No overdraft fees I guess is a good offer if you run into that a lot. Personally I much prefer Schwab's offer: no ATM fees, worldwide. I don't often (I think ever actually) find myself over-drafting my account. I do often find myself needing to withdraw cash, and in a wide variety of locations. It's nice to not have to worry about the $2-4 most charge, and even better when traveling internationally.
Go looks to have pretty good ATM coverage, but you can't beat no fee at EVERY ATM.
In addition to the no ATM fee awesomeness, I want to add that my experiences with Schwab's customer service have always been great.
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.
Yea a friend was telling me about that. Schwab doesn't impose a limit (that I know of, I've max gone into the $30 range in fees in a month). Schwab also covers international fees, which I believe USAA does not.
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
FWIW, my Schwab account has no overdraft fees, though of course I have to pay interest on any money I use from the overdraft account.
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)
What sucks about ATM fees is when you get a ten-car pile-up. It's happened to me once or twice. Something big clears and then ten more little things clear and you get ten fees. My bank was pretty nice and reduced it to two fees last time it happened.
This is what my friends at Loopt helped build after getting acquired by Green Dot.
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.
Yes, but they don't require you to do anything with it- IIRC you don't have to fund it, and you certainly don't have to use it or maintain any kind of balance in it.
I'm in the process of bank shopping, so I looked into it just now. If you set up automatic deposits into a checking account, they waive the $1000 minimum for the brokerage account.
Oh, that must be new- when I signed up a couple of years ago there weren't any requirements like that. Thanks for looking into it.
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.
That's right, I set up my account with them with just $25 in the banking account. The rep I talked to when I signed up verified you aren't required to use the brokerage acct at all, it merely has to exist.
I've also been very happy with Simple. When I was transitioning my account over to them, I bounced a payment because I did not realize that using billpay meant your funds were withdrawn immediately, and I'd assumed that my funds being transferred over would cover the charge by the time the check was cashed.
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.
ok, i think we can add the first one fairly easily. i'll look into the second. what's the reason for it? it goes as a debit transaction no matter what. just so no one can make a purchase without your PIN?
Thanks for your interest in GoBank. We’re sorry, but we’re unable to complete your membership request right now.
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.
IP detection is crap, too. I'm in California and while my IP sometimes gets detected as being from a few towns over, it's certainly still in the United States - but I'm blocked.
Same problem. I'm in Hungary but that doesn't make me Hungarian, and my business is based in Indiana. If you want to appeal to this crowd you'd better be prepared to think a little harder about internationality.
Thank you for IP blocking me from visiting your home page, because as everyone knows US residents never travel.
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.
This is great! I love that it's meant to run on a smartphone.
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.
Feels like I'm trudging through peanut butter when I scroll up and down the page. I suspect there's just too much going on and it's killing performance.
I'm part of the GoBank team and have been using the app daily for a few months now. My favourite part is that by making peer-to-peer money transfer so easy, we have basically solved that awful group-dining-check-splitting problem. It's honestly worth signing up just for that.
It's not clear to me if there are any advantages to using GoBank over Simple (other than trivialities like being able to get a custom image on your debit card).
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?
Instant person-to-person transfers is basically only going to work if the recipient is also a GoBank member, no? Unless they're partnering with a service like Dwolla to send the money?
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.
Simple has an answer for this in the FAQ. Note that Simple doesn't charge anything themselves for out-of-network ATMs, whereas GoBank charges $2.50 for withdrawals.
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.
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.
I have had the same problems. I am a Simple member but I just can't justify putting my money there over my local credit union.
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.
I just checked. Simple partners with Allpoint so you have access to their entire network of ATMs (which is pretty large). They also don't charge any fees for out-of-network ATMs (although the out-of-network ATM may charge you a fee).
How does this compare with Simple? The only thing I see that you offer that Simple doesn't is custom card images. You also offer the ability to send money to friends, but there's no explanation of how that works or how your friend claims the money (Simple lets you send money by mailing checks). Simple also advertises their money management tools, but I don't see any of that on gobank.com.
So what does GoBank do to make a compelling argument for using them over Simple?
Seems interesting, but I'm too comfortable with my current BoA account to feel it is worth the hassle of changing stuff over.
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?
This is the company that runs the PayPal MoneyPak things, which are a way to instantly put money into PayPal, by using cash instead of a digital check (which takes about three days). https://www.moneypak.com/
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.
The one feature I want most from a bank would probably require overhauling the entire system. It would be as follows:
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.
Simple's iPhone app can get updates pretty darn quickly after a purchase (typically within just a minute or two). Adding push notifications for purchases would actually be a great addition and wouldn't require overhauling the entire system.
Nicely done, the interactive web site style is more effective on a desktop than a tablet in my opinion. And random free QA note it doesn't work well Chrome on iPad, better with Safari on iPad.
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.
FYI, this appears to be not a new bank, but an extension of Green Dot, the prepaid debit card company. From the fine print on gobank.com:
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.
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.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 45.6 ms ] threadGo 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.
I don't think there are very many reasonable banks in the U.S. though.
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.
1. http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/investing/accounts_produ...
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.
[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5062710
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.
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.
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'd recommend dropping the BETA label. When it comes to money, I don't think BETA works.
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?
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.
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.
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.
So what does GoBank do to make a compelling argument for using them over Simple?
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
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 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.
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.
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.