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The Almighty Buck

What's the Best Online Financial Solution? 143

Posted by Cliff from the taking-banking-into-the-21st-century dept.
Financially Challenged asks "While lots of our techie contemporaries are making fistfuls of cash, I find myself stuck in a relatively impoverished academia. That will all change when I enter the real world in May. While I have little money now (hopefully some IPO magic of whatever company I work for will remedy this) I would still like to know what slashdot readers think the best online banking solutions are. Are there any hidden all-in-one total financial solutions that will let me keep track of my whole portfolio?"
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What's the Best Online Financial Soluion? More

What's the Best Online Financial Soluion?

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  • I'm fairly fond of Security First Network Bank [sfnb.com]. They have money market accounts that pay 4.5% APY, interest checking accounts (currently at 6%!) and 20 free electronic bill pays per month.

    I know that they also have credit card accounts, but I don't use their credit card. Some time ago, they were setting up brokerage accounts, but I don't have one nor am I interested in one, so I don't know if it's the case anymore.

    Hope this helps!

    NOTE: I don't represent SFNB at all. I'm just a very satisfied customer.

  • A good one is Datek (http://www.datek.com). They have all the nice tables and graphics you can dream of.

    Another interesting one is stockchallenge.internet.com which lets you run a virtual 100 000$ portfolio. It's a good way to get into the game without losing everything.
  • Try Wingspan [wingspan.com]. I just started up an account with them and they seem to have it together. It is backed by Bank One and they seem to have invested heavily into capturing this market.
  • I don't know about one-stop banking, but we've been very happy with Security First [sfnb.com] - they have a 6% checking account, and pay your bills free (using CheckFree). If you're looking for stock or mutual funds though just about any of the big guys seems to have a significant web presence now.
  • of an online trading company that doesn't charge you for trades, but rather a percentage of the profit on your portofolio. So they only charge you if you are sucessfull. Anybody know what the name of this company is?

  • I have been very satisfied with WingSpan Bank [wingspanbank.com] so far. Their customer service is at least as good as my local bank, and they have the best situation regarding fees I have yet seen. I have never been charged a fee of any kind by them. They even refund up to $5.00 a month in ATM fees charged by the machine. They have online investing as well as credit cards. They update the transactions online just about simultaneously with the real world, and of course, they offer online bill paying, which is a pretty good thing for me. I tried Bank of America, but I got tired of the fees. They charge you for a deposit slip if you go in a branch and don't have one and have to get one there. I had never heard of such a thing before.

  • That's right, interest-free loans, unlimited checking, no ATM fees, and there's a branch anywhere you can use a computer!*

    (*Service requires you to turn over your immortal soul to Microsoft for all eternity. Bank of Microsoft is only compatible with Windows 2000, Microsoft Money 7.0, Microsoft Wallet 4.5, Microsoft Hidden Fees 3.0, Microsoft S&L Scandal 6.1, and Microsoft Surly Bank Tellers 2.0.)

    --- Dirtside | "Spirituality" is the irrational belief in the supernatural

  • The answer to the question completely depends on what you want out of the service.

    Do you want ease of use? Loads of features? Low cost? Integration with financial planning software (Money 2000, Quicken 2000)? High security?

    Do you just want to pay bills? Track investments? Track monthly expenses? Manage multiple foreign accounts?

    I pay about $10/month for my online banking/real world banking services, plus another $100/year for my brokerage/investment services with the same institution. I can find similar services elsewhere for less (and even for free), but I'm not willing to give up the features I get with my current service.

    Just a quick reference for Canadians:

    CanadaTrust EasyWeb: Probably the best online baking service in Canada. Loads of features, easy to use.
    Scotia Online: Probably the most secure online banking service anywhere. Doesn't rely on SSL for session security.
    Presidents Choice Financial: Easily the least expensive... they give you free stuff for using their service.


  • One Stop Financial Management is a trap (Score:4)

    by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2000 @10:40AM (#1400634) Homepage Journal
    Hi having graduated from a eco/comm programme and having been a suit before I saw the light streaming from my monitor I can tell you any and all one stop financial management solutions are a bad thing. It's a given that once a client is heavily vested you've got them by the whatevers and can lead them anywhere. The key to financial wisdom has always been diversify and this advise applies to services as much as to investments. Good luck

  • USAA (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Although still in beta, USAA offers their banking services online. You can transfer funds, pay bills, track account use all online. Many other services are offered online as well like Money market accounts, insurance services, etc. Some of the services require special software, but most are available right through your browser. www.usaa.com

  • mbanx is bad. (Score:3)

    by winterstorm ( 13189 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2000 @10:42AM (#1400637)
    I'm a charter member of mbanx (available in Canada and the USA). I've been banking with them for over two years now. I have a personal and a corporate account with them. I strongly recommend that people choose another bank though.

    It took me two months to get my corporate cheques after opening my account. I had been told on three occaisions that the cheques had been printed and shipped and that the fact had been verified. When the cheques arrived they were printed wrong. I asked them to ship the cheques by courier and I went to the extent of asking for the name of the courier company and a tracking number. The told me they had shipped the cheques by purolator but didn't have a tracking number. I asked them to verify the facts. Later the cheques arrived via postal mail. When I asked for the phone number of a supervisor I was told there was none!

    mbanx recently changed their pricing so that you have to pay for each time you view your account history on-line.

    I won't be an mbanx customer for much longer but it takes a while to shop around and find another on-line bank who can provide everything I have at mbanx (on-line trading in US and Canadian funds, linked directly to my chequeing bank accounts, etc.).

    I have tried to apply on-line to "President's Choise Financial" (actually run by CIBC I believe) but they never send me the enrollment package after I fill out the on-line application. I figure if they can't make a little CGI work, I'm not going to trust their banking system!

  • In the long run you want to deal with an investment firm rather than a bank. The leaders are Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab. These companies are large enough to have a full range of services, have relatively low fees and a real investment orientation. A lot of people I know really like Vanguard because they do a good job of keeping the fees on their mutual funds at a minimum level. Schwab and Fidelity may be better known, but part of that reason is they spend a lot of money on marketing, and you pay for that in their fees.

    You will probably still want a checking account at a local bank for more mundane tasks, especially for the convenience of an ATM machine without those damnable fees.

    I wouldn't go near E-Trade etc. I just do not trust these outfits, and I think some day some of them are going to go belly-up leaving their users with a mess. The good thing is E-Trade and its ilk have done investors a lot of good by driving the cost of other services down.
  • An informed consumer should be aware that Security First is owned by S1 Corp, which also markets the software (Virtual Financial Manager) that operates Security First. This is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, some might consider it a very good thing. I have found the online banking features easy to use, I don't really have any concerns about security, and although I don't use this feature, it is apparantly very easy to download account information into Quicken. The one time I had to call their 800 nunber, it was answered quickly and my issue dealt with immediately. My only complaint is that I don't get an account statement in the mail -- and I think that was my oversight when I first signed up.

    For the record, I am both a SFNB customer and a SONE stockholder.

  • I use Bank of America for on-line bill paying and (because I'm now in CA) ATM card. They had a nice web site when everyone else was deploying windows-only systems. They have an associated on-line brokerage, but I prefer the less expensive DLJdirect.
  • Datek sucks. I have a big chunk of money there, and they've mishandled a lot of stuff, to the extent that they even, to this day, incorrectly list the price of one of the securities I own, and refuse to fix it, chalking it up to a "glitch" and giving me a cheezy workaround. And even the workaround stopped working when they redid their site. I'd recommend AGAINST Datek.

    (And, if you want to know why I keep my money there even if it sucks, it's because I'm too lazy to go through all the paperwork to change it do a different brokerage.)


    * mild mannered physics grad student by day *

  • I've been using a nifty little Palm application called Personal Money Tracker by Charles Morris. It has a companion program called Personal Stock Tracker that hooks in to the PMT program. These programs are cheap, don't require you to be "stuck" with any particular on-line banking system-- however that means you have to enter in the transcations at once.

    Except for the Datek site someone mentions (which I haven't seen), PMT has a very useful "balance sheet" view and "income/expense view". Use the balance sheet view to see the wonderful/sorry state of your personal equity, and the income/expense view to see if you're spending less than you're taking in-- if you're not doing that, what the hell are you doing? ;) (You can configure the accounts to budget your spending for the year.)

    Even better, you don't have to be "on-line" to see where you're at with your finances as long as you're vigilant about entering in transactions. I use it instead of Quicken on Windows because I don't even have a Windows box at home to run it on.

    The only thing missing is something that'll help you do your taxes. I'm not going to link to it, you can use a search engine to find it on the usual Palm sites.

    For on-line stuff, American Express seems to have acreted a large collection of financial services with a web-interface for banking, brokering, and credit management. I'd consider it only if my brick-and-mortar bank was mistreating me, but they just approved my loan for a brand new 2000 Subaru Impreza RS 2.5 Sedan! (Woohoo!)
    _______
    computers://use.urls. People use Networds.

  • Paranoid considerations (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 05, 2000 @10:50AM (#1400644)
    Lotsa people do a full range online financial transactions online with no problems at all. But do read the service agreement: Most of the institutions that offer online banking & et cetera present lots of promises of absolute, airtight security... and in the fine print, you agree to take the full loss if someone manages to get hold of your login data and empties your accounts.

    So you might want to bear this in mind when you decide which box(es) you will keep financial data on, and make connections from: This is a case where security really does matter. And BTW, you mignt want to see an independent security certification for the financial institution(s) in question.

    This is probably redundant stuff to most /.ers, but someone had to mention it. So I did.

    ;o)

  • You may wish to consider dealing with someone who has a physical presence, somewhere you can actually get to if you need to.

    doing things online is great when everything works. If for some reason there is a bug or problem in the system, or if you want to complete a more complex transaction, or do something else esoteric, you may find that a menu to do what you want is not available online.

    And if there is some sort of weird problem, life is a lot easier if you can go and show you statement to a branch manager, rather than trying to correct a problem over the phone.

    For some of the best rates, and the least surly service, you might want to check out Credit Unions in your area.

    For simple stuff like stock purchase, I think online is fine.

    Windows, like Stalinism, is great in theory, but troublesome in practice

  • have done right by me. Wit Capital offers the usual financial products (IRAs, joint accounts, etc.) and has been prompt and helpful (and hasn't tried to shove inappropriate investment products "helpfully" down my throat). They are at http://www.witcapital.com/ [witcapital.com] and are publicly traded and SIPC licensed, etc.

    Wells Fargo is a Large Evil Company, but in spite of this, their bill payment options and online services (among the first banks to offer useful web-based banking) have made them my first choice for a regular bank.

    Morgan Stanley Dean Witter manages some of my accounts, but that's only because my father retained the services of a real financial planner and I am able to ask said planner's advice provided some of my holdings are with MSDW. If that were not the case, I'd have WitCap manage all my long-term investments.

  • I keep my checking and savings with NetBank [netbank.com]. They have up-to-the-minute transactions, so if I go to lunch, by the time I get back to my desk, I see the memo for the checkcard purchase.

    One service I particularly like is the automatic bill payment. I schedule it to pay my rent on the 1st, and it pays my rent on the 1st. It doesn't mesh completely well with my every-other-friday paycheck, because I sometimes need to 'float' a little, but it does the trick in general, and worked very, very well when I was paid on the 1st and the 15th.

    There's been problems from time to time, but what's kept me there is how they handled things. Once, my rent wasn't sent. At all. I called the bank, and they asked me for the phone number to my rental office, and they took everything from there. They paid my late fees and just took care of things.

    In another incident, they had some glitches when they were upgrading, and my balance wasn't updating, and I ended up overdrawing my account (by like 400 dollars). Not a single service charge, not a single check returned. Made me a pretty solid customer.

    Everything's free, there's interest paid with no minimum balance on the checking account, which turns out to be about a dollar a month for me, and they provide the checks for free as well. They have no branches anywhere, so if you need a money order or something, you'll have to go elsewhere, but that hasn't been a problem for me.

    Since they don't have any branches, you'll end up paying ATM fees to whoever owns the ATM you use. Netbank won't charge you to use the ATM, of course. It hasn't been a big deal for me, I usually just get however much cash I'm allowing myself for that pay period and then I'm done with ATMs.

    Deposits are done either by auto-deposit (like your paycheck) or by mail (they give you self-addressed stamped envelopes). No ATM deposits for some reason.

    As far as their stocks go, they're not the cheapest on the block, ($25/trade) but they seem to be in the range. The money comes out of/in to your money market or checking account with NetBank.

    Drop me an email (by spelling out the dot), and let me know if you're interested in getting a referral. Its not required, but it'd get me a nifty t-shirt and maybe $1000 bux.

    Zipwow

  • Just adding my 2 cents (Canadian) on Scotia Online: The security is great, but it's done via a small proxy program from Entrust (more details [scotiabank.ca]) which is only available for Win32 - if you're a Linux or Mac monogamist, you're out of luck with Scotia Online.

    Having said that, I'm very pleased with their online banking - especially free bill payments. About the only thing I would add to the system is the ability to schedule recurring transactions (you can schedule one-time transactions, such as bill payments or account transfers, a month or so in advance). Haven't tried their online discount brokerage - all I have for stocks is what I got when my insurance company demutualized.
    ________________________

  • waterhouse has $12 trades, unlimited check writing against your money market acct, and an atm/visa debit card. overall, this had everything i needed to make it my checking/online stock buying/debit & atm needs only account. i have been very happy w/ them for the past 2 years
  • I have a few friends who use SFNB, and they all seem quite happy with it. The only drawbacks are 1) the lack of brick and mortar branches (which really isn't a problem unless you want something like a safe deposit box.) and 2) the lack of SFNB ATM's. Most of the ATM's I've seen charge you some fee (usually $1.50) for their use if you're not a customer of the bank that put up the ATM. Of course, a lot of grocery stores etc. are taking atm transactions now, and will give you change on the transaction, with no transaction fee, so if you plan things reasonably well and go to the store often enough, it works out well.

    Personally, I use First Union [firstunion.com], and they've just recently gotten their heads out of their butts and become pretty decent in their online offerings. (It used to be that their online bill payment system used a netscape plugin that only worked on 95/98, not even NT, certainly not *nix).

    The system they have now uses a pure web-based system (currently supplied by checkfree, but I've talked to them and they're building their own improved interface) for bill payment, bill presentment, etc. The interface they have is fairly nice. It's cool to be able to tell it "Ok, every month pull down my phone bill and if it's not over X dollars, pay it automagically." They have a nice system for statement download for checking, savings, and credit cards. They have a section for brokerage services, but I don't use it so I can't comment on it. Personally, I'm happy with them. If for no other reason than when I call their tech support, I usually get someone clueful.

    They have demos set up of most of their functionality. Browse through it [firstunion.com] and see if it looks like what you want.

  • Gomez (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Go to www.gomez.com, they review a bunch of online providers (banks, brokers, insurance, pets, etc). They have great advise. You can also check out TD Waterhouse (broker). With $1000 in assets (cash, stocks, etc) you get a web account ($12 trades) and a Money market Sweep checking account (4 to 5% interest). jbw

  • I also use Security First. (Score:4)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2000 @10:56AM (#1400653)
    They are owned by Bank Canada now - I've been using them for about two years now, and they also offer credit cards that you can see along with your bank accounts.

    They also have limited online reporting tools, and you can export your accounts in a Quicken format (although for me the online site offers all the tools I need and I don't use Quicken).

    They let you schedule transactions if you like, or pay a one-time bill to a set of "Payees" that you can define and update. I use them to pay all my bills, and really like the web interface they have - very clean and simple.

    They said they'd be offering online brokerage services soon as well, but the company they were going to use charges $19.95 per trade - I myself use Datek, and don't care too much that I have to go to seperate sites to manage my accounts. At least it's all online!

    The only downside to SFNB is that they have no local ATM's (unless you live in Atlanta) so if you'd like to avoid an ATM fee you have to find a local credit union ATM that doesn't charge fees.
  • Check out Wells Fargo. They've got everything you need. Checking, Savings, Credit, Brokerage. All of it online.

    They have more than a million online customers last I heard and it shows. The service is never down and the customer service is good.

    Disclaimer: I do _not_ work for Wells Fargo
  • Datek really sucks. I sent them a $50,000 cashier's check to fund an account. At first they couldn't find it (I sent it Fedex, so I had a record that someone there signed for it), then they sent it back to the bank it was drawn on. They kept telling me "Don't worry, it will show up any your account any day now".
  • I've been with Security First for several years now. They've always treated me well. I use Etrade for the stock stuff - mostly because they were also our Stock Option solution at a previous job.

    Oh, for the 'cash problem' - I just pull some cash whenever I go grocery shopping...
  • My God, you're right! I didn't mean to defame the excellent financial package that is Microsoft Money. I'm so ashamed. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?

    --- Dirtside | "Spirituality" is the irrational belief in the supernatural
  • I opened an account with Wingspan a few months ago. So far it seems pretty decent although their site could use some work (some of the text is too small to read on my Mac, and the balance is pretty slow to display).

    The one issue I've had so far with them is that deposits by mail are on the slow side. It takes 7-10 business days, and the first one I sent them took 3 weeks to show up in my account. The second one showed up in a more reasonable time period though, so hopefully that was an abberation (they blamed it on slow holiday mail).

    I do really like the idea of having my banking and investment accounts in the same place and to be able to pay bills from my investment account if I need to (rather than doing last minute shuffling of money). Their fee structure is very reasonable compared to most banks (no charge for receiving wire transfers, unlike some banks, refunding of ATM fees) and they have excellent interest for checking and their bill pay seems good. I still haven't closed my old accounts at BofA and ETrade yet, but in a few months I will assuming things continue to go smoothly with Wingspan.

    One of the things I like best about an online only bank is that they're motivated to make it easy to do things without having to come down to the branch. I don't have time to go to the bank and some banks are not very good at allowing you to do some things remotely. My husband's bank, Fremont Bank, is really bad about that. Clearly online banks aren't for everyone, but I don't go to ATMs very often and I'm most interested in good bill pay/online administration of account and a nice interest rate, so for me it's a good fit.
  • and have been happy with them. I have what they call a SchwabOne account: free checking, debit card available (debit cards are generally a BAD idea), mutual fund supermarket, full brokerage services, and so on. This brokerage account is our only 'bank' account. They have fairly good services, and give us everything we want. The only problem for young students is that this requires a $5000 US minimum. I suggest steering clear of commercial banks unless you have a specific need for the services they provide, such as international money transfers, and so on. We need such services occasionally, and go to a commercial bank to pay for them.
    God luck,and shop around.
    Nels
  • I am also a charter member of MBANX, although I'm not sure what distinguishes a charter member from any other member. I have a personal, Canadian dollar account. Overall, I'm very happy with MBANX.

    I pay $13 (Canadian) per month. This plan allows me to do pretty much anything I want, with no additional fees. (Free cheques, free bill payment, free ATM (any brand), free money orders sent wherever I want.) I receive a "reward" every month which is proportional to the amount I have saved or borrowed. Since I have my mortgage with MBANX, my monthly reward is in excess of $25. (It's pretty neat coming out ahead of the game with service fees!)

    On the other hand, the interest they pay isn't fantastic, so it may not make sense for large deposits. I was lucky that they offered me the best deal on my mortgage - paying an extra 1/4% on your mortgage rate would more than offset the paltry $25 monthly reward. So MBANX probably isn't for everyone.

  • Or I should say I don't yet. I have been looking for a 'one stop shopping' alternative myself and haven't seen much. It looks like one is best off to pick the best alternative for each area of financial services (bank, brokerage, etc.)

    If you need to get education about the stock market along with free stock tracking and some cool Java interactive charting (which costs money anywhere else) you should check out the site my girlfriend works for: www.stockcharts.com [stockcharts.com]. Build up the hits there so she can get rich and take me on a trip!

    Jack William Bell

  • With President's Choice Financial you can apply in person at certain Loblaws.

    Give them a call on the phone and apply that way.

    Call them up and ask them to mail you an application.


  • USAA is not available to anyone but members of the armed services and their families. but they do rock, on- and off-line.

  • Citizens Bank of Canada [citizensbank.ca].

    So far they lack Quicken and on-line brokerage, but more than make up for it in quality of service, low fees, and ethical business practices.

  • Is there any bank that uses one-time passwords for authentication? I am not ready to trust my money to a single password that can be sniffed (if not on the net, then on my workstation). I really prefer a banking solution that uses devices not connected to my computer (SecurID, Vasco Digipass, etc).

    There is a bank in Poland that has just introduced this, there should be more...
  • I think its a little more complicated then just "what bank". I think choosing a bank is a lot
    like choosing a network provider to host your whatever. When you choose a network provided you
    probably talk to the staff, try to figure out if they have a clue, what hardware / software they use; etc. Choosing a bank isnt all that different.

    Banks are all basically the same, the do about the
    same thing. The things that matter to you may be
    location, online banking, service, or something
    else all together. Personally all of these things
    matter to me. I want a bank that has a local branch, who has a clueful staff and provides olb.

    There seems to be a growing trend at banks, atleast the smaller banks (ie, not boa/bone, etc) to use "off the shelf" online banking packages.
    I know of atleast three companies that produce
    online banking software; Digital Insight, Qup,
    and FundsXpress.

    Does it matter who wrote it? Well, that depends,
    if you care about security / the safty of your
    account - you probably should. Is your banks
    software run under NT or *nix; was it done in
    C/Perl/VBasic? Does the software company host
    the machines, or are they physically at the bank
    tied into their core? What sort of security
    experince do the people desiging the software
    have?

    Qup and Digital Insight, for example are NT based
    shops. Qup goes as far as putting a NT box in the
    bank and attaching it directly to the core processor - is that really a good idea? How about
    performance / scalability. As the need/desire for
    online banking grows how well will the service
    scale?

    Security issues aside, interface and features also
    matter. What do you want out of your online banking package? Do you just want to see your balance? How far back? BoA limits your history to
    60 days is that enough? Do you need to pay bills
    online? Should the bills be paper, or electronic (when possible) ? Do you want to be able to transfer money between accounts ? Wire Money ?
    Apply for loans? Intergration of finnical services into a sigle consistant interface ?

    What about 1-2 years down the road? What then? Will your bank / banking software be able to do
    that?















  • I'm glad to hear that -- I just noticed them as well, and suspect that they'll be my choice.

    Can they handle direct deposit?

    -Billy
  • As do I.


    They've been great for the past 2 years.

    The only downside to SFNB is that they have no local ATM's (unless you live in Atlanta) so if you'd like to avoid an ATM fee you have to find a local credit union ATM that doesn't charge fees.


    If you live in S.F., the Bank of Canton ATM on Montgomery Street does not charge a thing.

  • Re:WingSpan (Score:4)

    by cybrthng ( 22291 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2000 @11:21AM (#1400671) Homepage Journal
    Wingspan bank has been a godsend. You get free use of many ATM's (They have an ATM search on there website and they work with several huge chains). They rebate up to 5.00 in other ATM fees from non-wingspan banks (another saver for those random 20.00 withdrawals for petty cash). 4-6% interest in a checking (i get an average of $5-$10.00 a month interest).

    WingspanBank is the *first* bank i've ever had, where my money keeps its value. The interest is at good enough average that leaving money in the account over long periods keeps up with inflation and other costs, customer support answers and has answered within the first few rings of every time i have called. Online Bill Pay, free ACH transfers, Online Trading, Visa card, and very quick balances and payments.

    Direct Deposits go in great, checks are payed in a timely matter, ATM/Visa Purchases actually show more then bank code (i hate that with other banks), So i can see where my money goes (the only leash i have for my girlfriend :).

    So wingspan is my recommendation. Its an online bank, but operated by a national chain, so it has some establishment, while still showing great advances over the traditional offerings of other "pathetic online banks" :)

  • Wells Fargo is a Large Evil Company[...]
    that sends your SSN across the net *every time* (they use it for your login id). Yes, it's encrypted. No, I don't even trust 128-bit with a number any schmoe can dig up when that number is used ostensibly to protect my vital checking data. Credit card, fine, max loss, fifty bucks. Guaranteed. Multiply, in some cases. (If I use my Citibank Visa, it's triply so... the merchants I choose to use, Citibank, and fedgov. The former two even go so far as to say I get my fifty bucks back.)

    But anyway, I thought that needed to be pointed out before anyone got goo-goo eyed at Wells Fargo and signed up where they wouldn't be comforable at some point down the road.

    (What's so bad about sending SSN across the net? Get on Google and type "SSN FAQ" and pretend you feel lucky, even if you don't. Warning, you may get a bad taste in your mouth about Big Business before you're done reading. IMHO, You Should.)

  • Quite a few of the local banks here in Michigan offer Online accounts where you can do everything online as well as in person depending on your preference. As far as stocks/investments if your new to the arena try setting up a small account at an investment firm, learn everything you can from reading/your financial advisor then open up an on-line account for the true saving. I personally work for an International investment firm and trade on-line because it is a hell of a lot cheaper.. and I hold my stocks and don't day trade them. Diversify is the best advise I can give though.. not just your investments but where they are held.. if you have more than one option your less likely to get burned.
  • I've had an account with USABancShares.com [usabancshares.com] now for approximately two months, and if it weren't for the fact that I have a car loan with my local credit union that I can't quite yet afford to pay off in a lump sum, I'd close down my local accounts and move everything there. They offer a 5% interest checking account (not as high as others mentioned here but certainly higher than I've seen at any mortar-and-brick institution), competitive rates for CDs, reimbursement of some ATM transaction fees and free bill-paying. There are some costs for wire transfers out of an account but none for transfers into one, so they don't charge for direct deposit (not that I think anyone does).

    In addition, they have an associated investment company, www.usaforce.com [usaforce.com], and they provide the option of opening an investment account such that you can simply sweep money into your USABancShares account when you sell stock and use money in your account to make stock purchases, rather than make money not currently invested sit in a holding fund earning less interest than I could get at a regular bank.
  • I have been with NetBank for about a year now but I am going to close it because of all the problems I have had.

    There are of course the good things. They have a good payment scheduler for automatic stuff. They give you FREE unlimited checks if you ever use them at all since the bill payment handles everything. They don't charge for an ATM transaction but you will have to pay the actual ATM's fee (.25-1.50).

    However I have had a bunch of bad things happen. They are slow to respond and customer service is not very cohesive. They missed/lost a mortgage payment, mega hassle and late fee as well as possible negative credit impact. I had to threaten with a lawsuit for them to get moving on fixing this. Didn't receive a working debit/atm until after nine months. The site is slow on DSL. They have timeouts that are so short. EVERY email reply I have had has timed out while I was typing it so I lost what I had typed. They sent a payment to the wrong bank so it took another 2 months to straighten that out. Normally I wouldn't be so uptight but it was $5000 to pay off my car and they sent it to my credit card. I double-triple checked what I entered since it was a big amount. They of course denied everything.

    I am still not unsure why their bill payment is so unpredictable and untraceable. They provide no proof that the reciever of the bill payment has received the funds(cashed), they just debit your account and it is up to you to tell them or wait for a payment to be lost.

    I am gonna switch to CITFI which is the new integrated banking/broker/loan/trading from Citibank. Hope it is better.

    humbao


  • I second this recommendation. I've used Net.B@nk [netbank.com] now for about 6 months now, and I've been completely happy with it. They've upgraded their site, so that logins and navigation take seconds instead of a minute or two. They've got free checks (very few banks offer this) and postage-paid envelopes so you can deposit your checks. And of course, the free bill-pay is a huge timesaver. They also respond via e-mail very quickly and have extended telephone customer service hours.

    Originally, I wanted a Wells Fargo account but being the giant that they are, they closed my account because of a silly mistake I made in the early days. Well, I was pissed and never went back, and have been very happy that I tried Net.B@nk.

    As for brokerage accounts, I have a Datek [datek.com] acct. Originally, I had an Ameritrade acct but switched when I realized that limit orders were cheaper with Datek and Datek had real-time updates to your account as well as the real-time quote streamer and trading info for their associated ECN, Island.
    I've had no problems with Datek in the past 9 months and their customer service has been very good to date.

    Perhaps I've been lucky with my banking/brokerage experiences but it does take some work on your part to make sure it stays that way!

    ---

  • what to do (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hi, before you commit to anything, particularly
    a one-stop financial place, you should have
    a plan. What are you saving for? Are you
    planning on buying a house? Are you spending
    money on credit? There's no one-size-fits-all
    plan for everyone.

    So here's my one-size-fits-all plan for you,
    based on some guesses.
    • Forget the online stuff for a minute.
      Make a financial plan first.

    • Read some books. "A Random Walk Down Wall
      Street" by Malkiel is excellent. One of
      the last chapters is a how-to-invest guide
      based on your age and current plans.

      Any book by Andrew Tobias is good. Consumer
      Reports has an ok, eat-your-broccoli sort of
      book. Suze Ortman (sp?) kind of gives me
      the creeps, but her advice is good.

    • Pay off all credit as soon as possible.
      You're paying 15% to 25% in credit payments?
      It would be more fun to burn the money in
      your own home. Pay down all credit ASAP,
      and don't worry about investments or anything
      until you do.

    • Fully fund every tax-free investment vehicle
      available to you. This would mean 401(k)
      for most people, but if you're paid by the
      university, it will be a 403(b) plan. Put
      every dollar you can spare in those plans.
      Since you sound like you're in your twenties,
      this will turn out to be one of the best
      decisions you will have made by the time
      you retire.

      More typically, people reach their late 30s
      and start to think about funding their
      retirement in just two decades. Not
      going to happen -- fund it right now and
      let compounded interest work for you. Your
      youth is an advantage. Also, use Roth IRAs
      as much as you can, even if you've put 401(k)
      money away.

    • Don't start an online stock trading account.
      (Btw, I work for MSDW Online). They're fine
      for people who know what they're doing, but you
      don't. Stay away until you can afford them,
      and you have a clue about stocks. Instead,
      buy mutual funds that specialize in indices,
      such as the Scudder and Vanguard families of
      funds.

    • You're going to ignore me on the stock thing,
      aren't you? Ok, read the books above, but
      also check out the Motley Fool [fool.com] web sites and books.
      They get it.


    -- Crazy Horse
  • Having friends in the financial services sector, one piece of advice I got is that if you go into a fund, e.g. a mutual fund, find a fund that can consitently beat 'the monkey score'. For mutual funds this is the S&P 500 (there are other indices for bonds etc.). Statistically, if a monkey were to randomly pick a stock from the S&P 500 it should have about a 50/50 chance of beating the average. Yet close to 2/3 of the fund managers cannot beat this average. Find a fund (and manager) that can perform on this level on a regular basis.

    With in a services house, diversify your funds.
    Balance a high yield/high risk fund with bond or other income funds.

    Be sure to investigate ALL fees they might cahrge you and subtract it from you estimated returns.

    If you have access to a credit union, use it! Credit unions are like Linux, once you use one nothing else will seem up to snuff. They provide you with low cost checking, loans, credit cards, mutual funds, IRA's and you get to vote for the board of directors as well. Many (including the ones I am a member of) have web access to do your banking and investing.

    If your academic institution had TIA/CREF retirement and you partook in it, stick with it. They are reputable, stable and have a good track record.


    ersonally I use credit unions, TIA/CREF and a private financial services company.

    HTH
  • If you're just looking to track your stock holdings, money market funds, and that kind of thing and don't mind devoting a few minutes to actually building the information by hand, NASDAQ [nasdaq.com] offers a portfolio tracking service for free on their site. I believe it's a cookie/java solution, so if you're frequently changing pc's or browsers, you might be SOL, but it's fairly simple and straightforward. I haven't played with it in a while, but recall asking them to include long-term growth charts for personal portfolios (like they have for individual stocks), so this might be extant by now.
    Rafe

    V^^^^V
  • I use a local bank with internet access. I use Accutrade for most investments, eTrade for some and go directly to the mutual funds I pick.

    I use "Yahoo!" to track day to day gains/loss. I research stocks and mutual funds on many no cost internet sites (and those I have assets at) "Yahoo!", Quicken/Intuit, WallStreet, ....

    I wish Intuit/Quicken, Others, Banks, Brokers, ... would provide US customers/consumers usable software for home/office. All the software packages/applications I have looked at fail to provide me with real tools for automating and simplfying the process.

    Currently I would advise use a local banker with internet access (just in case ...) and internet brokers like eTrade, Datek, DLJ, ... for investments and research. Currently I have, but would not recommend any home-office finacial software applications, because they are purty packages of ledger and printer fluff and not very helpful in tactical/strategic financial planning.

    Being it is the season ... I would recommend Intuit's Turbo Tax Delux (if you do it yourself) or a good CPA.

    Hope this stuff helps.


  • Yes, TDWaterhouse [tdwaterhouse.com] does allow for direct deposits. After doing alot of research, they seemed like a good fit for my needs (fairly cheap online trading, daily sweeping of cash into money-market accounts, atm and check-writing services)and I've been happy with them the past couple of months that I've been a customer. And they normally have a branch office in larger cities for people that want a brick-and-mortar assurance.
  • You're asking two different questions. One is about banking
    in the traditional sense of running your household finances on a
    monthly basis. The other is about investing, which is what
    you do with the money that isn't going "in one hand and out the
    other." There are any number of places to run your checkbook from as
    noted above, but I sincerely hope you don't expect that to address
    your IPO-scale cash.


    Once you clear about $100k you start becoming interesting to the
    investment community for real. And you start really needing
    professional services. Below $50k investable you'll be paying a lot
    for any real customized services you get; above $250k you can get a
    team of people working for you for less than you'd pay a mutual fund
    in management fees.


    We all see the results of people dabbling in technical fields when
    they aren't really professionals in it. It would have been cheaper to
    have hired a pro from the start. It's the same with money. There are
    a lot of smart people in the money management business, and many of
    them have a lot more experience in their field than you (or I) do in
    ours. Why would you want to roll your own with something so precious?


    My opinion is that "best online banking solution" is an oxymoron for
    real investments by people who are not full-time financial
    professionals. It may be fine for cookie-cutter household finances
    like bill-paying and downloading your statement into a spreadsheet,
    but investing is a customized service industry.


    That said, you can check out ICFP [icfp.org]
    for independents. Merrill Lynch [ml.com]
    offers a Cash Management Account (CMA) that rolls up the household
    checking, credit card, and a team of people into one package. Their
    quoted rates are a maximum; it declines the more money you have with
    them.

  • I looked into President's Choice Financial because they are one of very few "branchless" banks. I'm very fussy and don't want to ever have to visit a bank in person to sign forms that could otherwise be mailed to me.

    I think the sign-up process is a good metric for how the bank manages its customer relationships. I think that doing business over the phone is a bad idea as there is too much opportunity for confusion and misunderstanding. Furthermore you don't get a record of what was said when you conduct business over the phone.

    If they are truely an on-line web-based bank then they should be able to process my application (at least enough to email me forms to sign) on-line. While they may offer many other ways to do banking (probably a good thing!) I'm only interesting in on-line banking and if they can't support that well I'm going to keep looking until I can find someone who can. Currently I'm with a bank that doesn't satisfy me, but I'm not going to put in a lot of effort until I'm confident another bank will satisfy me.

  • I believe that some of SFNB's account offerings now credit "foreign" ATM fees for a limited number of transactions each month. (Now if only I could use the local ATMs to make deposits).

  • For the record, Security First used to be owned by S1, but is now owned by the Royal Bank of Canada. (I used to work for secureWare, who spun off sfnb and five paces software, who brought secureware back in and created S1 out of all of them and...you know how internet companies go)

    With that being said, I've used sfnb since I worked there and absolutely love it! Unlike traditional banks with an internet branch, sfnb is ready and quite capable in dealing with issues that the remote bank patron has. Envelopes to mail your checks in have the postage paid, almost everything can be done through the web site (except change of address...kinda annoying) and the support staff (email and telephone) is both informed and speedy. Another thing I really like is that sfnb has never blamed any problem I've had on the fact that I'm running linux. They are truly platform neutral and you can access their stuff on any SSL-enabled, standards compliant browser.

    You can choose to get your statements mailed to you or just view them online (my preferred method). SFNB actually had to get some banking regulations changed to allow them to _NOT_ mail you a statement every month.

    Take it for what you want, I am a former employee so I may be partial to them...but I really haven't found anyone else who is really taking advantage of all the things a bank on the internet can offer like sfnb is.

    Now, if they only had a WAP interface...

    Ryan
  • Merrill Lynch is advertising that they charge you a percentage of your *portfolio* (not profit). So
    they do better if you are successful, but they always get paid.

    "You guys a couple of bookies!"
  • No ATM deposits for some reason.

    As I understand it, ATM Deposits are not allowed across state lines due to some law somewhere. At least, my old bank told me that. Not that I couldn't do it (I did try it a couple of times and it worked okay), but they said I wasn't supposed to do it.

    Since the bank must be based somewhere, you'd probably be crossing state lines.

    Of course, I moved to Alabama a few months ago, and as far as I can tell, ATM deposits aren't allowed at all in this state. Haven't found out why yet..


    ---
  • Have been using WebStreet for the last few years. Always hated the design of their website, lots of frames, very annoying. American Express has an all in one brokerage account which I am switching to. No comission on stock purchase with a balance of > $25,000! Plus free checking, atm, gold card and online bill paying. The Motley Fool recently switched to American Express...
  • The only drawbacks are 1) the lack of brick and mortar branches (which really isn't a problem unless you want something like a safe deposit box.) and 2) the lack of SFNB ATM's.

    I address this issue by having my pay check direct deposited to a local bank with lots of ATM's, and then setting up an automated transfer of money into my SFNB account. I leave a little bit of money in the local bank so that I can get easy access to cash, then transfer most of it to SFNB so that I can pay bills, earn lots of interest, etc.

  • I applied to SFNB for an online account but they twice lose the supporting documents they needed, finally they sent me a snotty letter informing me that they had closed my application as I hadn't sent them the information they required. I tried contacting them several times to say they had it (I'd faxed it twice and mailed copies) but all they would do was log my call and promise me an email reply.

    So I decided that I didn't want to trust my meagre savings to someone who couldn't keep track of a few pieces of paper.

    I went to NetBank.com instead - its adaquate rather than stellar.
  • The only downside to SFNB is that they have no local ATM's (unless you live in Atlanta) so if you'd like to avoid an ATM fee you have to find a local credit union ATM that doesn't charge fees.

    Or you could find a local bank that offers free checking accounts. Usually this means that you don't generate any interest, but you don't pay for any of the services. Then set up an Automated Clearing House with SFNB. They will happily transfer, for free, money from your local account to your SFNB account on a regular basis.

    I do essentially this. I direct deposit all of my pay checks to the local account. Then, I set up an ACH with SFNB to transfer all but a small amount on a regular basis (that coincides with receipt of my pay checks). The money that's left over, doesn't generate any interest but I can withdraw it from the any of the local bank's ATMs without incurring fees. The bulk of my money then goes to SFNB and I can get all the neat services that they offer.

  • I too see your point. I just spend entirely too much time/effort every month with eft's and writing cheques to myself with multiple banks. There are economies of scale and usefulness in having one bank you use for mose everything. On the banks I like front. President's Choice in Canada is great for a no fee, high savings rate perspective. As a bonus you get free food for doing stuff.
  • If you want to get a run down of the biggest and most popular online investment companies and reviews about each, go here: http://www.fool.com/media/DiscountBrokerageCenter/ DiscountBrokerageCenter.htm

  • Review of banks/brokers at Gomez... (Score:3)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday January 05, 2000 @12:05PM (#1400698)
    One site I've seen that reviews banks/brokers (along with user comments) is Gomez Advisors [gomez.com].

    They rated my bank (SFNB [sfnb.com]) as one of the better banks overall, and I've really been happy with them so far.

  • It depends on what the original poster meant by "banking". I do everything that I think of as "banking" at Canada Trust on the Web, and have been doing so for at least two years. This gives me free bill payments to any vendor they're set up for (including competing credit cards), to-the-minute access to my mastercard statement, to-the-minute access to my bank accounts, shuffling money between accounts etc. I can see (but not shuffle) money in my registered pension mutual funds (RRSP in Canada, 401K to you people?) and the current balance on my mortgage. I can retrieve at least three months of detailed statements on any of these.

    It sounded like the original poster was expecting stock trades through the "on-line banking". I don't think of day-trading as "banking", but definitions of such things are probably regional or generational. (At 42, I'm elderly online).
  • No ATM charge then.

    Deposits are still a real pain. Pay is automatic deposit, but other checks have to be mailed in.

    --
  • Since we're being capitalists, Forbes (the capitalist tool) did an extensive survey of financial sites (http://www.forbes.com/forbes/99/0913/index.htm) which they're keeping updated. A bit daunting, but it should give you some good pointers regardless of the type of service(s) you're looking for.
  • The security is great, but it's done via a small proxy program from Entrust which is only available for Win32 - if you're a Linux or Mac monogamist, you're out of luck with Scotia Online.

    A few years back, I was helping a foaf set up a modem in his Mac. None of the Mac programs were willing to even see the modem, but his Toronto Dominion OLB program was willing to dial up and do everything it was supposed to. All from within the MSDOS emulation box. Not being a Mac expert, I threw up my hands at that point and we all went out drinking.
  • The system they have now uses a pure web-based system (currently supplied by checkfree, but I've talked to them and they're
    building their own improved interface) for bill payment, bill presentment, etc. The interface they have is fairly nice. It's cool to
    be able to tell it "Ok, every month pull down my phone bill and if it's not over X dollars, pay it automagically." They have a nice
    system for statement download for checking, savings, and credit cards. They have a section for brokerage services, but I don't use
    it so I can't comment on it. Personally, I'm happy with them. If for no other reason than when I call their tech support, I usually
    get someone clueful.

    ----------

    I use First Union and am totally happy with their system. They need a few interface improvements but overall it is a very slick interface. All my bills are paid automagically and the checks arrive when specified. I used to use Quicken for my services, but the turnaround on updating Quicken through First Union took like 5 days. In other words, look carefully at the turn around time that it takes your bank to update their online service. If it's not instant, then it takes the convinience out of online banking in the first place. For example, I can go around the corner, use the ATM, and when I get home my online checking balance is already updated ... not all banks do that so be careful and ask alot of questions....

    - jorge
  • Good simple/cheap trading (including options) can be had at www.edreyfus.com [edreyfus.com]. I looked at a bunch and they are who I use.

    For analysis of stocks, I think the best is www.clearstation.com [clearstation.com]. They are very good on both community take and technical analysis. Yahoo [yahoo.com]'s stock pages are pretty good for fundemental analysis.

    If you plan to be a heavy day-trader, take a look at CyberCorp.Com [cybercorp.com]. I haven't used them myself though.

    The earlier comment about getting a good book and reading it is quite apt.

  • I don't know about one-stop banking, but we've been very happy with Security First - they have a 6% checking account, and pay your bills free (using CheckFree). If you're looking for stock or mutual funds though just about any of the big guys seems to have a significant web presence now.

    I've been using them for a couple years now after a friend recommended them. I think these guys were the first real online bank. Everything is done through the web browser (encrypted of course.) I've been very happy with them. I was concerned that their service would go downhill when they were bought by the Royal Bank of Canada, but to this day I'm still very happy with them. Even dealing with them over the phone is pleasant --can you imagine that from a bank?

    What's really wierd is they don't charge for most services either. I paid nothing when I opened my first checking account with them. They sent me all the checks, plus pre-paid first class envelopes for me to mail deposits in when necessary. I think they have done away with the pre-paid envelopes since then though :(

    Then, just a couple months ago, they had a special offer for their interest checking account. Free. No minimum balance ($100 initial deposit to open it though--no biggie.) It was 6% interest until 2000 when it dropped to 1% or 2% (don't remember which.)

    Downside: Last time I tried they still couldn't deposit third party checks. The person I talked to said they were working on this. Don't know the current status.

    numb
  • I have been with them for about a year, since HSBC does STILl NOT offer internet banking! That and the 6% interest on a lowly checking account helps too.... www.sfnb.com
  • Citibank [citibank.com] now has their own sort of 'internet bank' called Citi-f/i ... I received a flyer in the mail the other day and have been meaning to check it out. From the glossy brochure it seems there are no fees and the minimum balance is an entire dollar ... sounds nearly too good to be true (and I'm betting it is). They dont have ATM's in my area but they do offer to reimburse the 'other bank's' service charges on four withdrawls a month. If your account balance is over $10,000, they will reimburse you for ANY and all withdrawls from enemy ATM's. Anyone have more info/experience with this bank than I?

    fyi ... I just visited the site to make sure I had the url correct and guess what, no unix support of any flavor!
    There goes that idea ... Citi F/I [citifi.com]

  • I've been using SFNB [sfnb.com] for four years or so, and a bunch of my friends have too. We have a mailing list we use to bitch to each other about SFNB's screwups. Back in the early days, this was a busy mailing list. They screwed up a lot. But none of us have had any real problems in over a year.

    I use Schwab [schwab.com] for handling investments. You might think it'd be annoying to have my money split up like that, but actually I hardly notice. Transferring money from one institution to another is just as easy as transferring between accounts within a single place. I have, on a couple occasions, found it useful to have local branch offices. Their online support is also excellent. I always get prompt replies to email, and more importantly, they even answer my questions (whereas most email support teams just send me the most appropriate irrelevant form letter).

  • Check out Telebank [telebank.com]. I don't use them yet but I'm tempted to (good rates, refund ATM fees, etc.) I've also heard that eTrade is going to buy the service -- might be all that you're looking for.
  • I've had a LOT of experience with this lately. There are several parts to this question and several things to think about.

    Normal Banking:
    Where do I get my ATM card, DEBIT card, Credit Card, etc. How do I manage my Checking and Savings accounts.These are all included in Normal Banking. I highly recommend Wells Fargo. They have branches everywhere on the west coast but I never use them. Their online banking system is EXCELLENT. Their customer service department is actually useful as well. Their online service allows you to download your account history into MS Money (evil) or Quicken (also evil).

    Financial Software:
    On your computer, it is nice to track your finances with charts, investments, etc. which allow you to keep a close (private) eye on whats going on. It also makes taxes a lot easier. Scheduled payments are also nice. The pain in the ass is that there are really only two products to let you do this, and they both suck, and they are both for windoze. They also make use of a modem which is a pain if you have already switched to a high speed internet line.

    Stock trading / tracking:
    Tracking your portfolio, doing stock research, and of course, trading, are all functions of online stock brokers. I have had experience with a few.

    - Datek was very nice. Good interface, but not many special offers or goodies.

    - WitCapital was also very good although their services lent themselves to assistance regarding IPO's and not much else. The site design was also so/so.

    - Etrade has its share of success stories and nightmares. So far my experience with them has been a bit of both. Etrade has many bells and whistles and extra services. Thier site design is not great, but it is fair. Their customer service leaves MUCH to be deisired. Slow to respond to phone calls and slow to follow through on withdrawls, deposits, and transfers of cash. They are also slow in getting checks and there were several screw-ups in the initial sign-up process. I don't feel very comfortable with them although actual stock trading has been smooth.

    - Moneynet.com is who I use for tracking my portfolio. The site design is nice and there is a lot of free information and news. Note that this is NOT a stock trading service. It is only a way to track assets, investments, etc. A lot of good resources here.

    Conclusion:
    I want either web based or net-enabled software (for linux) that easily allows me to track portfolio's and assets, as well as get news. I also need to be able to import downloaded account histories from multiple sources (usually in money or quicken format). I also need to be able to schedule bill payment automatically and not require a modem. I need to be able to reconcile this information for tax purposes. I also need to make stock trades and manage my bank accounts. If all of this were in one place, it would make my, and probably everyone else's, life a lot easier.

    Just my 2 centavos. Hope this helps.
  • Breifly I have an account setup with janus.com that has the bulk of money spread across 3 of there funds plus a money market account. I still maintain an account with my brick and morter bank (not a problem since they now offer online banking) and since I have auto deposite of my paycheck and credit card autopay (off of my visa check card) setup for most of my bills I never actually have to go there or write checks for that matter. In fact I can safely ignore my snailmail completely now ;-> With the janus setup I've bought into there Olympus fund (pretty tech heavey returned over %100 in 99, will probably have similar returns for a few more years if the this bull market continues) their growth and income fund which did around %35 in 99, and a global life sciences fund which is very new and as you might guess is invested in biotech pretty heavy, which to me seems like the next biggest growth area after the internet. Plus a money market account I keep becuase it has check writing abilities and I like having it for emergencies (since i don't have an actual credit card) The beauty part of the system is that since janus gives you full access to your funds online 24/7 I really can use them like very high interest savings account, and when the money is needed either have it in the money market account or my real checking account in a matter of minutes (unless the market is closed, then transactions are of course delayed untill 8am EST ;-) Like I said with this system in place I never have to write checks, buy stamps or even actually check my snail mail, very smooth. I also have an account with schwab.com but with the amounts I'm dealing with their fees are just chewing me up and I'm going to switch to etrade or a similar outfit RSN.
    I hope this helps!
  • Well, just to balance things out a bit, I have
    been using datek for 2 yrs now. I have never had
    any problems and they totally have the best
    realtime tools.

    I also have a dljdirect account and it is alright.
    You can get in on some ipo shares through them,
    but you get limited realtime quotes unless you
    have more than $1M.

    I use Datek for all of my realtime activity tracking.

    quote.yahoo.com is by far the best for news and
    overall portfolio tracking.
  • Want to get around the ATM fee? It's easy but the catch is that you usually have to go into a bank (or some institution) to do it.

    Your checking/money market account should come with an associated debit card. This uses the standard VISA network. Simply make take a cash advance on your "VISA" card. There is no charge for cash advances by any insitution that I am aware of, although there is usually a cap on the amount, it is also usually much higher than you could get from an ATM (or the same, $500), plus you can get it in the bills of your choice! What could be better?

    I guess that using the VISA network only costs the end bank some tiny fee and they just don't care about it, and they figure your bank is going to ream you with charges for taking a cash advance (they usually do) on your credit card. There's no need to inform them that it is not a credit card -- as far as they are concerned, it is. In one place I told them it was a debit card and they didn't care. So.. have fun.
  • Bury your money in a pickle jar and wait for civilisation to collapse. Then trade it for valuable supplies - after all, those bills will make great toilet paper.
    Seriously, why would you ask us on slashdot this question? Asking hacker geeks for financial advice is like asking pill bugs for flying lessons!
    --Charlie
  • Personally I use Quicken and Wells Fargo. I've looked at all the different online banking solutions but none of them really appealed to me after I got used to Quicken's online banking. In fact I switched to Quicken from Wells Fargo's On-Line banking.

    For me the ability to keep track of all my accounts, get the updates to them automatically over the internet, write checks all from one interface is a complete boon. Pretty soon I'm going to upgrade to Quicken2k and purchase PocketQuicken for my Palm. Can't keep more up to date on your books than that, IMHO.

    My only problem is that more of the newer online banking institutions don't offer this solution *AND* that there were some open standard so there would be products other than Quicken and, IIRC, Microsoft Money to do it.
  • Right on, hakker - lets find Linux offline support!

    The web is an awful interface (slow, proprietary for each service) for doing stuff like paying bills and looking at graphs of account data. Some day you will change services and lose all your old data - you want your list of periodic bills, etc. to be local, not on their server.

    Lots of folks mention downloading information in Quicken format. That may be the best we can do now, but we need a Linux program to process it. Surely there are at least some programs or spreadsheet macros (in gnumeric?) to deal with that for account data, but is there any open-source way to ask a bank to pay your bills?

    --Neal

  • >you want your list of periodic bills, etc. to be local, not on their server. I use Jyske Bank [jyskebank.dk] It is fast (java based, so little network traffic). Having my data on the server means that I can use it from any networked computer: at home, at work or when travelling.
  • In Florida at least, you can use the ATMs at any Publix to withdraw money from an SFNB account without a fee.
  • Only USAA's auto and property insurance is restricted to the military. Their other products are available to the general public.

  • I agree that the premise needs to be questioned.

    One stop shopping sounds like a good deal for the business that gets it, but open standards that let customers shop around more easily for services sounds even better! The one stop I like to make is at my keyboard, proceeding from there to whatever financial institution suits the need at hand.

    For convenience and a great place to start, a free checking account that allows bill payments without any fees makes sense (I use SFNB with satisfaction, but there are others as well). For savings here in the U.S., credit unions [ncua.gov] provide a better return than commercial banks. For anything else, well, you tell me; I'm still working on it.

    The right tool for the right job is the way to go.

  • The big online banks have their _fees_ and the little wannabe online banks can't deliver the services online. The best solution is to abstract an online source over _the best_ bank you can find. CheckFree.com allows you to choose your bank of choice - They provide the online services. CheckFree even *guarantees* your check you write from their system is _good_. What a novel idea!! When WellsFargo screwed-up their fee structure and the fees started I switched to a local bank with little online services. It was great... changed the direct deposit to the new bank. Changed CheckFree to point to the new bank and it was a GO. The advantage is that *all* your payees don't get lost in the switch. They stay with CheckFree and you are only switching your funds source. If you sucker-up to the banks BillPay system, you can't move your Payees to another bank. This one abstraction takes all the risk out of banking online. I highly recommend CheckFree for the freedom it provides. For $9.00/mo. you get to choose whatever bank you want to draw your checks against... Cool.


  • Gee that's too bad. You may as well go on and pay your higher fees to other FUD brokerages like Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab.

    The fee difference is trivial unless you are trading every day. If you are, you are lost anyway.

  • Re:Banks and Software. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Hm. You listed three online banking companies and dissed two. Furthermore, the domain in which your home page resides is owned by that mysterious third company, FundsXpress.

    I wonder who you work for.

    And I wonder why you didn't admit it up front.

  • find another on-line bank who can provide everything I have at mbanx (on-line trading in US and Canadian funds, linked directly to my chequeing bank accounts, etc.)

    Try Canada Trust... that's what I use and am very happy with them, they manage to do all the things you say above, plus other things like bill payments. And... on one page it lists the balances of my chequing account, my investment accounts, and my mastercard. Very, very convenient. And it doesn't cost much either.

    Of course, there is a caveat (isn't their always?)... CT was just bought out by TD Bank and they have their own system so I am crossing my fingers that they won't screw things up too badly.
  • I've been with netbank for 1 year, here is my view:

    In general, good banking services but not so good in IT implementation.

    The Good:
    1) free bill pay.
    2) 5% (5.13% APY) money market account (now it seems other online banks can top) that.
    3) Customer Service is sufficient. I called 3 times (evening) and took me no time to talk to a real person.

    The Bad:
    1) No Quicken direct download (they have QFX file, but that's high stress work to import it). And the customer assistant told me not to expect it for first half of 2000.

    2) Web page is, at least, uninspired and sometimes slow and buggy. internal web based mail system is HARD to use.

    I'll drop Net@Bank if I can find a all-in-one investment account with free bill pay and quicken download. But for now it can take care of biz. The drawbacks are not bad enough for me to switch.
  • In my local Publix (Tampa) they only allow you take $20 out at one purchase. Don't know which smartie set that policy.

    Also in Publix I saw "Help wanted, full time / part time, stock option available". For 1/2 second I told myself to fill out an application.

  • I opened my account recently after checking them out, liked them so much I xferred my $20 to the friend who tagged me onto them.

    Ok, I was also a little sold by 'lowest cost Standard&Poors fund' and generally just the simplicity of funds investment with them (and when I signed up, they gave me some pretty generous credit)

    havent moved much money through x.com as yet, but its almost frighteningly easy to use, so far i've liked everything I've seen, and yes, the cool name certainly didnt make me want to sign up any less!

  • he limit of up to $20.00 "cash back" from your debit card when making a purchase applies to any store that offers this service (again, no fee). Publix, Kmart, Target, Winn Dixie, wherever.

    For a larger withdrawal, use the ATM in front of the Publix, though.

    Or make several separate purchases of a pack of gum, if desperate. Or if you really like chewing gum.

  • My very first bank account was with CT. But they charged me incredibly high fees so I closed the account. It wasn't anything they did, it was that I didn't know anything about banking and I choose the wrong type of account.

    My parents just got a mortgage through CT and had a great experience. They got a better rate on their mortgage by switching all their banking to CT. On-line banking is very important to them too but they aren't half as fussy as I am! I also know someone who is a manager at a CT branch and know they have pioneered some on-line banking stuff (in 1995 I got to demo their on-line banking website before it was available to customers).

    A business I used to be a partner in used TD for its banking and we had a pretty bad experience with them, so this news that TD has purchases CT makes me nervous but I won't hold it against them.

  • Good and Valid points ..., I agree.

    However, I have always believed that it is best for some of US to "Ride the Edge, ..., Open the Envelope" for others (AKA: Necessity is the Mom of Invention NMI).

    Never be happy with limited bandwidth.

  • Don't do anything until you read Personal Finance for Dummies. This book is excellent. This book surveys the financial landscape and helps put everthing in perspective. Despite the off-putting name, it delivers solid hype-free advice. Especially useful is the investing advice, which exposes the various conflicts of interest that exist in the retail financial environment. Eric Tyson is a nationally recognized financial author and consultant. Another good book is "Common Sense on Mutual Funds : New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor" by John C. Bogle, the founder of Vanguard. Although a bit tedious to read at times, the book shows how fund costs can impair your long term return.
  • What about us in the UK, who don't want to convert all our money to dollars and back again? Has anyone found a decent UK online bank yet?

    Most of the high-street banks [natwest.com] have SOME kind of online-banking, but most of them require windoze software, or some [barclays.co.uk] of them have nice java software but it checks you're running windoze before letting you run it! (yes, there are hacks, but I'd rather not give THOSE kind of people my business)...

    Egg [egg.co.uk] has a nice interest rate, and has done it The Way It Should Be Done with no java, just plain HTML, CGI, HTTPS... but they only allow you to pay out into your one or two nominated accounts, so you can't use it to pay bills, give money to friends, etc etc, and anyway, their security panics and locks you out if you dare to use the wrong capitalisation in any of the security questions.

    marbles [getmarbles.co.uk] isn't a bank after all. anyone tried first-e [first-e.co.uk]? any good? what about any of the others?

    I'm after something that will take my pay-cheque, and look after it, preferably earning a little interest. Something that will let me pay bills, pay money to friends, or transfer to other accounts. It MUST NOT make a fuss about me using any more secure OS than most of the rest of the planet. It should PREFERABLY not use huge java apps either, but I'd probably put up with java if it met all my other requirements.

    Help! :-)

  • you may check with a local bank if you're near a military town. i know of several banks that are developing online-banking solutions that target military personnel b/c of their mobility.

    banks are very happy if they can keep a customer when they move every 2-3 years, including overseas deployments. and staying with one financial institution makes my life much easier.

  • The best banks are the tardiotnal credit union. I do my banking at the local gas station, by the phone, by snail mail, or the web. My particular credit union has never been within easy driving distance of their customers, so they are well setup for this situation. (They are for state hiway department workers, who live around the state despite the bank offices being near only near the state capitol)

    It is harder to get in as you need to live/work in the right place, or be a relative of someone who is a member.

    When my parents wanted to buy a car they call the credit untion, the person (I've never been on hold, the person answering the phone can hanlde my buisness, and I always get a person imeadiatly) who answered the phone said "For that model of car don't pay more then $x, we are putting $x in your checking account, when you buy the car send us the title." Now granted my parents have a good creit rating, but this service is nice, they trust members with the bank's money.

    Also, savings interest rates are higher, loan rates lower. And of course the service is better.

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