Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway287391 | Hacker News Reader

Ally pays 1% interest for their free online savings accounts. I wouldn't be surprised if other online banks are offering even more; haven't checked in a while. (Oddly, looking at Ally's CD offerings, some of the shorter-term ones are <1%...wonder what value those could possibly offer vs. their savings account.)

Somewhat tangentially, it always surprises me that people continue to use checking/savings accounts from banks like Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, etc. when they pay terrible interest rates, don't reimburse ATM fees, and sometimes actually charge you for debit cards and/or paper checks. If it's the thought of not having access to real brick & mortar banks that scares you, Schwab is a great option (though they pay much less interest than the top online ones).

View on HN

I have Ally and Chase.

Ally I put real savings in.

Chase I use when I sell something in Craigslist for $600 and need to deposit cash. I have no good way to get cash into Ally.

So Chase is just a convenience bank for me. Also used it for the time I needed a 25k cashier check to buy my house. Ally was going to need to pay a wire fee, vs transfer and cashier check was free with Chase.

Overall yes I hate Chase.

Ah, good point -- cash deposits and big paper checks (>$10k, IIRC) are a good reason to maintain a big B&M bank account. Didn't think about that since I never do either.

Except Chase now wants to charge me $12/Mo for a freaking checking account. Their nickel and diming of fees has gotten beyond ridiculous.

Yah. I keep $1500 in my checking to keep my "free" account. So kind of the trade. They get $1500 of my money that they give me no interest. I get to abuse them for cash deposits and large paper checks.

We have a mutually abusive relationship.

As far as I know, the only bank to offer a higher interest rate (for the entire balance--as opposed to the first X amount) is GS Bank at 1.05%. But I haven't seen anything higher.

Barclays is at 1% or 1.05% as well I believe.

Synchrony does the same.

B&M banks are nice for safe deposit boxes too. My backup strategy for my home PCs is rotating hard drives through a safe deposit box.

I can answer that for myself - no way in hell would I trust any substantial amount of money to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ally_Bank. I'm somewhat more comfortable with trusting this entity - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo

If you have your paycheck auto-depositied, you can avoid most/all of the fees.

Er, could you explain why? The Wikipedia articles you link to seem to very much make the case in the opposite direction... There doesn't seem to be anything damning in the Ally entry. Especially compared with the Wells Fargo entry, which includes a detailed 14 point list of "Controversies" (including the recent scandal and CEO resignation which should be fresh on everyone's minds).

Size of the entity was what I was trying to capture. You know that an entity like WellsFargo is not going to go out of business overnight, I don't have the same level of confidence with a 600 employee online-operation.

Also, without researching, I'm just guessing that a bricks and mortar FDIC regulated bank is reasonably safe (in the United States). I would have to sit down and do somewhat more research to be certain of an entity like Ally.

Note, these are all personal observations - the original post was indicating they were surprised that people put their money in Wells Fargo/Bank of America, etc... instead of Ally. I was just trying to supply one (personal) reason why we do it. It's entirely possible that my biases/conservative nature make those reasons ridiculous, but they are still honest.

Okay, fair enough.

Just for the record though, Ally is FDIC insured/regulated (and I'd guess that's true of most online banks that people actually use). I know you didn't explicitly say otherwise, but I wanted to make a note of that for anyone else who might be worried about that specifically.

For someone like you, I'd reiterate my recommendation for Schwab. But if you never pay fees as is (even from ATMs) then I could see how it may not be worth the time to switch.

Ally is a rebranding of GM Bank -- as in General Motors. It has existed in some form since 1919. It's not some fly-by-night operation.

Ally Financial is the parent company and has 7000 employees. It's got 5 billion in revenue.

Yes, Wells Fargo is a bigger company but Ally is no small potato.

> I can answer that for myself - no way in hell would I trust any substantial amount of money to Ally Bank.

That might be an answer to you but it's not an answer to anyone asking. What's so terrible about Ally?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com