Banking

I've had fairly few dealings with the American banking system over the years, mainly moving money from the UK to the US and adding myself to Kelsey's account. However, being here permanently means a more intensive relationship and working out how processes happen over here. Some things are great, some things are annoying and some things are just downright amusing:

The Great

As with most things over here, the customer service that I've received has been uniformly helpful, cheerful and quick. I've not had to wait more than 5 minutes on the phone and in the banks I feel like a valued customer. It's been easy to set things up, like savings accounts and, surprisingly, a credit card. Whilst I have no credit here, they know me from having an account here, and that combined with my visa status was enough to get me past the credit checks. The online banking here is much quicker than in the UK, with payments appearing on my statement within minutes of being made (meaning I can call Kelsey to ask her why she spent $43 at the pet store, and other such fun conversations!). You can pay checks in using an app, an invention that makes so much sense in an age where banks refuse to change their opening hours to suit people who also work 9 - 5. Finally, let me talk about drive up ATMs. Just about everything has a drive thru (sic) here, so it makes sense that banks do the same. It's such a better system than having to find somewhere to park up and run in to get some cash.

The Annoying

The main downside that I've found with the American banking system is that there is a fee attached to everything. Often times, you can avoid these by meeting certain criteria, or doing things in a different way, but you have to read the small print and think carefully about what you're doing. For example, withdrawing money from an ATM that belongs to your bank is fine and free, but try using another system and not only will you be hit with a fee from their bank for the privilege, but you also incur one from your own bank for sending the money. I never realised how useful the LINK system in the UK actually was! Other fees include not paying a set amount into your account each month, ordering a check book (again, I didn't realise how good it was to have free checks in the UK!) and trying to send payments to people online.

The Amusing

This last point gets me onto to a discovery that I made last week that I still can't quite get my head around. We pay for Jake and Sophie's daycare by check each week (and weep when we do over the cost of it), but since I have to pay for each check book, I decided to see if I could do it online. In the UK, this is a simple and free process to set up a standing order, and most of my payments and bills were made this way. I logged onto to my banking here and lo and behold there is a process called BillPay that allows you to do this. However, when I went to set up the payment, I couldn't find anywhere to enter the account details. I could enter their address however, so I went ahead and did it. It didn't quite seem right to me, so I called up (on hold for less than 1 minute!) and discussed it with the bank. Apparently what happens here is that they will send a check out on my behalf (they can verify my signature from the times when I've been in the bank in person) to the nursery. For free. However, it costs between $3 and $10 to transfer money online, without the need for checks, printing and postage costs. I still don't get how this is cost efficient for the bank, but in the meantime I'll be making use of it.

Next step in my banking adventure is to see how getting a mortgage stacks up - more on this in another post!