The best bank in the US | Hacker News Reader

The best bank in the US

banksimple.net

65 pointspw50 comments

USAA is amazing. I cannot say this enough. They were one of the first banks to make available check scanning so you could deposit checks over the internet and they've just been consistently improving their service. They are actually a joy to deal with. Can you say that about your bank?

Technically they are a credit union, but the result is the same for the end user - truly, and I hate to use this cliche, they are the "killer app" of banking.

My bank(ing system) has not used cheques day-to-day for about 30 years now. The U.S. banking system is still literally and figuratively in the 80's. So, no, I do not think you can talk about a "killer app" quite yet.

USAA is the Mac OS 1.0 of banking, perhaps?

This article is about the banking system in the United States. Checks are a necessary evil there right now. They are slowly fading away, but still exist. They still exist because there is an established system to process payments with them. It was a big investment to create that system and it will be a big investment to replace it with something better.

I think some things move slowly in the US because of just how massive the economy is here. There is a lot of inertia.

What country do you live in?

There is inertia, and then there is actively keeping us in the dark ages to retain revenue. Ninety percent of transactions at branches are check deposits. People bringing in bits of paper to transfer money.

But the branch remains the number one channel for upsell opportunities. Banks are desperate to keep people walking into branches so that they can push more products on their customers. Brand apathy is rampant due to undifferentiated crappy products from the top banks, so they rely on branch upsells.

This is why more banks don't offer remote check deposit capabilities. If they did, they'd lose the sales channel.

We at banksimple figure that its better to just give you the product features that you actually want to use instead of relying on expensive sales channels to grow our customer base.

Don't get me wrong - I know checks are pretty much non-existent in other countries - but to say we're stuck in the 80's? That's a bit over the top. Clearly, until you do banking here and deal with a company like USAA, I'm not sure you're qualified to comment.

For 7 years, I did. And I am glad that, temporarily, I need not.

Edit: Conversely, if you do not have experience of more modern banking systems, I am not sure you can appreciate the appalling state of the U.S. one.

just moved to los angeles from the 3rd world.

No chips on credit cards. (and some FORCES your pin to be your zip)

Banks dont give you a 2k loan Even if they know you make 20K/mo.

Rent requires cashier checks.

Your online banking temp passwd arrive via mail, instead of allowing you to type one on the counter terminal while opening the account.

Extra credit card hell (bank cant ask for you), etc

Boy i miss the 3rd world :)

I've been a USAA customer for my entire adult life, and other banks just can't even compare. Their customer service is beyond excellent.

If you qualify for insurance through USAA (by being a current/former member of the US military or a child of a USAA military member), I highly recommend that as well.

I worked as an IT consultant to USAA in '95. During the 90s, I had worked as a consultant to many large companies. USAA and one other large private company were the only two I would have considered full-time employment, with USAA coming out ahead.

My work with USAA consisted of 2 weeks there per month for a year. They worked 4 days a week, 38 hour schedule. I think somewhere around 80%++ of the company were there only Monday to Thursday. Their pay scale for IT jobs was very good. I worked as a troubleshooter for the various Smalltalk projects so I saw many different projects in different parts of the company: new banking stuff (they were just getting into it), customer service apps, insurance policy management and risk exposure analysis, marketing and sales pipeline management, etc.. all in all, I was impressed. Sounds like 15 years later, they still have this reputation.

I like ING Direct. No fees, high interest rates on savings + checking, and a nice web interface. (And if I recall correctly, some regular HN contributers worked on that web interface.)

I'm also a huge fan of ING Direct (have been with them since 2002) and would gladly send out invites to anyone that wants them (disclosure: you get $25 and I get $10 if you use my invite to open your account).

Actually, I think it's double that right now.

Huh (just checked), it is indeed $25/$20 right now.

Even better. grin

Oh, and I forgot to mention that part of the reason I'm such a huge fan of ING Direct is because they have Sharebuilder, which I think is the best platform I've ever experienced for managing my Roth IRA (and stocks in general).

Sharebuilder is indeed nice. I had to close my account because my employer has to pre-approve all market trades, and Sharebuilder does not integrate with their system for that. (The joys of working for an investment bank...)

I'd love to open an account this week if you want to send an invite.

I'd also love to open an account with ING, if you'd send one my way.

ihodes and callmeed: done!

For the still-eating-ramen contingent here, ING Direct has the most customer-friendly policy on overdrafts that I've ever heard of: they charge you actual interest on money the bank fronts you to cover overdrafts, rather than charging you a fine. This means that if you have occasional lapses in your cash management and a bowl of ramen pushes you $5 into debt, you owe the bank ~9% interest on $5 for the three days it took you to cover, or less than a penny, rather than the more traditional "Enjoy your $35 overdraft fee."

Don't abuse this -- overdraft is not a credit line -- but it is nice to have.

It is nice to have that safety net just in case. I overdrafted when it took a little longer for money to transfer from my BoA account to my ING Direct and the next day when the transfer did come in I paid less than a cent on interest.

Fantastic.

I used to have a bank account with NetBank, which was excellent in terms of both price and service.

Then one day, I received an email from ING Direct telling me that they had bought out Netbank and summarily closed my account, just because I live outside of the US. It took me months to get my money back and it cost me quite a bit to deal with the antiquated paper check they sent me. Even after hours on the telephone with them explaining my situation, that my access had been cut off without warning, that waiting for international mail would cause hardship, and that dealing with a check is difficult in this country, they flat out refused to give me my own money via electronic transfer or any method that would have been soon enough for me to make all of my monthly expenses.

It's good to hear that ING is nice in most cases, but I'd be very hesitant to ever give them my business willingly after what they put me through.

USAA has a great reputation and is a wonderful institution, but I wouldn't simply say "best". I'm a member of Alliant Credit Union and receive 1.75% interest checking and 2% interest on savings. It's a credit union so they aren't trying to hit me with fees or teasing me with intro-rates. Heck, they even give me a FREE credit score without a hard pull every 3 months! I can deposit checks by scanning them (just like USAA), but there's no cool iPhone app. I get free ACH transfers to other institutions. The one thing missing is ATM reimbursement, but for the interest rate I can deal with going to one of the co-op network ATMs (or other free ATMs).

USAA does have an excellent reputation and they are an excellent institution. But "best" really depends on what you need. The most convenient ATMs for me are all free with Alliant and I get higher interest. You might prefer the ATM reimbursements and might have no qualms about getting no interest on balances under $1,000.

There are often better options than Citibank, Bank of America and Chase. There are even for-profit banks that offer really good terms such as SalemFive (http://www.salemfivedirect.com/) of which I'm also a customer.

This isn't my website, but a fellow HN reader is responsible for it so I'll plug it: http://www.bankfox.com/. It tracks interest rates, features, even bank health and it has a wonderful, clean interface.

Hi all. I'm Josh, one of the team behind Banksimple. If you have any questions, feel free to ask us anything.

Of course, with the recent outbreak of spring weather here in NYC, I've been out and about instead of checking HN. But I'll follow this thread for any questions or comments that you may have.

I had someone demonstrate to me just how great USAA's mobile banking features were, and immediately I determined that I would get an account with this fantastic bank. Alas, this fellow failed to inform me that the bank was only available to military members. Very disappointing.

From the end of the article:

"Don’t be discouraged by the questions on your non-existent military background – their banking services are available to all. Select no on all the military questions, hit submit, and you will be banking with the best bank in the US (for now)."

And that's corroborated by the USAA website. However, I'm not sure if non-military members can deposit checks by scanner/iPhone/Android. The USAA site says you must be eligible for USAA property insurance, which is military-only, to qualify for their remote check depositing services (called Deposit@Home and Deposit@Mobile).

This is correct, at least as of a couple months ago. The home deposit feature requires the military-only insurance line.

I opened an account back around when the iPhone app first came out only to discover creating my account. My short time with USAA I can say they had very good customer service but the only thing that makes them better than Schwab, Ally, etc. is the home deposit feature.

Now my credit union BECU has home deposit as well. ~6-7% interest on the first $1000 and 0.5-0.75% for balance over $1000. BECU is only open to WA-state and Boeing employees though. If you can open a BECU account I'd highly recommend them. If you can't and don't need the home deposit feature Ally's website is pretty top-notch and they have very competitive rates and features.

From the article:

I'll second this article, having for a lot of my life always opened an account at a local bank and in recent years switched over wholly to USAA, they are head and shoulders above anyone I have banked with. I have always had my insurance through them, so cannot really compare them to anyone else, but I have been so happy with them you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming away.

I feel bad that my children may not be able to use them for insurance as well (me being the air force brat, not them).

I'm pretty sure your children will be able to use it -- they'll be eligible because they were a dependent of a member. (Just like your spouse would be eligible as well, because they are the spouse of a member.) That's all it takes, really.

Reminds me of Matt Mullenwag's plan for starting a bank: http://ma.tt/2009/08/starting-a-bank/

USAA is great for insurance. If you qualify, I think it's foolish to go with anyone else. I've used USAA for 20+ years and evaluate its competition every couple of years, but always end up using USAA.

For loans, I go with smaller, local banks. I've found the best rates and service that way, plus it feels good to know my mortgage payments are being put back into my community.

For banking, I use Schwab. I get 2% back on all purchases (I put everything I can on my credit card and pay it off monthly), I get ATM fees refunded, I have free online bill pay, plus Schwab has low fees on the few stock/mutual fund trades I make each year. And it's nice to see all my cash and investments in a single interface, and have access to Schwab's branch offices, a couple of which are near where I live. Many of the advantages Schwab offers are available through USAA, TDAmeritrade, ING, and Scottrade, but none of the others offers everything I need.

As a Canadian, it's the first I hear of them. Wish we had something like that here (in the meantime, I use ING and TD Canada).

For others needing background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAA

Related: there's really something to that bank locally campaign. Everyone should at least consider it, I think. The big banks are NOT looking out for you. In fact, they're trying to hit you with as many fees as they can.

There was a lot of backlash over the fees, and the big banks are starting to scale those back. But admittedly, I would never bank at a big bank, as I would rather have no fees at all.

The problem with local banks is, as much as I believe that "too big to fail" is too big to continue existing, a bank that's too big to fail is also a safer place to put your money. (I know about FDIC, but I would also rather not deal with the inconvenience.) There's also the fact that Bank of Whitman only exists in Whitman County, so if I move or travel it's less convenient.

ING has nearly no fees at all.

I use Etrade, which has not-great customer service, simply because they have a 0% foreign exchange fee policy, and reimburse for all ATM fees. (And I have a Capital One credit card for the same reason). If this is important to you, you should have a look at:

http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Ca...

The only thing I'm missing is a digital check deposit method. Etrade doesn't like taking deposits very much.

I want a bank that feels like email. Set up subaccounts (folders), automatic filtering and forwarding of wired payments, custom-defined alerts, some kind of feed so I don't have to log into their site for everything. Y'know, exactly the kind of thing you'd expect online banking to be.

But I don't know if that exists.

Also see http://www.findabetterbank.com This has "Up-to-date checking, savings and money market account information for over 11,000 US cities and towns and over 53,000 branch locations."

I don't know, my local bank is pretty awesome. 2 branches, 4 ATMs, friendly service, functional online banking, financially solvent w/ little if any exposure to the sub-prime mess.

There's probably an awesome little local bank near you too.

Yup! I'm a member of the state employees' credit union around here. Attending public university makes me eligible to join. They have four or five ATMs in the neighborhood around campus, and a branch that's right on my walk to and from school. Plus, I can use any credit union ATM in the country. It's pretty rad!

Indeed, USAA is great. They're also the least-bad insurance option.

Some of the other service-related credit unions (Navy Federal, Pentagon Federal, Tower Federal (NSA)) are pretty decent too.

In the current climate, I care more about solvency than services.

Another reason I am happy at USAA:

In 2008 "when most financial services companies posted record losses and the S&P 500 Index total return dropped by 37%, USAA earned $423 million in net income and generated positive investment income."

https://www.usaa.com/inet/ent_utils/McStaticPages?key=newsro...

In 2009, they've done even better:

https://www.usaa.com/inet/ent_blogs/Blogs?action=blogpost...

USAA has consistently received the highest possible credit ratings, even over the last few years while other banks have been failing. They also haven't taken any bailout money.

A few mainstream banks (non-FCUs) did this as well. Smaller banks mostly, but even BB&T made out okay through all the commotion.

I wish USAA did business banking! I tried to sign up with them, but they only do personal banking.

USAA has an 8% tangible equity to assets ratio. For capital adequacy purposes, the bank only needs 1.5% TCE/TA. They are well capitalized and I would say that their prospects for insolvency are nil.

USAA also returns profits to insurance policy holders. I think I got about $70 back last year (not much, but it help offset BofA gouging me on overdraft fees...)

I still think that if you're mostly around a certain metro area, it's best to go with the dominant bank for convenience. I do have auto insurance and a credit card through USAA and they're great, but I like having many physical branches around.

Why? What do you need a physical branch for?

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