A new kind of checking account. No overdraft fees. No worries.
gobank.com
gobank.com
Thank you for IP blocking me from visiting your home page, because as everyone knows US residents never travel. I also think it's a little bit presumptuous and certainly not very RESTful to assume that navigating to gobank.com is equivalent to a "membership request", especially for a supposed bank.
Not to mention that non-US residents (e.g. reporters, bloggers, the curious) might be interested in taking a look at a service even if it's unavailable to them.
Seems quite bizarre to say "NO!" quite so forcefully and get rid of all that potential chatter.
Go looks to have pretty good ATM coverage, but you can't beat no fee at EVERY ATM.
There was an issue with the web form when I was signing up for the account, and I wrote it off thinking I'd do it later. The next day they had someone leave me a voicemail with his direct number, and he finished the registration when I called him back. Nice.
And from issues with international money transfers to stolen cards to airline screw ups, I've always been able to get a real person on the line, and they've always been very helpful.
Never thought that I'd be this happy with a bank.
I do think USAA is a great org as well, and if you need loans they seem to have some of the best rates, but for my needs Schwab works better
I'm having trouble accessing the GoBank site at the moment (might be my computer), but I can't see why I would prefer it to my Schwab account.
No monthly fees
International and domestic ATM fee rebates
ATM card has no foreign transaction fee
Mobile app for deposits
Overdraft account (no overdraft fee)You need to be a permanent resident of the US.
http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/banking_lending/checking... has all the details.
I've personally been very happy with Schwab.
I don't think there are very many reasonable banks in the U.S. though.
As an aside, it seems ridiculous to me that neither GoBank nor Simple refunds ATM fees charged by out-of-network ATM providers. For services that allege to be all about removing frustration for customers, it's stupid to make me open up your app to find which seemingly-arbitrarily ATMs near me happen to be part of your network. Other online banks like Ally and Schwab already offer this; why can't you?
Does Simple rebate ATM fees? If you use a domestic out-of-network ATM, we will never charge you, but the ATM owner may. We do not rebate that fee, for a couple of reasons: firstly, with over 50,000 fee-free ATMs in our network and thousands of merchants offering cash back, you should be able to easily avoid fees. Our second reason is more philosophical: we anticipate that our customers would prefer we not subsidize the big banks that they left behind.
It does look like GoBank is doing instant person-to-person transfers, which Simple doesn't have just yet (but they've said is coming soon).
Speaking of, it would actually be pretty cool if I could send money with Dwolla directly from Simple :) Dwolla's iPhone app is terrible, and their web interface isn't much better.
I make a purchase, and within seconds I'm prompted on my smartphone to put it in one of my custom budget categories.
This would utterly solve the pain of sorting it out later, and have the added benefit of fraud protection. "Why, no, I DIDN'T buy gas in Ohio 10 seconds ago."
Super bonus points if the categorization data goes to an endpoint of my choosing, so I can ensure it's not used for data mining.
If you have enough money to use Fidelity or Schwab there are better options, but their mobile tooling is really good, it's hard to get surprised, and the custom card image is pretty cool.
For whatever it's worth, it is a really, really, really great checking account. And their online and mobile tools have gotten pretty good in recent years. Not anywhere near the level of, say, BankSimple, but certainly more than usable.
I'd recommend dropping the BETA label. When it comes to money, I don't think BETA works.
However, I don't find it great that I can't use this service because I'm not an american. Oh well, same as all the other cool new financial disruptions :(
But I really came here to ask a question: Do any banks outside the US charge overdraft fees? I have never heard of this here in Slovenia, nor from any of my friends in the rest of Europe, and I think there'd be a revolt of some sort if they tried to institute those[1]. Sure, there's interest on negative balance, but no overdraft fees.
[1] For instance, a class action suit has recently assured that banks cannot charge ATM fees when using another bank's ATM within Slovenia. Something about cartels and so on. They even had to refund everyone's money for the previous few years.
I have a checking account with DCU, a local credit union. I have overdraft fees and my ATM fees at any ATM get refunded. I have a local branch I can go to for a cashier's check. The bank's web site has Intuit's Financeworks, which is a Mint-like service that aggregates all my DCU and other accounts in one view. It's not as polished as Mint, but works fine.
For this reason, it's really difficult for me to see value in switching to GoBank or Simple. I think it would be good for these sites to differentiate themselves from smaller banks or credit unions that have sane/customer-friendly fee structures.
Local credit union gives me a great APR, no ATM/overdraft fees, free bill pay, and dividends (on a checking account!). Sure its nice to know how much I have to spend, but Mint hooks up fine to the credit union and does the job.
Meanwhile, it looks like Gobank did a great job copying simple.
Even though it was a large payment, Simple covered the deficit and someone from customer service contacted me right away to explain they'd claw back the funds when they were available. So far, it's been great using them as a basic checking account bank.
One thing I have been looking for lately has been some sort of account suitable for use as a petty cash account for my PTA. Bluebird is close, but they don't allow accounts held by an organization as opposed to an individual.
Here is my bullet list of features I want:
Available to a non-profit at low cost
Debit only
Easy to put money in via e-check, etc.
Sub-accounts with individual cards
Strong sub-account authorization controls
Amount per day
Quick and easy on / off switch
Instant notification of use
pre-authorization of amount or vendor maybe?So what does GoBank do to make a compelling argument for using them over Simple?
A paypal like tool to let you send/receive money from non-gobank customers would be cool. I'd love a service that does what PayPal does, and happens to be a bank, a bit more accountable that way.
GoBank is a brand of Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC, which also operates under the brands Green Dot Bank and Bonneville Bank. Deposits under any of these trade names are deposits with a single FDIC-insured bank, Green Dot Bank, and are aggregated for deposit insurance coverage.
Seems like they know how to provide useful services, but I doubt they have the kind of customer service I get from my Credit Union.
I already have this and have had it for 5 years, through my credit union.
In fact, just yesterday I overdrafted (first time in years) and was delighted to see it automatically transferred the amount to my credit card. So, it's basically the same as if I had made a purchase of that amount on my credit card.