RBC Royal Bank
Email alertsSet up RBC alerts by email.
RBC's Alert Centre covers bank accounts, credit cards and credit lines in one place — but the path to it is genuinely hard to guess in both interfaces.
The feature is called
Alerts / Alert Centre
You can switch per-transaction email alerts on yourself, from online banking or the app.
By Rohtash Singh and Taniya Das, co-founders of Numero
RBC alerts are available to all Personal and Small Business clients in RBC Online Banking or the RBC Mobile app, and you can choose to receive them via email, SMS text message and/or mobile push notifications.
One thing RBC does automatically: for all bank accounts, credit cards and credit lines, it is required to send an Alert any time your account balance or available credit falls below $100. That happens whether or not you configure anything.
Everything else is yours to set, including the threshold. RBC lets you change the Alert threshold amount as well as how you receive Alerts — and the default is rarely low enough to capture routine spending.
Step by step
What to do, in order.
ARBC Online Banking
01
Sign in to RBC Online Banking
Start from the Accounts Summary page.
02
Click the Message/Alerts link at the top of the page
This is the step that is impossible to guess — alerts live behind the messages link, not in a settings menu.
03
Select Alert Centre
The Alert Centre is where all your alerts are managed in one place.
04
Select Alert Settings in the left-hand navigation menu
This shows your current email and SMS alert settings, which you can then change.
05
Choose email, and lower the threshold amount
Set email as a delivery channel and change the Alert threshold to the lowest value RBC allows, so day-to-day spending triggers alerts rather than only large transactions.
BRBC Mobile app
01
Sign in on the RBC Mobile app and tap More at the bottom right
The app path is completely different from the web one.
02
Under Services, tap Alerts & Notifications
This is the app's equivalent of the Alert Centre.
03
Tap the three dots at the top right to open Settings
Alert settings are behind the overflow menu rather than on the main screen.
04
Set your channels and threshold
Choose email, SMS and/or push, and lower the threshold amount so routine spending is covered.
Alert Centre — Alert Settings
Alert | SMS | Push | |
|---|---|---|---|
Bank account activity | selected | not selected | not selected |
Credit card activity | selected | not selected | selected |
Credit line activity | selected | not selected | not selected |
Balance below $100 (automatic) | selected | not selected | not selected |
Notify me for amounts over
$ 0.00Lower this — the default skips routine spending
The threshold decides whether this is useful or merely occasional.
Worth knowing
The things that catch RBC Royal Bank customers out.
In Online Banking, alerts sit behind the Message/Alerts link at the top of the Accounts Summary page — not in a settings menu.
The RBC Mobile path is different again: More, then Alerts & Notifications under Services, then the three dots at the top right.
RBC is required to send an automatic alert any time your balance or available credit falls below $100, whether or not you configure anything.
The threshold amount is adjustable, and the default is usually too high to capture everyday spending.
Alerts cover bank accounts, credit cards and credit lines — three separate sources that each need attention.
Menus move. If this does not match what you see:
RBC Royal Bank’s own page on thisThen Numero turns those alerts into a record.
Once RBC Royal Bank is emailing you reliably, Numero reads what you authorize in Gmail or Outlook and organizes it — merchants normalized, subscriptions detected, refunds tracked to completion. It never asks for your RBC Royal Bank login, card number, or OTP, and there is nowhere in the product to enter them.
Connect an inboxQuestions
RBC Royal Bank alerts, answered
Where are RBC alert settings?
In Online Banking, click the Message/Alerts link at the top of the Accounts Summary page, select Alert Centre, then Alert Settings in the left-hand menu. In the RBC Mobile app, tap More at the bottom right, then Alerts & Notifications under Services, then the three dots at the top right. The two paths have almost nothing in common.
Can I change how much a transaction has to be before RBC alerts me?
Yes. RBC states you can easily change the Alert threshold amount as well as how you receive Alerts — email, SMS text message or mobile push notifications. Lowering the threshold is what makes alerts useful for tracking spending rather than just flagging large transactions.
Does RBC send any alerts automatically?
Yes. For all bank accounts, credit cards and credit lines, RBC is required to automatically send an Alert any time your account balance or available credit falls below $100.