The Simple Dollar » What Features Are Most Important For Your Primary Bank? My Thoughts and Recommendations

0atwong • 21st Aug 2008 • Conversation Pieces

I have my saving with HSBC Direct (works well with me with 3.5% saving interest ) and there is a local HSBC bank with ATM I can use. I like it. If you’re not using any interest producing banking account, it’s about time you switched!

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The Simple Dollar » What Features Are Most Important For Your Primary Bank? My Thoughts and Recommendations
As most longtime readers know, I’m a very happy customer of ING Direct for both my primary checking account and my primary savings account.

Before I joined ING Direct, though, my primary bank was one of the largest banks in the United States, one that had a branch in the town where I attended college (I won’t name them because of libel concerns, but I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of them). I stuck with them for a long time simply out of habit – the status quo bias at work – but when I started to get my financial life in order, I began to seriously look at the ways that my bank was costing me money:
My checking account didn’t earn any interest at all. Just before I moved, they made a big deal about rolling out a 0.25% APY interest rate for the account.
The account also had a rather high minimum balance – $300, according to my notes. If you went below that minimum balance at any point during the month, you were dinged with a fee – $2.95 a month, if I recall correctly.
They also charged a monthly maintenance fee for a pretty standard online banking service. This fee was $7.95 a month.
The savings account offered only a 0.50% APY.
While there were a lot of ATMs in town that were fee-free, if you were in a town that didn’t happen to have a bank branch, you got dinged hard with an ATM fee.