When you retire, you need to think about your banking needs differently. The first issue is the checking account (I suspect someone reading this in twenty years will be thinking, "Oh, I remember checking accounts. I gave mine up back in 2015"). I get free checking because: money is regularly direct deposited, or I keep a minimum balance. Now that I am retired, I don't have a paycheck direct deposited and it will be some time before I start collecting social security. I didn't want to mess with minimum balance requirements, since I think it will take a while to figure out when to move money from my investment accounts to this account. Since money will only appear if I am organized enough to push it to the checking account, there is just too much room for error. Bank of America doesn't have an account that meets this criterion (free with no direct deposit and no minimum balance). They have some that are close, but not exactly what I wanted.
I've been at Bank of America for 30 years. I generally keep too much money in my checking account. They've been making a lot on that sloppiness, as my account doesn't collect interest. I thought that perhaps they could make an exception to their rules for a year for me and give me free checking. I went to the bank. The manager was very nice; she told me that she couldn't make an exception, but she would write up an escalation and see if the "back office" would accept it. She also said she would get back to me in 2-3 days. After a week with no callback, I called the phone number on the escalation paper work, where I was told I had been denied; the reason given was that it was the local branch's decision to make this kind of exception, and she (he told me her name, and it was the same woman I had spoken with) had turned it down.
As you can imagine, my money and Bank of America are soon to be separated. I've found a nice credit union that doesn't require anything for free checking, will give me free checks (not forever, but I'm not sure I will still be writing checks when I finish this first order :-), and won't charge me any ATM fees or conversion fees on international withdrawals. That pretty much covers what I need in a bank. It took a fair amount of research to find the right bank. Things I would suggest for those treading in these footsteps:
- figure out what you use your account for. For me it is:
- write checks
- get cash
- do electronic funds transfers
- deposit cash
- very occasionally get things like medallion signatures (for opening investment accounts and other activies)
- get cash internationally
- there are 3 kinds of banks you should be looking at: 'regular' banks, credit unions, and online-only banks. For me, the online-only didn't have convenient enough ATMs, so that kind of bank didn't make sense as the only checking account.
- also check to see if your investment house will give you a true checking account. By that I mean one that you can write (small) checks on and get cash from ATMs. Mine does not. It will let me write large checks, so it will be handy for some transactions, but not all. And since it is not a bank, I can't use it to do electronic funds transfers.
- find out what special things your bank gives you (free checks?) and decide how important those are
- you can research all of this on the internet, though I did have to call a couple of institutions to get some vague language clarified
Now that I have the new account at the credit union, trying to close my Bank of America account is a minor nightmare. I can't close it till all my checks have cleared, which probably means they will have the use of my money (at least enough to avoid the fee) for another two weeks. I have to go into the bank -- despite their claimed strong security, which will allow me to move money around with impunity over the phone, closing an account means you have to go into the bank. Grump. (I know, I'm retired; I'm supposed to have all the time in the world). Then I have to find all the places where I have money taken from this account to make payments. Luckily, I never do this with recurring payments, so it's just a matter of being vigilant when I pay something to notice that it is a direct transfer from a checking account.
It seemed like this was going to be so easy. I have a feeling I'll be saying that several times over the next several months.
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