Which U.S. Bank after R2I for ACH, Bill Pay, checking, etc

Mulder420 · Post by **Mulder420** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 5:56 am

WE currently have our account in one of our local banks in the area. Prior to R2I, we want to maintain our checking account with one of the major banks. Possible options Bank of America or Citibank or ???

Our requirements:
-) Online Bill Payment
-) ACH transfer in and out
-) Monthly Electronic statements instead of Paper statements
-) Ofcourse online access

ANy suggestions ?

MadMax · Post by **MadMax** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:12 am

Nowadays most of the banks have those. I would go with one that doesn't have(or has very low...100$) minimum balance and has no monthly charges.

vinay2mumbai · Post by **vinay2mumbai** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 9:24 am

All your critria matches with Washignton Mutaul bank,
Plus they have free wire t'fer , which itself saves 30 US$ each time, plus no min balance.
Only thing they can not have internatonal address, but who cares where you can get stmt thru email :-)

restlessdesi · Post by **restlessdesi** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:43 am

Bank Of America, while expensive, has worked great for us so far with internet banking, electronic and wire transfers etc. We have international addresses on our accounts, and you can also do telephonic wire xfer (initiate wire xfer over phone to xfer funds from our USA BofA account into our indian accounts).

-restlessdesi

layman · Post by **layman** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:58 am

How much does BofA charge? I do not need a fancy account. What minimum charge can one get away with? I need
-)ACH transfer in and out
-) Monthly Electronic statements instead of Paper statements
-) Ofcourse online access

restlessdesi · Post by **restlessdesi** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 5:26 pm

layman,

Check out their website or call a toll free number listed on their website.

-restlessdesi

realentity · Post by **realentity** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:00 pm

Bank of America tends to charge all kinds of maintenance fees. All banks have online access, bill payments... these days. I would suggest DCU (www.dcu.org) $25 minimum balance, no hassle account.

MunnaBhaiNRI · Post by **MunnaBhaiNRI** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:25 am

vinay2mumbai;19189All your critria matches with Washignton Mutaul bank,
Plus they have free wire t'fer , which itself saves 30 US$ each time, plus no min balance.
Only thing they can not have internatonal address, but who cares where you can get stmt thru email :-)[/quote]
Be aware about WaMu...

A Wire Transfer needs to be done Personally at a branch, they wont do on phone or internet.
Their Customer Support is real poor, you really cant get your work done on phone, you need to walk in.
Their policies changes over time(like min balance, free wire etc..) you may need to keep a backup in your pocket.
International wire tranfer will get a big hit by their exchange rate.
So, try the option of Statebank.com NY or Chicago, talk to them, you can directly (and remotely) wire transfer funds to your Indian bank. Exchange rate good, its a US bank (StateBank is US bank of SBI India). I am not quite aware of their online facilities etc.. visit www.statebank.com
good luck.

Jaggudada · Post by **Jaggudada** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:42 am

You can link any US bank to your ICICI bank account and transfer money into your ICICI bank account in India for free so this takes care of fees to transfer money to India.

Now we need to find out a good US bank which doesn't charge all kinds of fee yet it is big enough so that after few years or even after a decade or two it doesn't go down while we may not be here in US to open another bank account. We need this bank to transfer money from brokerage, mutual fund house, IRA/401(K) custodians etc and pay bills here in United states such as IRS etc etc.

So which is the good US bank that offers free checking, good on-line banking, allows foreign address, with international collect calls and can be operated from India. No need to worry about fees to transfer money from US to India as Paragraph 1 takes fees out of equation.

nand · Post by **nand** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:49 am

You would think it is free. The fees are actually embedded in the spread between the echange rates the bank gets and what they offer you. It is easily 40 paise per dollar or so. Not quite free. In this regard SBI offers the best rates that I have seen. Citi and ICICI are rotten.

Jaggudada;19352You can link any US bank to your ICICI bank account and transfer money into your ICICI bank account in India for free so this takes care of fees to transfer money to India.

Now we need to find out a good US bank which doesn't charge all kinds of fee yet it is big enough so that after few years or even after a decade or two it doesn't go down while we may not be here in US to open another bank account. We need this bank to transfer money from brokerage, mutual fund house, IRA/401(K) custodians etc and pay bills here in United states such as IRS etc etc.

So which is the good US bank that offers free checking, good on-line banking, allows foreign address, with international collect calls and can be operated from India. No need to worry about fees to transfer money from US to India as Paragraph 1 takes fees out of equation.[/quote]