For various reasons, I still have an American checking account open.
I initially opened one with my mom as a joint account holder when I was 15 and started working. At that time my parents used a local bank that was small and cute and great. In the last few years though, they've been taken over several times, first by a Greater-San Diego banking group, then a larger medium size one, and finally a western-states banking group. With their take-overs, prices and services have changed.
As of 2011, their 'totally free checking' requires an average daily balance of $500, which I certainly don't have and am not interested in maintaining. I currently earn interest on my account, but to continue earning interest, I would need an average daily balance of $1000.
So I did a quick search for free checking, and came across this comparison.
I decided to go with Capital One online banking because 1) its FREE, 2) I earn interest and 3) I don't really need a bricks and mortar bank in the States anyway.
I've only just set up the account and transferred funds from my old account, but so far so good. Applying for the account was relatively painless, and once I typed in the test amounts they had deposited into the account from which I wanted to transfer money, it arrived in about half an hour.
Their online interface is so far easy to use (the complete opposite of my old bank), so I might even transfer money into the account using Paypal. The only downsides I can think of are having to scan or mail in any American checks (friends reimbursing me or gifts from family while in the States) and the fact that B can't have his own account for the moment like we were able to fudge in person at my old bank. You need a SSN or TIN to open an American bank account and I haven't applied for one for him yet.
4 comments:
I've had a savings account with ING for years, and just now opened a checking account with them too since it earns interest. I do have another free checking account in Michigan that my mom can access to deposit checks, so I'm mostly just going to continue using it for transferring money to my ING account since it's slightly easier than finding an ATM that is connected to ING.
Paypal lets you take a picture of an American check with your smartphone/ipod to deposit the money too (and then you just destroy the check - you don't have to mail it). The check just needs to be less than 6 months old and not payable to cash or a money order/cashier's check.
I was in the same situation, I opened a WAMU account when I was 15 and started working. Then when that went under it was bought by Chase and it is working well so far - although I'm only earning 0.10% interest on the savings account... not like interest rates these days are fabulous. how much interest are you guys getting? I just want an account that my mom can be a signatory on, deposit cheques for me and have everything free :) haha!
I earn 1.01% APY, which is variable.
The transfers from my old accounts have been really quick, as in, I enter the test amounts they deposited in my old account before transferring the amount requested, and 2 minutes later I have the email saying the transfer has been initiated.
They also offer an account with 0.05%APY but reward miles for every purchase. Since I barely use the account, I went for the higher interest.
How is Capital One working out for you? My bank (Chase) is now deciding to charge me $10 a month!!! (dude I thought French banks were expensive!) so unless I can get them to make a commercial gesture and waive that I'm seriously looking at changing banks. So sad, I had been with WaMu since I was 12 years old...
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