationship managers" at their previous Big Five bank in the time they've had one advisor at Drayton. Continuity isn't a buzzword for us. It's operational policy.

As your life changes, your Banking Plan evolves with you. Getting married? We'll consolidate accounts and update beneficiaries. Having a child? We'll set up an RESP and walk you through the Canada Education Savings Grant. Approaching retirement? We'll restructure your deposits for maximum CDIC coverage and tax efficiency. Dealing with estate matters? Our Estate Transition team handles everything with dignity and speed.

That's not an accident. It's the whole point. You can read stories from real clients who've experienced this long-term relationship on our Case Studies page.

7.4

Average client relationship (years)

96.1%

Client retention rate

72%

New clients from referrals

19,000+

Albertans trust Drayton Banking since 2014

Still Have Questions? (Good — We Like That)

These are the questions prospective clients ask most often. If yours isn't here, reach out directly — we answer every inquiry personally, usually within a few hours.

Your money is protected by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) — the same federal agency that insures deposits at TD, RBC, and every other member bank. Eligible deposits at Drayton Banking are insured up to $100,000 per depositor, per insured category. Our CDIC Member Certificate is #FI-2014-0738.

Here's what most people don't realize: a married couple can have well over $600,000 in fully insured deposits by using separate categories — joint accounts, TFSAs, RRSPs, and individual accounts each qualify separately. We walk every client through this during onboarding as part of your Banking Plan.

Being smaller than the Big Five doesn't make us less safe. It makes us more accountable — because every client knows exactly who they're dealing with. Our About page details our regulatory status, our leadership team, and why we chose to be a Schedule I federally chartered bank.

Because if we can't justify a fee in plain language, we shouldn't charge it. We've published our complete fee rationale since 2015 — updated quarterly. Every fee includes the operational cost it covers, why it exists, and how it compares to the Big Six. You can view our full fee schedules and pricing anytime.

Our rate-setting methodology is also public: we benchmark to the Bank of Canada overnight rate, subtract our operating margin, and publish the formula. No mystery. No "promotional rates" that quietly expire. You see the same numbers we see.

We write about this philosophy regularly on our Insights blog, including breakdowns of how specific fees are calculated and why some fees at other banks exist primarily as profit centers rather than cost recovery.

Under OSFI Guideline B-20, all federally regulated lenders — including us — must qualify you at the higher of your contract rate plus 2%, or the Bank of Canada's qualifying rate (currently 5.25%). This means you need to prove you can afford your mortgage even if rates rise.

We model this during your mandatory 90-minute consultative session using our Mortgage Reality Calculator. You'll see three or more rate scenarios, your total cost of ownership over 5, 10, and 25 years, and a clear picture of what "affordable" actually looks like for your household — not just what the math technically allows. Our first-time homebuyer case study walks through a real example of this process and how one couple saved $11,200 in interest.

Most banks run the stress test behind the scenes. We run it in front of you — because an informed borrower is a safer borrower, for both of us.

Yes. Under Canada's federal Access to Basic Banking Services Regulations, you have the right to open a bank account with acceptable identification — regardless of credit history, employment status, or how recently you arrived.

Our New Roots Newcomer Program goes much further than the legal minimum. You get 24 months of fee-waived chequing, a secured credit card for credit building, an International Credit Recognition assessment, and a personalized Credit Acceleration Roadmap. Most New Roots clients reach a 650+ credit score within 9 months. Multilingual advisor support is available in English, French, Punjabi, Tagalog, and Mandarin.

We've served newcomers from over 40 countries since 2014. Our newcomer case study shows how one family built a 680+ credit score and qualified for a mortgage within 14 months of arriving in Canada.

Our dedicated Estate Transition team handles everything. Joint accounts are typically converted within 24 hours. Sole-owner accounts average 8 business days to resolve — compared to the industry average of 25–40 days.

We also publish a free step-by-step guide — "What To Do When Someone Passes Away: A Banking Guide" — so families know what to expect before they even pick up the phone. Because the last thing anyone needs during grief is confusion about paperwork.

Our Families Navigating Loss page explains the full Estate Transition process, including required documentation, timelines, and what your family can expect at every stage.

We're a bank — we earn money through net interest margin (the spread between what we pay on deposits and what we earn on loans), service fee income, and interchange revenue from debit and credit card transactions. Same as everyone else.

The difference is that our cost-to-income ratio sits at roughly 52%, which is competitive because our client acquisition costs are exceptionally low. When 72% of new clients come from referrals, you don't need a massive advertising budget. Our 96.1% retention rate means we're not constantly replacing churned clients — and that offsets the narrower margins that come with being honest about fees.

Transparency isn't a cost center. It's our business model. We explain this philosophy in detail on our About page, including our founder Marcus Drayton's letter about why he left Big Five banking to build something different.

There's no lock-in period for deposit accounts. You can close your chequing or savings account at any time with no penalty. We'll even help you transition back if you decide we're not the right fit — because forcing someone to stay isn't a relationship, it's a trap.

Mortgage products do have standard contractual terms (prepayment penalties are disclosed in full during your Mortgage Reality Calculator session and documented in your Banking Plan). But for everyday banking? Walk in, walk out, no questions asked. Our Terms of Service spell this out clearly.

For the record: fewer than 4% of clients leave in any given year. But the ones who do leave on good terms — because we'd rather lose a client honestly than keep one through confusion or inertia.

Ready to Start? The First Step Is a Conversation.

No commitments, no forms, no upselling. Just a 30-minute conversation with a real person who'll review your banking setup and tell you — honestly — whether we're the right fit. Call us at (780) 555-0100, visit our Edmonton office at 10723 Violet Henry King Plaza, or book online.

Book Your Free 30-Minute Banking Review View Our Services & Pricing

Beyond the Black Box: Exactly What Happens When You Bank With Us