If you bank with RBC, TD, CIBC, or Wealthsimple and want one budget that covers all of them, the honest answer is that none of their own apps will do it. RBC NOMI, TD MySpend, CIBC Insights, and Wealthsimple’s Spend Insights are each locked to the accounts you hold at that one bank. Skwad pulls them into a single budget without a bank login. RBC and CIBC email you an alert for every purchase, and Skwad reads those automatically. TD and Wealthsimple don’t, so you import a statement instead, which still means no password changes hands. Here’s what each one gives you, where it stops, and how to budget across all of them.
What each bank’s own app gives you
RBC, TD, CIBC, and Wealthsimple have all added spending tools to their apps over the years. They’re genuinely handy for a quick look at where your money went. The catch is the same every time: each one only sees the bank it lives in.
RBC NOMI
NOMI is RBC’s set of smart features inside the RBC Mobile app. It suggests monthly budgets by category based on your history, sends you insights about your spending and account activity, and can tuck small amounts into savings automatically. It’s a solid first budget if RBC is your only bank. But NOMI can only work with your RBC accounts. Spend on a TD card or a CIBC account and NOMI never sees it, so the budget it builds is always missing a piece.
TD MySpend
TD’s spending tools, which it has offered through MySpend and its main app, show your spending as it happens and compare it to your typical month by category, so you get a real-time read on whether you’re spending more than usual. Like NOMI, they’re tied to your TD accounts. It’s spend tracking with category targets and savings goals, but there are no shared envelopes, no rollover, and nothing from your other banks shows up.
CIBC Insights
CIBC Insights lives in the CIBC app and sends personalized tips about your CIBC spending. Unusual-activity warnings come from CIBC’s separate fraud and transaction alerts. Again, useful, and again, CIBC only. It’s built to keep you informed about the accounts you hold at CIBC, not to be the one place you plan your whole month.
Wealthsimple
Wealthsimple’s Spend Insights groups your spending by category and shows trends, with a household view if you share money with a partner. But it’s spend tracking, not budgeting: there’s no way to set a limit per category and watch against it, and it only sees money that lives in Wealthsimple. It tells you where your Wealthsimple spending went, not whether your whole month is on track.
The pattern is worth saying plainly: bank-native tools are built to keep you inside that bank’s app. If your financial life sits at one bank, they’re a fine place to start. The moment it spreads across two or three, you’re checking three apps and doing the math yourself.
What to look for in a budgeting app if you bank in Canada
Once you’ve decided you want one budget across your banks, a few things actually matter in Canada, more than the feature list on the marketing page.
It shouldn’t require your banking password just to work. Handing your online banking login to a third party puts your credentials in one more place that can be breached, and it can complicate a fraud claim with your bank if something goes wrong. A live connection through an aggregator should be an option you can choose, not the only way in. We wrote more about whether it’s safe to connect your bank to budgeting apps if you want the full picture.
It should keep working when aggregator connections break. Most apps reach your accounts through Plaid or a similar data aggregator, and in Canada those connections are widely reported to drop when banks change their login or security. It’s a common reason Canadians give up on a budgeting app. Here’s why those Canadian bank connections keep breaking, and how to avoid the problem entirely.
It should speak Canadian dollars and cover Canadian institutions, including the credit unions that aggregators tend to skip. And it should let you budget across all your banks at once, which is the whole reason to look past your bank’s own app.
Skwad is built around those priorities. When your bank emails transaction alerts, it reads those instead of connecting to your account. When it doesn’t, you import a statement, so there’s still no login to share. If you want the deeper comparison, we put together a full breakdown of Skwad versus a Plaid-based setup, and a broader look at why Skwad is the best budgeting app for Canadians.
How Skwad works with each bank
There are two paths in, and which one you use depends on whether your bank emails you a transaction alert. RBC and CIBC do, so Skwad reads those alerts and you never touch a statement. TD and Wealthsimple don’t send a useful per-transaction alert, so you import a statement instead. Both paths keep your login to yourself, and you can budget without sharing your bank password either way.
RBC
RBC emails an alert for card purchases, transfers, and bill payments. Turn transaction alerts on in the RBC Mobile app or online banking, point them at Skwad once, and everything from your RBC chequing, savings, and credit cards flows into the same budget as your other banks. Skwad pulls out the amount, merchant, and date and categorizes each one automatically. See the step-by-step RBC alert setup.
CIBC
CIBC sends the same kind of per-transaction alert. Switch it on and Skwad picks each one up automatically, giving you CIBC spending inside one shared budget with no reconnecting every few weeks. Follow the CIBC alert setup.
TD
TD is the one to be straight about. It sends balance and threshold notifications, not an alert for every transaction, so the email method that covers RBC and CIBC won’t cover TD. The reliable route is to import a TD statement: download it from TD, upload it to Skwad, and your TD activity is categorized and sitting next to your other accounts, no login handed over. If you’d rather have a live connection, you can link TD through Plaid or SimpleFin instead, with the usual caveat that aggregator links can drop. More on the no-login route in spend tracking without bank linking, and TD’s own notification options are on the TD alerts page.
Wealthsimple
Wealthsimple works like TD here. It doesn’t email a per-transaction alert, so you bring it in by importing a Wealthsimple statement, or by connecting through SimpleFin if you want a direct link. Once it’s in, your Wealthsimple spending budgets alongside your bank accounts instead of living in a separate app.
Once your accounts are feeding in, you get automatic categorization, envelope budgets you actually control, goals, and shared budgets for a partner, across every account at once. For RBC and CIBC, that means alerts that don’t disconnect. For TD and Wealthsimple, it means an import that works even when aggregator connections don’t. You can see every Canadian bank Skwad supports too.
Frequently asked questions
Does RBC have a budgeting app?
RBC builds budgeting tools into the RBC Mobile app through NOMI, which suggests category budgets and sends personalized spending insights. It works well for your RBC accounts, but it only sees money you hold at RBC. If you also bank with TD or CIBC, NOMI can’t show that spending, so you don’t get one complete budget. Skwad reads the alerts RBC and CIBC email you, and imports statements for the banks that don’t, so you can budget across them together.
Can I use YNAB or Monarch with TD?
You can, but most third-party budgeting apps reach TD through a data aggregator like Plaid, and those connections break often with Canadian banks whenever the bank changes its login or security setup. TD also doesn’t email a per-transaction alert the way RBC and CIBC do, so the alert method won’t cover it. With Skwad you import a TD statement instead, which needs no aggregator and no TD password, or connect directly through Plaid or SimpleFin if you prefer.
Does Wealthsimple have a budgeting app?
Not really. Wealthsimple’s Spend Insights lets you track and categorize your spending inside the app, with trends and a household view, but it’s tracking rather than budgeting; you can’t set per-category limits, and it only sees your Wealthsimple activity. It also doesn’t send a per-transaction alert email. To budget your Wealthsimple spending alongside your RBC, TD, or CIBC accounts, import a Wealthsimple statement into Skwad or connect it through SimpleFin. Neither asks for your Wealthsimple login.
Do I have to give a budgeting app my CIBC password?
Not to budget your CIBC spending. Skwad’s default works from the transaction alerts CIBC emails you, so your banking credentials stay between you and CIBC. If you’d rather have a live connection, linking through Plaid or SimpleFin is there as an option, but it’s your choice, not a requirement. Keeping your online banking password to yourself also avoids complicating a fraud claim if something ever goes wrong.
Does this work with credit unions?
Yes. If your credit union emails you transaction alerts, Skwad reads them the same way it reads RBC and CIBC alerts, including the credit unions aggregators often skip. If it doesn’t send alerts, you can still import a statement. Either way there’s no login to share.
Four banks, one budget, no passwords handed over. Point your RBC and CIBC alerts at Skwad, import your TD and Wealthsimple statements, and see your whole month in one place.
