
Why banks charge fees - ryanstr
https://medium.com/@ryanstr/today-i-went-to-the-bank-6fd0728d8bb8#.eu7snq7my
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manyxcxi
Except you don't have to leave traditional banking for Bitcoin, or the block
chain in general. Join a credit union. Our small business accounts accrue zero
fees, my personal accounts have zero fees. I talk to someone who literally
lives in my city (well lives in the city I used to) when I call the support
number.

They form an alliance with other credit unions and they are all zero fee. I go
to a credit union ATM near my house to do any banking I can't do on the phone
app (deposit checks > $5k). I can use the ATMs in any 7-11 for free and even
deposit cash. In a way it's like Simple in that I haven't stepped foot in a
branch since opening the account. Even to finish loan papers.

One thing that Chase did better than my credit union is international wire
transfers. They charge less and I am able to do them via web interface instead
of calling the branch every time. It's actually kind of a pain and I'm
thinking about looking into something to work around this.

In 8 years my credit union has never screwed up, continued to add benefits to
my card, gives me a free FICO credit check and score every month, and approved
me for a $60k auto loan from the app on my phone instantly. Their loan rates
are nearly universally 1-2% lower than the commercial banks and the crap the
auto dealers push, except for when they do 0%.

They also shy away from making bad loans. The mortgage crisis barely touched
them. You want a jumbo loan? You better have some damn good credit. It was the
fact that during the housing crisis they were barely touched that I changed
from Chase to them as I wanted to work with a bank that practiced good lending
practices and didn't need to make shareholders happy every three months.

