Banking Services

The vendor is required to provide for the supply of banking services commencing on or about January 1, 2026.
- Services include, but are not limited to deposits, disbursements, electronic banking and other services.
- The service provider will be required to fulfill the full range of services required for the following types of bank accounts:
• General operating bank account, which is used for day-to-day operations at the municipality. 
• This is a chequing account and payments via wire transfer takes place in this account; 
• Other operating bank accounts with smaller balances; 
• Borrowing requirements for operating purposes in the form of access to an operating line of credit for overdraft protection on an as-required basis.
- Availability of funds
• The municipality requires that the service provider be able to receive all deposits seamlessly from all other financial institutions and ensure the municipality’s bank account is credited on the same day.
• Reports indicating amounts deposited and dates of deposit must be available, in real-time, through the online reporting tools.
- Wire transfer services
• Outgoing funds - the municipality uses wire transfer to transfer money to investing institutions for some supplier payments.
• The service provider is required to provide the ability to issue wire transfers and shall ensure that the Payments are made within a secured online environment, with the appropriate confirmation tools in place (such as reports indicating that the transaction is successful).
• Incoming funds - the service provider is required to provide the municipality with the tools to accept incoming wire payments into the general account.
• Complete details (such as date, who the sender is and any other identifying elements) provided by the issuing bank are to be made available, in Realtime, for all deposits.
- Monthly bank and fee statements
• Bank statements will be issued showing, as a minimum, the daily total of cheques cashed, individual deposits made, individual debit and credit memos including all transfers to and from accounts.
• Electronic bank and fee statements that include daily transaction activities shall be downloadable in excel format to enable sorting and analysis of information, as needed.
• Monthly bank and fee statements for all accounts shall also be downloadable in pdf format
• Complete documentation supporting all debit and credit memos shall be available online the day after they are made.
• Such transactions requiring memos include:
o Bank transfers to and from outside financial institutions;
o Returned items;
o Interest earned and charged;
o Direct deposits from outside financial institutions;
o Bank transfer to and from other agency accounts; and
o Error correction memos with each memo clearly indicating the reason for the memo and any related supporting documentation included.
- Collection and deposit services
• Cash deposits are prepared by municipal staff and delivered to the bank through an armored car service.
- Online banking services
• Online banking services are to be provided through a secured internet connection.
• Online banking services are a vital part of the municipality’s day-to-day operations and the bank reconciliation process.
• The municipality requires the following basic services:
1. Reporting:
• Flexible online reporting system with the ability to report on transactions and balances for all bank accounts.
• Daily balance reporting – summary.
• Daily balance reporting – detail (including cheque detail and electronic images).
• Daily automated clearing house (ach) and wire reporting with full addenda information.
• Current day reporting.
• Intra-day reporting (real time).
• Bank returns to be notified via email and details accessible online.
• All reports are to have the ability to be converted to excel or CVS.
2. Execution of transactions:
• Transfers between accounts. 
• Initiation of wire transfers. 
• Initiation of stop payment orders. 
• Initiation of ach transactions; recurring, repetitive and future ach debit (collection) or credit (direct deposit) transactions. 
• Maintenance of wire transfer templates. 
• Bank remittance (bai2 format) file that supports automated payment matching for payments received from customers paying through their financial institution. 
• This daily remittance should include customer reference numbers, amounts and dates for payments deposited into our account and any other relevant information. 
• Stale-dating of cheques. 
• Daily electronic bank statement files in bai2 (bank administration institute's second version) the file format is downloaded from the bank and uploaded into sap (for the general operating bank account only). 
• vendors and employees are mostly paid by eft and direct deposit. 
• The payment files are generated by sap and uploaded securely to the bank for payment. 
• The payment file format is based on the country payments association (CPA) standard format 005. 
• Refer to the average monthly transaction volumes section noted later in the RFP document for details on the approximate number of payments made monthly. 
• Web based (online) payment for several routine remittances.
3. Internal controls:
• Online cleared cheque information and other electronic images, with an ability to search for images of paper transactions processed to the bank account prior to the current business day. 
• Multi-level security administration requirements (self-administration preferred). 
• Multi-factor user authentication security for electronic banking to verify it is a legitimate municipal user. 
• A multi-factor solution that allows the municipality to utilize a physical fob and digital token is preferred. 
• Ability to lock online service functionality when administrative changes are made such as a user’s access rights pending a secondary system approval. 
• Ability to electronically approve specified outgoing payment transactions using pre-defined electronic approval workflows. 
• The electronic workflow should support multi-level approvals where the workflow approval routing is determined by characteristics of the transactions requiring approval including the amount and type of transaction. 
• Ability to view the workflow audit details for a transaction to determine the approvals required, who is approving, status of each approval required, and if approved, when the approval was completed. 
• Audit trail requirements include the ability to track all changes made within the system including the ability to date and time stamp all changes, as well as identify which users made the changes.
4. General:
• Online access for approximately twenty-five (25) users, of which approximately five (5) users will be designated as account administrators
• Ability to access historical bank activity going back twelve (12) months
• Ability to view the status of issued and paid cheques going back twelve (12) months using search criteria based on cheque number or issue date range
• Ability to view cheque images and scanned items
• Ability to generate transaction searches
• Ability to produce transaction reports and summaries
- Payment card services
• The municipality has an existing service contract with a point of sale (pos) provider (Moneris solutions). 
• The pos services will remain separate from the services required for this procurement. 
• The service provider will need to be able to accept the pos provider’s credit card transactions directly deposited into the municipality’s account. 
• Moneris solutions, the municipality’s processor of debit and credit card payments, deposits money on a daily basis.
- Overdraft processing
• The service provider shall provide overdraft protection on the municipality’s bank accounts.
- Credit services
• The municipality requires an annual operating line of credit in the amount of $25 million with the ability to increase to $50 million which will be used on an as required basis.
- Account reconciliation service
• The municipality currently does not use an account reconciliation service; however, this is something that the municipality would like the service provider to provide.
- Stop payment services
• The service provider shall accept stop payment instructions online and by email.
• Stop payment services shall be available for single or multiple cheques issued on any of the municipality’s bank accounts.
- Service charges
• Bank service charges, in any form, shall not be charged to the bank accounts except for the fees expressly established and detailed in the resulting agreement.
- Interest earned
• Interest is to be credited to the municipality’s account on a monthly basis.
• All interest entries shall be supported by detailed memos and supporting calculations outlining dates, daily balances, average balances, compensating balances, rates used, etc.
- Chargeback reporting
• Ability to access chargeback item details online.
• Ability to view returned items for any business deposit account.
• Create and view reports for previous day, current day and historical items.
• Conduct searches using several different criteria.
• Export information to other applications, eliminating the need to re-enter data.
• Schedule regularly used reports to run unattended to be available at your convenience.
- Budget: $645.6 million.
- Contract Period/Term: 3 years
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: July 30, 2025