Ask HN: What is the most user friendly personal bank account? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the most user friendly personal bank account?

13 pointstikkun18 comments

I'm thinking beautiful, fast and bug-free software, easy online wires and ACH payments, and so on.

USA.

What's good?

Edit: Checkings account.

Chase is honestly pretty good. Mobile app is solid, they offer OAuth so tools like Mint can do more than scrape, and it’s all pretty fast.

I also quite like Schwab.

For business, too?

I have been very happy with Charles Schwab. They offer an “Investor Checking” account which comes with a brokerage account also (you don’t have to use the brokerage account if you don’t want to).

Good mobile app, website, and pays a little interest as well as covers ATM fees.

Heads up that this combination of accounts (investor checking + brokerage account) does require a credit check, or at least it did a few years ago.

Best bank and brokerage I have ever worked with. Exceedingly helpful and easy to get a hold of. Their tools and web pages work

+1 for Schwab. An ATM in a foreign country ate my debit card. One call, which was connected to a real human in less than a minute, and they overnighted a new card to my hotel.

Look into your local Credit Unions. They're (mostly) not big enough to make their own software and will have a SaaS.

Chase is solid. Capital One is probably good too since they're probably ahead of the others in terms of technology adoption. I don't like any online only banks like Ally, etc. Capital One was moving away from their branches but I think they still have the Cafes so it's kind of similar (?)

BofA is OK, not the best but not the worst, though it is gradually improving they are just slow to push changes from what I hear.

And the lack of proper MFA for any of them means they are all kind of sub-par!

Fidelity https://www.fidelity.com/go/special-offer

These are brokerage accounts. I think OP is asking for checking accounts.

Their Cash Management Account is a brokerage account that mimics a checking account. ATM fees reimbursed domestically and internationally, free wires, accepts ACH and wires, can keep up to $1.25M in it and still have FDIC coverage through underlying sweep to partner banks. No monthly fees or account minimums. PNC issues their debit card. You can hold securities in the account if you want to, but are not required to. You can also overdraft using margin or other financial instruments if desired, but again, not required to.

They are a high quality financial services provider.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/banking/fidelity-cash-man...

Fidelity does not have easy online wires. Or at least, I couldn't figure out how to wire a payment recently; it seemed possible to do it over the phone, but I didn't want to read wiring instructions over the phone. Schwab was easy to wire payments with at least when I last did it in 2018ish. Schwab website says outgoing wires are $15 if placed online; if you have a large enough balance, the wire fee is waived. Fidelity wires are free, one of my credit unions charges $25 (in person or by phone), the other charges $30 or $40 (online form available which I haven't used or in person), depending on your balances.

I've done a fair number of wires, but I still need about nine more before I earn my top hat and monocle.

Not sure if you guys have this in the US, but in the UK/Europe we have a few good ones:

- Monzo - Revolut - Starling

Monzo just started up in the US too

I have been pretty happy with BofA. The mobile app is modern and wires and ACH can all be done online. I gripe though is that you cannot do either of those from the mobile app. You need to login to the website via a computer.

I’ve used point for a while and I’ve liked it. I’ve heard ally is good and some people I know use PNC and Chase but I have’t had the best experience with them.

I have been really happy with Ally for the past 10 years.

I would agree, with the exception of wires. When we bought a house, we had no idea if the wire would land in time, and they couldn’t promise anything or even give a status. It was like shooting money into a black hole and hoping it shows up when and where you expect it.

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