Finance

Personal Finance Tips: Which Bank is Right for You

By Joe Marchelewski ⋅ May 1, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Subscribe By Email ⋅ Post a comment

Banks get bigger, they promise more, but who delivers? There’s the major establishments: Washington Mutual, Bank of America, Citibank, Wachovia, Wells Fargo, Chase and HSBC. There are your local banks and credit unions and of course, your sock drawer. But, in a world where banks are almost too desperate for your business, how do you pick what you need?

Well, in developing yourself personally, finances play a big part, and analyzing your goals and your current situation is vital. Here’s a quick look and which bank might be right for you:

1. Bank of America

No bank has had more complaints about it than BofA. Poor customer service, hidden fees and more profligate the comments section of blogs and websites set up to discuss this bank. There are quite a few branches, and it is the largest bank in America, but the availability simply doesn’t seem worth the hassle to let them watch your money. In a survey of poor customer services, this MSN article highlighted BofA specifically as one of the worst customer service providers in the nation.

2. Wells Fargo

This is a regional bank with most of their branches on the West Coast. They seem to be better than Bank of America, and having banked there I can say they aren’t that bad. The challenges however are many. Despite being a West Coast bank, their computers switch over after 3:00 or 4:00 pm EST and all deposits made after that aren’t cleared until the next day. This is extremely frustrating. They were ranked as the number one online bank by one survey, and I can attest to their prowess in online services.

3. Citibank

If BofA is the Devil, then Citibank is the anti-Christ. I’ve had my money with Citibank since my wife and I started saving for our wedding, it’s been about 2 years now. I haven’t really had a problem with them, but we’ve made sure never to let our account get close to zero or god-forbid, overdraft anything. Everyone I’ve ever spoken to though has nothing positive to say about them, except that they are everywhere. Opening an account in Los Angeles was very frustrating as their bank people are morons for the most part. Between spelling my wife’s name wrong on her debit card and then not shipping the card at all, they scored major idiot points with us.

4. Washington Mutual

I banked with them for a while, but WaMu plays themselves off as the anti-bank, the bank that has free checking, that cares about its customers and so on. However, as shown here, that’s not always true. Reality is, they’re a business just like everyone else. Their free checking isn’t necessarily free, they used to offer a program that would allow customers a $500 negative balance on their account (complete with fees of course) and other items that seem great but turn out to be very dangerous. Washington Mutual does offer a favorable savings account interest rate however, but unlike HSBC you need to have a checking account lined to your savings account. Otherwise it’s no good.

5. Wachovia

Beyond the fact that this bank’s name is unpronounceable, its 50/50. Not everyone is happy with them, and their branch and ATM locations are spotty, but they seem to get the job done and at least they aren’t BofA. I recently opened a Wachovia checking account to link with my Paypal account so I can transfer money. We’ll see how easy they are to work with. I hate their website, but opening the account was easy enough.

6. JP Morgan Chase

On a recent Marketwatch.com survey, Chase was second only to BofA in complaints. Their lack of responsiveness is terrible, and although I’ve heard some good things about their savings account interest rates, they don’t satisfy their customers at all.

7. HSBC

We have a savings account with this bank, which we started online. There’s no checking account necessary, and while they don’t pretend to be the friendliest bank, they seem to have the online banking thing mastered. Their complaint rate seems to be the middle of the road, and everyone who looks into their online savings account seems really enthusiastic about it.

Here are some basic banking tips:

1. Banks are a business

They aren’t going to take care of you, they not only want to hold onto your money, but they want to take it for their own. Be prepared to fight with them and get everything from them that you can.

2. Large Banks Suck

Whether it’s WaMu, BofA or whatever, they’re terrible. They outsource customer service overseas, they are impossible to talk to, they mismanage your accounts and in the end the guys who run the bank only care about stock prices and dividends, not your happiness.

There’s a wonderful episode of the show “The Office” where two characters (Dwight and Jim) show a business owner how bad the big company’s customer service is. That being said, credit unions are local and are limited in their abilities. Keep all that in mind when banking with them.