I have been with the Cdn Bank of Commerce. Once my Mother passed away in '91 I had a meeting with one clerk to arrange that I would still be using the Visa to the Credit Card with them to also things like town taxes, electricity, natural gas & Shaw cable would be extracted automatically every month. So I also receive the grand total from each once a month & record it in my three-leaf file book. THAT is constant use of the Bank of Commerce & they darn well know it. For even any individual cheques of the different months it in a mini-form so the bank knows me & I know exactly what has been extracted.
So really it is easy to keep your bank account active. IF(?) there is a small donation of money from the Govt that is immediately showen in my account & not worried about the post office delay & such. The automatic withdrawls saves me from filling out the amount, postage & such or possibly delivering it to the main office.
I tried to get it across to my Mother this was a much better system only she prefered to deliver the cheque directly to some firm, meaning I had to drive her there since she had lost her DL due to age & never an accident in her complete life. We took some losses as she wanted to handle the money her way so often we were to late of a proper discount offered in advance to home owners.
Also when there is a bank strike so many are beefing about NOT receiving their Old Age Pension or Cdn Pension Plan WHEN it could be done my way with no delays.

