How-tos & FAQs

Find answers, clarifications and guides

Quick and clear answers to the most common doubts

Onboarding & account opening

There’s no need to visit our office or print off a pile of documents and mail them in. If you have any questions during the process just send us a note to support@nestwealth.com or schedule a call with us.

Please make sure you have the following on hand:

  • A valid, government issued, photo ID
  • Online banking login information or copy of a void cheque
  • (Optional) – A statement for any existing investment account(s) you would like to transfer over

Nest Wealth supports almost all types of registered and non registered investment accounts including individual, joint, corporate, and trust accounts with the exception of Registered Disabilities Savings Plans (RDSPs).

For more details, visit the Investment Accounts page.

We will work with you to determine what the best asset allocation mix is for you based on our existing ETF lineup. Other securities cannot be added or removed from these models but we can modify your cash target based on your short-term liquidity needs.

Our custodian can typically open an account within 24-48 hours. Once an account is open, you can submit funding requests from your bank account or transfer an existing account from another institution.

This largely depends on where the investment account is held currently and whether or not the current institution is a member of the ATON network or not. Here are the general timeframes for the different types of transfers:

  • Electronic: 2-4 weeks
  • Non-Electronic: 4-6 weeks

Account funding and withdrawal

This largely depends on where the investment account is held currently and whether or not the current institution is a member of the ATON network or not. Here are the general timeframes for the different types of transfers:

  • Electronic: 2-4 weeks
  • Non-Electronic: 4-6 weeks

In general, investment transfers may take 4 to 6 weeks to complete if documents are in good order. The processing time mostly depends on the account type and whether the transferring institution has electronic processing.

Transfer times also vary depending on the time it takes your current institution to start the transfer process on their end.

A Portfolio Manager will reach out to you before we proceed to invest the funds. Before investing the money you’ve deposited, we want to make sure you are comfortable with the answers you have given in the risk questionnaire and also with the proposed asset allocation mix.

Simply log into your Nest Wealth profile and in the ‘Accounts’ section you’ll be able to quickly and safely request a withdrawal.

Our investment minimums are as follows:

Less than $1000 = Account sits in cash
$1000 to $19,999 = Account will be invested in a one-ticket solution
$20,000 + = Accounts will be invested in our customized ETF portfolios

Simply log into your Nest Wealth profile and in the ‘Transfers’ section you’ll be able to quickly and safely request for the money to be transferred from your bank or brokerage account.

Compliance and protection

Keeping your money safe is extremely important to us, and we do this in two ways:

  1. We use third-party custodians. Your assets are held in an account in your name at National Bank Independent Network (NBIN Inc) or Fidelity Clearing Canada (FCC). Nest Wealth only has the right to issue trading instructions against your account. We can’t access money in your account other than to receive our monthly advisory fee. In the unlikely event that Nest Wealth becomes insolvent, your assets will not be impacted and will remain unaffected in your account at the custodian.
  2. Nest Wealth is a registered Portfolio Manager in Canada. Securities in your account may be protected up to $1,000,000 CDN through one of our custodians should they go insolvent. See www.cipf.ca for more details.

  • CIRO Membership: the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) is a national self-regulatory organization that ensures compliance with industry standards and market integrity rules. CIRO regulates investment dealers and mutual fund dealers across Canada, enforcing rules related to business conduct, trading, and financial operations.
  • CIPF Membership: the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF) provides protection to investors in the event of a member firm’s insolvency. CIPF coverage helps safeguard investors’ assets, offering a level of financial security and confidence in the investment process

In summary, being regulated by CIRO ensures that Nest Wealth adheres to strict regulatory standards, while CIPF membership provides additional investor protection.

Investing with a Registered Portfolio Manager in Canada offers several advantages for individual investors:

  • Professional Expertise: Portfolio managers are highly educated and experienced, providing informed decisions tailored to your financial profile.
  • Fiduciary Duty: They are legally bound to act in your best interest, ensuring a transparent service.
  • Diversification and Risk Management: They create balanced portfolios to reduce risk while maintaining potential returns.
  • Fee Transparency: They always charge transparent asset-based fees without hidden commissions.
  • Personalized Service: They develop a customized investment strategy aligned with your profile.

This partnership provides professional management, security, and personalized service, all while ensuring your investments are managed with your best interests in mind.

Preparing for tax season (RRSPs & TFSAs)

The end of the contribution year depends on whether the end of the previous contribution year falls on a Saturday or Sunday. The exact date may change each year, for more information look at the Canada Revenue Agency Web site

1. EFT From Linked Bank Account
To start a one-time or a recurring contribution to your account, please place a request through your Nest Wealth profile by following these steps:
– Log in to the Nest Wealth portal.
– Click the “Transfers” tab on the top left side of the window.
– Click on the green “Deposit” button next to your investment account.
– In the new window, select your bank account information from the drop-down menu and specify the frequency of the recurring contributions, $ amount, and the start date.

2. Bill Payment – Please follow the steps below:
A. Add Fidelity Clearing Canada ULC or NBIN as Payee (in your online banking).
B. Add your Nest Wealth account number (if the client’s account starts with the letter F, please direct the Bill Payment to Fidelity Clearing Canada (FCC). If the client’s account starts with the number 6, please add NBIN as the Payee).
C. Process the payment.
D. Alternatively, Employers can contribute to Employees RRSP via Cheque or Bill Payment provided, the Employer information is documented in your RRSP account.

3. Cheque – Please send these directly to the custodian and mention the account number in the memo section.
If your account starts with the letter F please direct the Cheque to Fidelity Clearing Canada (FCC) and, if your account starts with the number 6, please direct the cheque to National Bank Independent Network (NBIN).
Fidelity Clearing Canada, ULC
483 Bay Street, South Tower, Suite 200, Toronto, ON M5G 2N7
National Bank Independent Network
130 King Street West, Suite 3000, Toronto, Ontario, M5X 1J9

4. Internal Transfers from TFSA & Cash Accounts –
Please reach out to support@nestwealth.com for internal transfers to your RRSP/TFSA from your Nest Wealth TFSA and Non-Registered accounts.

Ideally, the funds must be at the custodian after the end of the contribution year.
However, our custodians would only be able to backdate contributions as long as proof of intent to contribute on or before March 1, current year, is provided.

If you (or your employer for pooled registered pension plan [PRPP] purposes) contribute more to your RRSP, or your spouse’s or common-law partner’s RRSP than your RRSP deduction limit allows, you will have an excess contribution.

Generally, you have to pay a tax of 1% per month on excess contributions that exceed your RRSP/PRPP deduction limit by more than $2,000 unless you:

1. Withdraw the excess amounts.
2. Contributed to a qualifying group plan.

If you have to pay this 1% tax, fill out a T1-OVP, Individual Tax Return for RRSP, PRPP and SPP Excess Contributions return and send it to your tax centre. Pay the tax within 90 days after the calendar year to avoid late-filing penalties or interest charged.

Generally, you can contribute to your RRSP:

  • until December 31st of the year you turn 71 years of age
  • when you have available RRSP deduction limit room

You can contribute to your spouse’s or common-law partner’s RRSP until December 31st of the year that they turn 71 years of age.

Employers can contribute to Employees RRSP via Cheque or Bill Payment. The Employer information needs to be documented in your RRSP account and the names must match so that the custodian can apply the funds.

The following are not considered to be an RRSP, PRPP, or SPP contribution for the purpose of claiming a deduction on your tax return. Find out the special rules that apply if you:

  1. Transfer amounts to your RRSP, PRPP, and SPP
  2. Repay funds that you withdrew under the Home Buyer’s Plan
  3. Repay funds that you withdrew under the Lifelong Learning Plan

Contributions made in the first 60 days of current year can be claimed (deducted) for the past year or current tax year, but not for both years. Whether you’re claiming the contribution for past year or curent year, it must be entered as a contribution on your past year tax return.

Example: A contribution made on January 10, 2025, could be deducted for the 2024 tax year or carried forward to be deducted in 2025 or future tax years. Irrespective of the year you’re claiming for, the contribution must be entered on your 2024 tax return.

Please check out the Important Dates listed at the bottom of this document for details along with the respective custodian you have your account with.

For accounts custodied with FCC, the tax documentation will be mailed to you directly and will be available on our platform in the Account Statements section.
For accounts custodied with NBIN, they will be mailed to you directly & digital copies can be retrieved directly from NBIN’s MyPortfolio+ service once available

RRSP Contribution Limits
You can contribute up to 18% of your previous year’s earned income up to the maximum amount of $30,780, plus any unused contribution room from years prior.
For an accurate figure of contribution limits, please check out the following:

  • RRSP Yearly Contribution Limits
  • How Contributions Affect Your RRSP Deduction Limit CRA MyAccount Online
  • Tax Information Phone Service (TIPS)

For withdrawals from your RRSP during the tax year, you may receive a RL-2 for Quebec residents, a T4RSP, or a NR4 for non-residents.

In most cases, you won’t receive any tax slips for your Tax-Free Savings Account because contributions to a TFSA aren’t tax-deductible, and any withdrawals made are tax-free. Income within your TFSA also won’t generate tax slips since TFSAs allow for tax-free growth – be it from capital gains, interest, and/or dividends.

With a TFSA, you are required to keep track of your contributions and withdrawals. You can have more than one TFSA, but the total amount you contribute can’t be more than your available contribution room. That’s important since over-contributions are subject to a monthly tax of 1% for each month the excess amount stays in your TFSA.

The annual TFSA dollar limit (for 2025) is $7,000.
You can also carry forward any unused contribution room from previous years.
For more information, please check out the following:

  • TFSA Yearly Contribution Limits
    (Scroll down on the page to see TFSA details)
  • Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA)
    Guide for Individuals
  • CRA MyAccount Online
  • Tax Information Phone Service (TIPS)

RRSPs do not generate any tax slips related to annual investment earnings, slips are issued for any contributions and withdrawals. Withdrawals are fully taxed as income. You will receive a T4RSP for the exact amount withdrawn from an RRSP.

Starting with the 2021 tax year, the T5008 / Relevé 18 produced for investors will show a value in Box 20 (“Cost or Book Value”). This value displays the cost or book value for a particular security, calculated based on the total amount paid to purchase that security, adjusted to reflect applicable transaction charges, reinvested distributions, returns of capital, and corporate reorganizations among other factors.

In some cases, the value in Box 20 of the T5008 / Relevé 18 may not be appropriate for tax reporting purposes, and adjustments are required prior to such reporting. For example, securities purchased outside your organization will generally use the information provided to Fidelity Clearing Canada by the organization from which the securities were transferred, or a market-value based estimate if that information was not provided. Where no estimates are available, Box 20 will remain blank or show $0.

Investors are responsible for applying appropriate adjustments to the value in Box 20 when reporting cost or book value to the Canada Revenue Agency or Revenu Québec.

Canada Revenue Agency’s own guidance is as follows:

Box 20 – The amount in Box 20 may or may not reflect your adjusted cost base (ACB) for the purpose of determining the gain or loss from the disposition of the security. You are required to make the adjustments, as needed, to the amount indicated in Box 20, at the time of determining and reporting your gain or loss from the disposition.

Please review the Annual Statements provided to you. The page titled, ‘Account Realized Gain and Loss Report (Realized G/L Report)’, identifies all transactions used to estimate book value and proceeds of disposition. This information should help you and/or your tax advisor with tax reporting.

Onboarding & account opening

The first step is to invite your client through your advisor portal. Once your client receives their invite, they will start the account opening process. Your client will select the account type(s) that they would like to open during the onboarding process. Once all the steps in the onboarding process are completed, a set of forms will be generated for the client to sign digitally. After the completed copies are received by Nest Wealth, the Client Experience team will submit the paperwork to the custodian to open the account(s).

Our custodian typically takes 2-3 business days to open an account. However, if there are deficiencies in the account opening documents, this may cause a delay. Once an account is opened, your client can submit funding requests from their bank account.

To ensure the client is prepared to open their account, please make sure they have the following on hand:

  1. A valid, government issued, photo ID
  2. A copy of a void cheque or a PAD form with the client’s full name
  3. A Social Insurance Number (SIN)
  4. A statement for any existing investment account(s) they would like to transfer over

Here’s a list of all the account types we offer:

  • Non-Registered (CAD) (Individual & Joint) • Non-Registered (USD) (Individual & Joint) • TFSA
  • RRSP
  • Spousal RRSP • RRIF
  • Spousal RRIF • LIRA
  • LIF
  • RESP (Family) (Individual & Joint)
  • Corporate Non-Registered (CAD)
  • Corporate Non-Registered (USD)

We do not support RDSPs at this time. Currently, we are not able to open the below account types fully online. As such, there will be additional paperwork that the clients will need to complete/sign outside the platform:

  • LIRA
  • LIF
  • Corporate Non-Registered

Financial professioanls on our platform have the ability to assist clients in opening additional accounts. They just need to open the profile of the client they are looking to open additional accounts for and click the green “New Forms” button in the top right corner and then select the account type(s) they would like to open.

Ensure to complete and hit save on all the drop down windows before finalizing the documents for signing.
The client will be able to log in to their online profile to sign the documents required to open the new account or will be sent a document package via DocuSign directly to their email. Once the documents are signed, please send an email to our team at advisors@nestwealth.com to notify our team of the signed documents so they can review and submit the documents to the custodian for opening.

It will take approximately 2 to 3 business days for the account to be active in the client’s profile.

The following information is required:

  1. Legal Name of the Corporation
  2. Type of Business
  3. Business Number / Tax ID
    (The CRA number for the corporation)
  4. Date of Incorporation)
  5. Business Address
  6. Place of Incorporation
  7. Your title with the Corporation
  8. Number of Shareholders and their percentage of ownership

The client also needs to provide a copy of the corporate banking information and Articles of Incorporation.

Absolutely! All our forms are done through our digital signature provider DocuSign, however some transfer forms may require wet (physical) signatures, depending on the relinquishing institution.

Clients can submit a transfer request as soon as they have signed the documents to open their account(s) with us. Clients can do this by visiting the Transfers tab and then selecting the Investment Account button. This will prompt them for all the information required to pre-populate a transfer form.

Financial professionals can also assist clients in setting up their investment account transfers but will need to wait for the client’s accounts to be opened before the transfer can be set up. Financial professionals would set up the transfer by opening the client profile view and clicking the green “New Transfer” button in the top right of the screen. This will open a pop up and prompt the financial professional to pre-fill the information.

Once submitted ask the client to login to their Nest Wealth account and they will be prompted to sign the transfer form. The rest is on us!

Please submit a ticket to advisors@nestwealth.com and one of our CX Team Members will schedule a call as needed.

All Nest Wealth client accounts are held in Canada by one of these custodians:

National Bank Financial Inc.
1155 Rue Metcalfe 5étage, Édifice Sun Life Montréal QC H3B 4S9

FCC – Fidelity Clearing Canada ULC (*)
483 Bay Street, Suite 200 Toronto ON M5G 2N7

They are responsible for holding client funds, producing their monthly statements, tax documents and more. We take care of working with them to ensure everything for your clients is running smoothly. That way you focus on what you do best.

(*) FCC is an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of 483 Bay Street Holdings LP, which is a joint venture between FIL Limited and Fidelity Canada Investors LLC.

  1. Submitting Void Cheques / Pre-Authorized Debit forms that are not in their name or does not include their full name.
  2. Submitting illegible documentation and identification.
  3. Using P.O. Box as home address or providing an address that is not current.
  4. Providing an incorrect birth date or SIN.
  5. Mismatching the account type you are opening from the account type requested to transfer from the relinquishing institution.
  6. Providing the incorrect jurisdiction specified on locked-in account types*

*We are required to know whether a locked-in registered account is under provincial or federal jurisdiction as well as the province of jurisdiction, if applicable. Helping your client check with his/her pension provider as to the legislation specific to their plan can help avoid errors and delays.

If clients would like to update their personal information, they can reach out to us by emailing support@nestwealth.com. The team will then work with the client to ensure whatever information needs updating is completed and send them the necessary forms.

Account funding

There are two ways of funding an account. If a client wishes to transfer an existing investment account from another financial institution, they should submit an Investment Account transfer from their online profile. If it’s a regular contribution/deposit that the client would like to complete, they should submit a Bank Account deposit.

You can view both of these through your access to the Nest Wealth portal. For account openings, you will be able to see if the client’s account is “Active” or “Pending” on the client profile screen. You can view transfers by navigating to the Transfers tab in the client’s profile.

From there, you can see if the client has initiated a transfer or not and also if we have submitted it to the custodian. If you need more information, please reach out to advisors@nestwealth.com and the Client Experience team will follow up with the custodian. Please note, our custodian will only follow up on transfers after 3 weeks have passed since it’s initiation.

To see if a client’s bank account is set up for contributions, you can go to the client’s profile and then navigate to the Transfers tab. In the top table, you will be able to see if the transfer source is active and which account(s) it is linked to.

If clients would like to withdraw money from their account(s), they can email support@nestwealth.com directly. The Customer Experience team will then send the client a letter of direction by email to sign so that the withdrawal can be processed.

Once they have the letter of direction back, it can take between 5-7 business days for the client to see the deposit in their bank account as liquidating trades may need to be placed and settled.

The client can do this by logging in to their Nest Wealth account and going to the Transfers tab. The client will need to cancel the existing contribution by clicking the red “X” beside the contribution that they’d like to cancel. Once that is done, they can proceed with submitting the new contribution by selecting the green “Bank Account” button at the top of the same page.

Taxation

All of your clients’ statements will be available to them on their Nest Wealth portal in the “Account Statements” section. They will receive a monthly statement from the custodian as well as a quarterly statement from us. This is also where they will receive their tax slips and reports. Please note that monthly and quarterly statements will be available 3-4 weeks after the month/quarter end.

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