What's a good credit union / bank?

[homerdog]

I've been reading a lot about the awesomeness of credit unions lately and I have to say I feel like Wells Fargo is giving me a raw deal. The rearranging of transactions to hit me with the highest fees possible is simply enraging, and I get charged by WF every time I use a third party ATM, even if the ATM itself is free to use.

This is the article that really got me interested in credit unions.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/pf/1110/gallery.best_banks_checking/index.html

Some of them sound too good to be true, but maybe Wells Fargo is just that bad.

Does anybody have any suggestions? I'm in the U.S. by the way.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Credit unions are often eager to get dollars (small customers) that don't interest major banks. However I'm not sure you should expect to get free transactions from 3rd party ATMs even from a credit union. Up here in Canada the banks are pretty much all the same (burdened with way more regulation than they'd like), but even the credit unions will try to nickel and dime customers when they can get away with it.

As for suggestions, it might depend on your location as I expect credit unions might be more regional.

 

[homerdog]

Here's one from that CNN article: Ally Bank

While other banks tack on fees and penalize customers, Ally is rolling out the perks. Not only does it offer free checking accounts with no monthly maintenance fee and no minimum balance requirement, but this summer it introduced a debit card rewards program where customers get money back for purchases made at qualifying merchants -- ranging from restaurants to convenience stores.

The annual yield on Ally's checking accounts range from 0.9% for accounts of $15,000 or more and 0.5% for accounts with less than $15,000 -- a premium to the national average rate of 0.18%.

Don't be deterred by the fact that this is an online bank. You can use any ATM in the country as many times as you want, and Ally will reimburse you for the fees. As for deposits, Ally gives customers postage-paid envelopes so you can mail them in or you can scan checks and submit them online for same-day deposit. You can also move money between an Ally checking account and other banks free of charge.

The bolded part alone is worth switching. Scanning checks and depositing them online? Like I said, it sounds too good to be true which is why I'm asking here. Could be that whole CNN article is a paid advertisement.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Well looking at their customer reviews it seems quite a few people are not impressed with that ebill, but it doesn't cost anything to open an account or anything. I can't see how it would hurt to check it out.

Nothing but problems with Ally's e-bill system.
The user set-up and monitoring of e Bill payments exhibits amateurish, hap-hazard, non-intuitive interface design.
Yet with the new update to the website. It has changed an easy process, into a difficult, confusing and just not user friendly site.

those 3 are from the first page of user reviews.

 

[homerdog]

I'm sort of a Luddite when it comes to bill paying and still use paper checks, so that doesn't bother me too much. It is a bad sign overall though if their UI for such a basic service is so horrible.

 

[Grall]

Luckily (well...) I can't even remember when I last used an ATM, banks are trying to dismantle them all to push people into using plastic instead. Partly because they're free - or rather, they cost banks of course, which we customers end up paying for one way or another, but they're not allowed to charge us extra for the "privilege" of accessing our own money. The other part is robberies. While not quite as common right now I believe, there was a string of high-profile ATM robberies a couple years ago involving armed criminals blowing up the machines with high explosives to gain access to the money inside, with general destruction and risk of innocent lives as a result.

Virtually all stores take cards these days in Sweden, so long queues at the ATM isn't that big a deal. Many supermarkets also allow you to withdraw money at the cashier, which is a boon to the store since less money in the till means less risk of robberies there as well.

The banks on the other hand are almost universally incredible scumbags. One of the larger Swedish banks has been embarrassed on an almost daily basis in media for weeks first because they managed to earn record profits, whilst simultaneously having the worst-performing stock funds in the country - for the CUSTOMER. The vast majority of the funds lost money for customers, but for the bank and its owners they were incredilby prosperous. They also offered below inflation, or even zero interest on their bank accounts.

Then after that double whammy, it was revealed that the bank bought a 250 square meter apartment at one of the most attractive addresses in central Stockholm for its CEO, for the tune of some 22 million SKR (about US$ 3.5 million). And that's before needed renovations have been finished, the kitchen and bathroom are reportedly not in a useable state... The chairman of the board explained to media that the CEO is Danish, and thus needs somewhere to live.

When asked if his multi-million CEO salary isn't enough to pay for a home out of his own pocket, the reply was that the chairman would be happy to increase the CEO's pay so that he would be able to pay for many apartments out of his own pocket.

If you feel somewhat baffled by this response, I can assure you; you're not alone. I can't explain this with anything other than that these men suffer from complete detachment from the reality most people have to live in. My conclusion is therefore, there aren't any good banks.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

The banks on the other hand are almost universally incredible scumbags. One of the larger Swedish banks has been embarrassed on an almost daily basis in media for weeks first because they managed to earn record profits, whilst simultaneously having the worst-performing stock funds in the country - for the CUSTOMER. The vast majority of the funds lost money for customers, but for the bank and its owners they were incredilby prosperous. They also offered below inflation, or even zero interest on their bank accounts.

Then after that double whammy, it was revealed that the bank bought a 250 square meter apartment at one of the most attractive addresses in central Stockholm for its CEO, for the tune of some 22 million SKR (about US$ 3.5 million). And that's before needed renovations have been finished, the kitchen and bathroom are reportedly not in a useable state... The chairman of the board explained to media that the CEO is Danish, and thus needs somewhere to live.

When asked if his multi-million CEO salary isn't enough to pay for a home out of his own pocket, the reply was that the chairman would be happy to increase the CEO's pay so that he would be able to pay for many apartments out of his own pocket.

If you feel somewhat baffled by this response, I can assure you; you're not alone. I can't explain this with anything other than that these men suffer from complete detachment from the reality most people have to live in. My conclusion is therefore, there aren't any good banks.

Broken logic.

Nordea's main source of income is not their investment banking offerings, especially not their equity funds. It has virtually no effect for Nordea P&L if they earn 10% more or less from their mutual fund offerings.

In fact everybody knows that Nordea is not big on investment banking. The closest you get to that in Scandinavia is SEB ENSKILDA, who win the prospera every year.

(also: anybody who claims that they know anything in finance knows that if ur taking long positions in equity - i.e. mutual fund, you buy index funds).

Nordea primarily generates revenues from retail banking and some corporate banking. What this means is that,every bank that's not taking major losses right now is gonna have record profits as spreads on credits have gone up. I.e. you need to charge more money for lending due to risks.

Higher risk equals you need to charge higher interest to have fair reward to risk ratio. This means that all banks who don't have losses due to euro zone etc, and generally have the same loss rate as last year (for example Scandinavian banks minus Danish banks) will earn record profits

 

[Grall]

Broken logic.

No, I wouldn't say so. These are all facts that were widely reported at the time, and they are correct.

In fact everybody knows that Nordea is not big on investment banking. The closest you get to that in Scandinavia is SEB ENSKILDA, who win the prospera every year.

That doesn't matter for the average customer though, they can't be expected to have to take a degree in economics to understand this stuff and know when they're being bullshitted by their own bank of course.

(also: anybody who claims that they know anything in finance knows that if ur taking long positions in equity - i.e. mutual fund, you buy index funds).

Again, this is nothing Jane/Joe Public has the faintest clue about, he or she has to trust and rely on what the guy in shirt and tie across from them is telling them, and when that advice ends up losing them money (but not the bank)... Well. There we are.

Higher risk equals you need to charge higher interest to have fair reward to risk ratio.

Hurm, I'd say nothing about what banks do these days is about "fair", it's all incredibly skewed in their favor. Something that needs to be done something about I'd say.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

No, I wouldn't say so. These are all facts that were widely reported at the time, and they are correct.

I didn't say you where incorrect I just pointed that you cannot bitch about some small part of a companies business loosing money for you and then complain when the group as a whole posts record profits. Nordeas investment services is maybe 10% of that revenue!

That doesn't matter for the average customer though, they can't be expected to have to take a degree in economics to understand this stuff and know when they're being bullshitted by their own bank of course.

They should be able to google, and they should realize that these products have risks.

Only dumb persons signs documents they don't understand

Again, this is nothing Jane/Joe Public has the faintest clue about, he or she has to trust and rely on what the guy in shirt and tie across from them is telling them, and when that advice ends up losing them money (but not the bank)... Well. There we are.

The bank just provides an easy way to invest, these products could make you money, or u could loose. That's what happends when you take risks. some of these products where structured in a way that is designed to extract fees, but thats why you should l for example read reviews.

If you buy a house and loose money on that investment, are you mad at the realtor who sold you the house and made money from it? That's what investment banking is - they facilitate transactions.