recomendation for U.S Bank and a rant

[belizesailor]

Not a bank technically, but Ive moved most of my USA bank-like activites to Fidelity Investments because I got fed up w the fees charged by my traditional bank. I have a debit card on my Fidelity account with no international txn fees.

Zero charge for international wire transfers and I do lots of those (Ive had my life spread across several countries for a long time now). Never an issue with them doing an international wire xfer.

I hear good things from other expats about Charles Schwab too.

[StoneCrab]

Patrick from Where is Brickhouse had a post about this very issue. I don't have time right now to look up what his solution was, but it was a service that was multinational. It allowed for payments directly to individuals, banks or what ever you need.

Patrick passed from Covid but I believe his blog and videos are still on-line. If anyone finds his post, please reshare the link here.

Bank of America and Merrill Lynch are part of the same system. I've had Merrill Lynch refuse to execute wire transfers after two weeks of delays. Reason sited was a reference to the original documentation outlining their rights and my rights had a clause that stated that they could refuse anything for any reason. No reason was given, just a refusal to execute. That terminated our relationship.

Both institutions have the most annoying hold music I've ever encountered. When you are trying to troubleshoot a problem, you get to spend a LOT of time listening to their scratchy, crappy, staticy, hold music. It has the sound of a poorly tuned-in AM station on the edge of propagation volume in and out, stratchy, with lightening crashes. Very disconcerting to listen to this while contemplating that this same company is responsible for your life savings. If they can't pay attention to a detail as small as some quality hold music, imagine the bigger issues that get overlooked or messed up.... like a denial of a wire transfer.

[cottonsail]

Navy Federal credit union has been excellent in my experiences.

[Seapig]

Thanks everyone for the information. I will definitely investigate wise and schwab. Obviously I need to separate accounts so if one bank locks me out I have other options.
Stay safe everybody
SP

[MultiCountryDon]

I use Citi, Wells, AMX and PayPal for CC and international wires. All work well here in Asia, can't speak to other areas.
Don

[singlespeed]

I also vote credit union. In 14 years, never had any problems in any country in and adjacent to the Caribbean. If you are on a French Island, ATM withdrawal at the Post Office are free of charges.

[David B]

We are based in Australia, but use Citi for our FX holdings. No fee to keep a multi-currency card, and we buy our FX elsewhere, then just transfer to our Citi account.
Works at any foreign ATM we have tried. Here is the gen on Citi:

Citigroup Inc. or Citi (stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomerate Travelers Group in 1998; Travelers was subsequently spun off from the company in 2002.[22][23] Citigroup owns Citicorp, the holding company for Citibank, as well as several international subsidiaries. Citigroup is incorporated in Delaware.

Citigroup is the third largest banking institution in the United States; alongside JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, it is one of the Big Four banking institutions of the United States.[24] It is considered a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board and is commonly cited as being too big to fail. It is one of the nine global investment banks in the Bulge Bracket.

Citigroup is ranked 33rd on the Fortune 500 as of 2021.[25] Citigroup has over 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries.[21] It has 204,000 employees,[21] although it had 357,000 employees before the financial crisis of 2007–2008,[26] when it was bailed out by a massive stimulus package from the U.S. government.[27]

In 2020 it has over $23.6 trillion dollars in assets under custody (AUC) [28]

[rwaldrop13]

My comments on this. Avoid BofA. Treated us like crap and dragged out processing the sale of our house to the point realtor had lawyer call to get funds released for payout to us after note cleared.

BBT/Suntrust- a crappy bank merged with a good one and dragged them down. When I was an operations manager for a staffing company, BBT rejected direct deposit from one of our employees because his wife already had direct deposit to that account. Seriously... that's what the bank told me, and the employee. SunTrust used to be good.

I don't have anything else to offer since as a vet I use USAA... so far so good.

[StoneCrab]

I found the link to Patrick and Rebecca's article on boat finances. He goes into a good amount of detail. The service that I couldn't remember the name of was TransferWise.

Here is a link to the article:
International Finances and Money on our American Cduising Boat

I took note of one of his final comments regarding having a phone number that stays with you for verification purposes. It is a good article.

A part II to the article on TransferWise:
Finances When Cruising Around the World IMPORTANT UPDATE - Where is SV Brick House?

There are some good question and answers following these articles. Rebecca makes the point that it is possible to carry balances in the native currencies which may be beneficial. TransferWise seems to be the least expensive option.

Here is a snippet: "Regarding your question on needing to carry a balance…no you definitely do not. I upgrade my account (no charge for the upgrade) to be a “borderless account”so I could carry balances in other currencies, and also so that people could pay em in other currencies besides USD. I carry a small Australian balance simply because someone bought something from me, secondhand in Australian currency through their Transferwise account. It was during a time when Australian dollars didn’t buy many usd (and still doesn’t) so I am just keeping it in there until it at least comes up in worth before I cash it in or use it. But to get back to your question…They can withdraw it to pay from your credit card or your bank account that you have linked to it which takes a couple of extra steps"

[Cheechako]

Definitely not Bank of America! I was in Florida for quite a while and most often BOA couldn't even find my account. (it's a WA based account) My Debit card would work, but the actual bank had no idea I existed EVEN WITH MY DEBIT CARD IN THEIR HANDS!

I often wonder if it isn't time to bite the bullet and bank entirely on line with a bank like Capital One etc. To deposit you just take a picture of the check you are depositing... etc. SO I guess that means they dont know where you are, Alaska or Rhode Island...? and don't care...

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Definitely not Bank of America! I was in Florida for quite a while and most often BOA couldn't even find my account. (it's a WA based account) My Debit card would work, but the actual bank had no idea I existed EVEN WITH MY DEBIT CARD IN THEIR HANDS!

I often wonder if it isn't time to bite the bullet and bank entirely on line with a bank like Capital One etc. To deposit you just take a picture of the check you are depositing... etc. SO I guess that means they dont know where you are, Alaska or Rhode Island...? and don't care...

You mean your debit card didn’t work in the shops because your account was unknown? Or you were in a local office? Why? I do everything online, pictures of cheques etc. is all the same between Capital One, BoA, Wells Fargo etc. They all do that and you never need to go into their offices.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

You mean your debit card didn’t work in the shops because your account was unknown? Or you were in a local office? Why? I do everything online, pictures of cheques etc. is all the same between Capital One, BoA, Wells Fargo etc. They all do that and you never need to go into their offices.

This was 10 years ago. My debit card worked fine. My BOA credit card worked fine. But when I needed a big chunk of cash from the bank, (to pay for boat work!) they wouldn't cash a check and found no account under my name or under the number on my check book!
It was weird. I guess at that time the account was not interstate just like health insurance wasn't....

[RickG]

Our primary is Schwab and we use Wise. CapitalOne is our backup. My last ATM withdrawal from Schwab of East Caribbean Dollars was at 2.67 $EC to $US; the standard exchange rate is 2.7, so about $3.50 US in their favor.

Cheers, RickG

[Tingum]

We travel extensively, or did prior to Covid, and always try to charge everything on our Capital One card. When we need local currency we simply get it from ATMs, no fees. Paying our monthly card bill is very easily done online. We just make sure we pay the bill when we have a good internet connection.

[flyingfin]

Chase was covering your ass,,,,unless you show up in person and deal with a known banker, they are very reluctant to quickly process on-line wire transfers. With the amount of internet scams and hackers, you should thank them.
Security is most important, not speed, in todays world of on-line banking.