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Comment by natesm | Hacker News Reader

Well, I'm switching (I don't have a credit card). What is a good alternative? I know everyone loves USAA, but none of my family has any relation to the military. BoA is "great" because it is everywhere, is there actually anything as wide spread in the (northeast) US?

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PNC bank is fucking awesome. I'm not creative enough to think up enough good things to say about it: they just rock.

PNC has a great website, the people are great (at least at my local PNC), they're very professional, and they're pretty smug about being the only bank left that has "free checking".

http://www.pnc.com

They even refunded me the $17 they charged for a box of checks. (I had gone in and asked for a truly-free checking account, and felt tricked into the $17; so I went back and they genuinely felt sorry for the mixup, and made sure I was satisfied in every possible way.)

~~~

EDIT: incase you're wondering how PNC bank's website looks, here ya go: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/random_pics/pnc.png (also shows you the formats you can export your data in.)

Ehm, ING Direct does free checking, Schwab does free checking, plenty of smaller credit unions do free checking as well. They are definitely not the only ones.

Oh, my bad! Thanks for the correction.

I probably meant "one of the few banks left", rather than "the only ones left".

Jesus, dude - that's enough info to start hacking someone's life in that png - be sure to blur the email and last numbers of the account before you use a public link.

Yeah, I know. But I have faith in people, even the not-so-good ones. We're all in this [crazy life] together; all we can do is to try to help each other, and shrug off the bad times.

Here is a list of online banks and credit unions you might want to consider:

Ally: http://Ally.com

INGDirect: http://INGDirect.com

Fidelity: http://personal.fidelity.com/accounts/aong/fcma_learn.shtml

Schwab: http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/banking_lending/checking

Everbank: https://www.everbank.com

Alliant FCU: http://www.alliantcreditunion.org

Incredible Bank: http://incrediblebank.com

Salem Five Direct: http://www.salemfivedirect.com

Bank of Internet: http://www.bankofinternet.com

PerkStreet: http://www.perkstreet.com

Personally, I'd go with Ally. Free ATM rebates. Competitive interest rates. Easy to set up automatic transfers to savings. Free ACH transfers. Remote deposit being rolled out now.

You can't go wrong with any of the other banks either (ING and Schwab are great also), but Ally really has a nice offering.

Also, be careful when and where you use your debit card.

If someone gets a hold of your debit card info, they are accessing your cash directly. With a credit card, they are creating a future liability (no cash out of your account). Further, the consumer protections are not nearly as good on debit cards as they are for credit cards.

I talk about this at length here: http://www.seedlingfinance.com/443/why-i-always-use-a-credit...

FWIW the US portion of INGDirect was purchased by Capital One.

True. Although if Capital One knows what's good for them, they won't change a thing about INGDirect (except maybe offering remote deposit!).

I'll certainly be keeping an eye on it, but I don't expect any massive changes in the near-term.

  What is a good alternative?

Here is a list on FatWallet showing the "Best Nationally Available High APY Liquid Accounts":

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/783099/

Alliant Credit Union is usually near the top of the list. My Alliant checking account has been my primary checking account for years. Not only is my Alliant checking account free, but I currently earn 1.10% APY with it:

http://www.alliantcreditunion.org/depositsinvestments/checki...

Deposits can be made at tens of thousands of ATMs across the country:

http://www.alliantcreditunion.org/about/atms/

I also have my HSA at Alliant because they're usually near the top of the list of best HSA providers:

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/542257/

I really like Ally. I was a little hesitant about them based on their GM past, but now I've switched I'd never go back to a brick and mortar.

People always ask me the same questions: Q: How do I get money out if there are no ATMs? A: I use any ATM, Ally refunds the fee, so even those sleazy but oh-so-convienent ATMs are great.

Q: What if there's a problem? A: When is the last time you saw your bank manager? I never spoke to mine at BofA. Whenever I had anything more than a trifling issue, the teller directed me to call the BofA phoneline anyway. I may as well endrun the whole hassle and talk directly to Ally (who also have very quick wait times).

The only thing Ally doesn't do yet is scanning checks. I haven't got a physical check for a while now, but if I do, I put it into my BofA account (which is otherwise entirely dormant) and have Ally debit it out.

Ally is rolling out the eCheck deposit feature: http://community.ally.com/straight-talk/2011/04/ally-bank-in...

In the meantime, you can simply mail them your checks, using their free pre-stamped envelopes. It only takes a couple of days for your money to show up. Faster and easier than going through a brick and mortar bank.

For a while international wire transfers required being in a physical bank at BoA, but they've recently (last couple of years) added it to their 'ebanking' site. The frustrating part of this was that their system operated on Central Standard Time... which sucks on the west coast because you have a very short window to do the transfer in (between bank opening in PST timezone and 2pm CST (aka noon PST)... and the BoA closest to me opened at 10am PST...).

If you have high balances, you should consider "bank of internet". The name sounds like a joke, but they are similar to Ally in terms of services, but offer money market rates on the checking account. I use them, and don't need a savings/money market account, so it really simplifies things.

They also don't charge foreign exchange fees, and their method for computing atm fees is the amount mod $5. When I was living in china, I actually made money every time I withdrew from the ATM, because the USD amount would be $83, and I would get $3 refund for non-existant ATM fees.

amount mod $5

How does that work at ATMs that only give out $20s? n20 mod 5 is always zero. Unless, of course, "amount" here refers to the withdrawal amount plus* the ATM owner's fee?

Yes. The bank doesn't actually know what the ATM fees are. They just see cash withdrawal for 102. Some ATMs send two transactions, but many just bundle it as one transaction.

My coworker just got back from an internship at USAA. She mentioned you no longer need to be related to a service member to open a checking account.

Hands down, they are an amazing bank. I've had Paypal issues which they reversed within 2 days. No ATM charges and monthly refunds for any charges. Monthly interest refund. Great services overall by the people and the web.

I believe you can also take out a credit card. Insurance is only for military members.

Is that in writing anywhere? The USAA website suggests otherwise.

https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/pub_eligibility_task_entry

Who is eligible?

Active, retired and honorably separated officers and enlisted personnel of the U.S. military.

Officer candidates in commissioning programs (Academy, ROTC, OCS/OTS).

Adult children whose eligible parents have or had a USAA auto or property insurance product.

Widows and widowers of USAA members who have or had a USAA auto or property insurance policy.

There are other ways to get in, but it is still via (sometimes indirectly) the military. Occasionally they open it up to employees of various government agencies. You can also get in if your spouse is a member. My wife was previously married to a member of the military and got in that way. I got in when she married me.

USAA is awesome. If I didn't have them I'd probably look into BankSimple.

Yep, it looks like anyone can get a USAA bank account even if they are not military or a spouse/child of a USAA member.

https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/why_choose_usaa_main

USAA's investment products, most checking and savings products, credit cards, life insurance, and shopping and discounts are available to other individuals.

The catch is that the remote check deposit feature is only available to people who are eligible for USAA auto/property insurance, and the criteria for that are the criteria you linked above. Not having remote deposit kind of limits the utility of the account.

You can deposit your checks at UPS stores. If you only rarely use checks this works well as a solution.

I thought remote deposit was available to folks with an insurance product or a line of credit (a simple credit card, for instance) with USAA? Or maybe it was an AND and not an OR?

Edit: I'm wrong. It does indeed require that you're eligible for property and casualty insurance, that you have a checking or savings account, and that you have or qualify for a credit card or loan through USAA.

I switched from BOFA to Schwab about two years ago (after them nickle & diming me for years with spurious fees) and I couldn't be happier. Like Ally, there's no physical bank branches (but they do have physical brokerage locations), you get interest on your checking, and they refund all ATM fees.

They also have an iPhone app that can scan checks, and their integration with their brokerage account/trading is really nice as well.

My favorite part by far is the customer service. They always have very friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable people picking up the phone and I've never had to wait in a phone queue.

I don't think their interest rates are as high as some of the other online banks, so if you run high cash balances rather than high brokerage account values it might not be for you.

If there's nothing holding you back from obtaining a credit card, why not switch entirely to a credit card?

Used wisely (e.g. paid off every month, never carrying a balance) you can make a rewards credit cards pay you. Credit cards also provide a bit more financial flexibility.

You're in luck:

"USAA's investment products, most checking and savings products, credit cards, life insurance, and shopping and discounts are available to other individuals."

This was a somewhat recent change to expand eligibility.

This page lists a few of the (dwindling) large-ish not-online-only banks that still have fee-free accounts: http://www.pfstuff.com/checking/

Chase is also semi-ok if you keep a decent amount of money lying around; it's fee-free with a $1500 minimum balance, or w/ direct deposit.

You no longer need any relation to the military to join USAA. That said, I recently switched from USAA to Ally. Same features, better rates, and better support. Both banks have decent web sites, and let you withdraw for free at any ATM, so for me they beat even BoA for convenience.

I don't think it's true of all of their products, such as insurance, but I believe the general public can sign up for USAA banking. This was true a few years ago when I was looking for a new bank, but I ended up going elsewhere for unrelated reasons.

I don't even care about widespread. I'll take anybody with a descent website.

You can use https://www.hellowallet.com/ (I have no relation or interest) to find credit unions and banks in your zip.

I got my USAA account before I joined the military, and I know for a fact that you don't need to be in the military to have an account. Best customer service on the planet.

Schwab is awesome. If you're so inclined, it's easy to do (reasonably priced) stock trades. As far as pure checking goes, they've got everything you would expect, but get this: no ATM fees. At all. Any fee charged by any ATM will be refunded to you at the end of the month. Plus, they do it internationally, too! If I recall correctly, they have effectively zero currency conversion fee, as well.

Capital One also has some decent accounts if you need somewhere to keep cash savings with ATM and check access.

Can't recommend Schwab enough. The no international ATM fees is amazing when traveling (especially if you are going between countries since you tend to get killed on those secondary conversions if you take out large sums). The only disappointment I've had with them is that my Invest First credit card (2% cash back on everything) is going away at the end of October, because surprise, surprise it's being taken over by BoA. They (Schwab) recently rolled out check deposits from their app so BoA taking away my most used card and implementing this fee structure I'm going to get rid of my account secondary account with them and use just Schwab.

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