Swapping Banks

[RPM 26560]

Finally got tired of the high fees, shitty service and general zero fucks given from my hometown brick and mortar. Been with them since 1974. Did some looking around and decided to go with Simple. They're a branch of BBVA and have decent interest rate checking with no minimum balance. I'm sure the customer service can't be worse than what I'm getting now and at least I'll make 2% on my deposits.

Who are you using? (include account and routing numbers)

 

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4998]

Local credit union here.

[Sbbruin 22082]

balances, I’ve been with BofA since 86.   Not switching now.  Of course, if you maintain real balances, there are no fees.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13707]

22 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

balances, I’ve been with BofA since 86.   Not switching now.  Of course, if you maintain real balances, there are no fees.

Yes but if you have decent amount of money there, you’re losing money since they don’t pay interest.

however like you I’ve been with the same bank since 88:  Chase via Bank One.

[deadshank 24654]

Amegy via Southwest Bank of Texas (12 accounts; 3 personal and 9 bidness)

Plains Capital via Bank of River Oaks  (1 bidness account)

Dont encounter a lot of fees on personal stuff with Amegy due to knowing my officer well.  Business is another story.  If I really bitch and moan my officer will get some fees waived but it's a lot of give and take with me having to constantly stay after them. 

[52-80 19379]

i like the chuckie schwab but i dont use them for anything but online banking and a bit of brokerage services

[SDG 3335]

38 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Yes but if you have decent amount of money there, you’re losing money since they don’t pay interest.

however like you I’ve been with the same bank since 88:  Chase via Bank One.

They pay interest; I get interest on both my checking and savings.  It isn’t much, but they do pay something.  

[LebongJames 1900]

USAA for checking

Barclays for online savings

Wealthfront for personal Roth IRA outside of company managed Voya 401k

[hornbri 1504]

I use E*Trade for 11 personal accounts (combo of checking, savings, brokerage, IRAs) they are good and I don't pay any fees and get ATM charges refunded. 

[Grippe 323]

16 minutes ago, LebongJames said:

USAA for checking

Barclays for online savings

Wealthfront for personal Roth IRA outside of company managed Voya 401k

I'm close to this - I used to use a local Credit Union for Savings/CD but their security was hacked twice so I moved my savings to USAA in addition to checking.

I rolled my personal IRA into my company managed Fidelity 401k but also keep a separate TSP fund that outpaces everything else I have experienced (prolly because there's no corporate margin to grow).

On a hunch, I'm going to open an international account in China (under one of the big four there, most likely BoC or ICBC), it won't be much but it will be a start.

[TwiceHorn 31987]

8 minutes ago, Grippe said:

 

I rolled my personal IRA into my company managed Fidelity 401k

 

First of all, didn't know you could do this.  Second, why would you?  An IRA is more flexible (beneficiary designation, investment choice, etc. etc.) than a 401k.  The only reason I can think of for doing it is that a 401k is more absolutely exempt from creditor claims than an IRA (IRAs depend on state law for exemption and are exempt in Texas).  I suppose you can borrow against a 401k and not an IRA, but yeesh.

[Grippe 323]

Yes, you can - the fact that my personal IRA was with Fidelity made it easy (in-company transfer of assets).

As to why - for early retirement, the penalty for borrowing/withdrawing was significantly less on the 401k than the IRA.  The numbers aren't astronomical (below 7 figures) but the timing (wanting to retire before 60 which is coming up fast) helped it make sense.

[kmac30 416]

First of all, didn't know you could do this.  Second, why would you?  An IRA is more flexible (beneficiary designation, investment choice, etc. etc.) than a 401k.  The only reason I can think of for doing it is that a 401k is more absolutely exempt from creditor claims than an IRA (IRAs depend on state law for exemption and are exempt in Texas).  I suppose you can borrow against a 401k and not an IRA, but yeesh.

Nm- answered my own question

[pops 7121]

Local credit Union. Banking isn't what it used to be but to me this is as close as I can get.  

[dlatin 328]

CapitalOne360 has all my money parked in it, the 360 MoneyMarket is paying 2% interest, which is pretty nice.  I haven't seen a place with a higher rate.

[HRSchenker 2331]

I use Ally for my every day banking needs. Money market savings at 2.2% and a checking account for when I need to pay my lawn guy.

[orange dream 1288]

2nd for Amegy via Southwest Bank.

[Gil Bang 26176]

11 hours ago, RPM said:

Finally got tired of the high fees, shitty service and general zero fucks given from my hometown brick and mortar. Been with them since 1974. Did some looking around and decided to go with Simple. They're a branch of BBVA and have decent interest rate checking with no minimum balance. I'm sure the customer service can't be worse than what I'm getting now and at least I'll make 2% on my deposits.

Who are you using? (include account and routing numbers)

 

I have a simple account, but there's one problem; you can only photo deposit checks up to $3000.   Just about every check I get is more than $3000, and the only alternative is to deposit by mail, which takes a few days.   It's the only drawback that I've found with simple. 

I don't work for The Man, so direct deposit isn't an option. 

Edited July 2, 2019 by Gil Bang

[Guest Lobo]

A bank with lots of branches Near you with lots and lots of staff.   That kind of overhead directly translates to more money in your pocket.  

[TwiceHorn 31987]

9 hours ago, Grippe said:

Yes, you can - the fact that my personal IRA was with Fidelity made it easy (in-company transfer of assets).

As to why - for early retirement, the penalty for borrowing/withdrawing was significantly less on the 401k than the IRA.  The numbers aren't astronomical (below 7 figures) but the timing (wanting to retire before 60 which is coming up fast) helped it make sense.

Terminate employment and over 55?

[gurt 796]

23 hours ago, dlatin said:

CapitalOne360 has all my money parked in it, the 360 MoneyMarket is paying 2% interest, which is pretty nice.  I haven't seen a place with a higher rate.

Plenty of Free Checking accounts with higher than 3% interest, if you meet qualifications.  

 

This one in Austin pays 3.5: https://www.bankkeystone.com/

[NeverMarryAStripper 22241]

2nd for Amegy via Southwest Bank.

3rd for Amegy via SWBofT, I go even further back to. Northwest Crossing Bank

[dlatin 328]

On 7/3/2019 at 12:25 PM, gurt said:

Plenty of Free Checking accounts with higher than 3% interest, if you meet qualifications.  

 

This one in Austin pays 3.5: https://www.bankkeystone.com/

Thanks - I don't see the rates or qualifications at keystone, but it doesn't matter since I'm not a resident of the select counties.  I've found some higher rates but there are often caps.

[HRSchenker 2331]

3.5% holy shit! That's a whole percent higher than VMMXX

[Nice Guy Eddie 13707]

3.5% is pretty impressive. I would have to think they can't sustain that for long but nothing wrong with taking advantage of a promo rate. There is some criteria on spending transaction but they don't seem difficult.

[tokamak 6685]

On 7/8/2019 at 1:02 PM, HRSchenker said:

3.5% holy shit! That's a whole percent higher than VMMXX

 

On 7/8/2019 at 1:34 PM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

3.5% is pretty impressive. I would have to think they can't sustain that for long but nothing wrong with taking advantage of a promo rate. There is some criteria on spending transaction but they don't seem difficult.

These things are called "reward checking accounts". Google that phrase and you'll find plenty of them. Was a big fad 10-ish years ago but ultralow interest rates killed most of them off. Who wants to jump through a bunch of hoops for 1.5% interest?

I suppose they're coming back now that rates are up a bit. Usually the rate is only good on a certain amount of money (e.g. first $20k) and you have to do 10-20 debit card transactions per month to get the interest. They're legit, and if you follow all the requirements to a T, can pay off pretty nicely. I used to fuck with them a lot, but they're usually at really tiny (think 1 branch) banks which tend to come and go. I got tired of changing banks every 18 months (or more accurately, explaining to my wife why we need to change banks every 18 months). Most of the banks are hoping to bring in a bunch of new customers quickly in a short period of time, then they start fucking with the requirements and rates hoping you'll be too lazy to move on.

You can do almost as well with high-yield online savings accounts with about 5% of the hassle. I keep most of our cash in one of those now and just enough for day-to-day operations in a (regular) checking account.

Edited July 10, 2019 by tokamak

[Nueces River Rat 5739]

I've been looking around at changing mainly because I currently use a local bank which only  has branches in the immediate area and will need something that has presence both here in the Corpus area and the San Antonio/ Austin  area pending a future move up there and a business start somewhere in the vicinity.  I already scratched the big national banks.  Screw them as they don't even have real decision makers at some of their bigger locations.    Then it's the more Texas based  banks like IBC, Frost, etc and they have their pros and cons.   But I've also looked at the Credit Unions like RBFC,  Security Service and I'm getting inclined to go with one of them.    One thing they do well is if you need to get a loan or mortgage and you have an account with them,  they can get you the better interest rates and in some cases expedite the process along .  Plus they have an ATM network with other credit unions which don't charge service fees.  They built those networks up when many of these credit unions focused primarily on military affiliated  individuals as their customer base and  kept them as a cornerstone as  they've  opened their memberships up to the general public at large.