I'm seriously asking for advice, friends of Mandasaurus.
I'm currently a WaMu customer. I love WaMu - great customer service, easy online bill-pay, free checking, fun advertisements that make me feel cool banking there.
WaMu is turning into Chase Bank - boo! I don't hate Chase at all, but I just don't see what's so great about them. And I try my best to be a conscious bank patron.
In Boston I banked with Wainwright Community Bank. Wainwright is known to my friends and I as the Big Gay Bank because it's incredibly socially conscious, well-designed (The banks themselves were beautiful and all different - modern and colorful, industrial, etc. What a treat!) and staffed by a diverse group of people.
In DC I ficklely chose PNC Bank which allows free ATMs anyplace - big draw, but in the end not a tremendous bank customer service-wise.
I came to WaMu on the recommendation of a friend. And now I'm asking for friends to help me again. Any ideas?
My new bank must:
- Have a great website and tremendous online banking capabilities. I'm utterly obsessed with checking my balances online, so this is key.
- Show excellent customer service, but not necessarily a walk-up branch (you're a contender ING!). I want someone to talk to when I'm confused or if (like happened last spring) my organizational madness detects a suspicious transaction (turns out my card number was pilfered and someone used my account to get gas and groceries in the suburbs! Hrmph! WaMu solved this situation swiftly.)
- Have something great happening - social consciousness is great (green policies, better-than-average practices with non-discrimination, whatever).
- Offer a savings account with a good interest rate and not too many rules.
4 comments:
Sorry, dude, I gotta vote for Chase. I've been with them forever and I've always been satisfied.
I can't vouch for their social responsibility (and I think I might have actually coined the term "big gay bank" for Wainwright...), but I've been super-happy with Schwab, for several reasons, but the best one: they refund all your ATM fees. I now giggle like a school girl when confronted with "This ATM charges a $3.00 fee...".
You might think about a credit bureau as well. Maybe someone in your family qualifies you somewhere. Their rates for home and car loans are better than the bigger institutions and many offer free checking, check card and all the other conveniences of "normal" banking. I'm thinking of joining one just to eventually get a mortgage from. Also many support scholarship programs and other social programs. There are disadvantages, but you'll see if they're too much for you during research.
I LOVE ING. I think you already know this, but I feel like I should restate this for all to know. Being a former Big Gay Bank patron myself, I understand the quest for a bank that can live up to its Big Gay Standards, and let me tell you, it's not easy. I keep a local bank just so I can deposit checks in person rather than mail them to ING -- for that I use Fifth Third, and it's barely tolerable. I would never use it as my primary bank. ING has fantastic interest rates and you can link several other bank accounts with unlimited transfers (so when I deposit money into Fifth Third, I immediately go online and transfer the money into my ING accounts -- the only bad part about that is it usually takes two or three business days to complete the transaction.) Still, I heart ING (though you can't get free doughnut holes and coffee from ING like you could at Wainwright...)
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