topic Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK in Personal Finance

BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 12:37:42 GMT

which is the best credit union banks to have with the best interset rates and all around perks, all advice and comments welcome, thanks in advance..

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 13:50:17 GMT

You will get several answers. But top runners on here seem to be NFCU, PenFed and Alliant.

I am a member of NFCU and Alliant. I really like them both. Both of them have awesome customer service, in my experience. And Alliant is part of the Shared Branch Network. I use Alliant as my major checking and savings hubs because their checking and savings account interest rates are higher than NFCU.

There is a thread in the Credit Card forum started by Ballers and it contains a lot of information on different credit unions--just do a search. I believe it is called the Official Credit Unions Thread. It comes from the perspective of applying for Credit Cards. But there is alot of valuable information in there on many different credit unions across the country.

I am sure others will jump in with their experiences.

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

SouthJamaica — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 18:06:00 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
which is the best credit union banks to have with the best interset rates and all around perks, all advice and comments welcome, thanks in advance..

The 2 big ones are NFCU and PenFed. NFCU is more generous but PenFed has lower rates.

There are lots of great smaller credit unions out there I belong to 8 or 9.

So far my favorite credit unions are Affinity FCU, PenFed, NFCU, and Alliant.

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 21:02:35 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
You will get several answers. But top runners on here seem to be NFCU, PenFed and Alliant.

I am a member of NFCU and Alliant. I really like them both. Both of them have awesome customer service, in my experience. And Alliant is part of the Shared Branch Network. I use Alliant as my major checking and savings hubs because their checking and savings account interest rates are higher than NFCU.

There is a thread in the Credit Card forum started by Ballers and it contains a lot of information on different credit unions--just do a search. I believe it is called the Official Credit Unions Thread. It comes from the perspective of applying for Credit Cards. But there is alot of valuable information in there on many different credit unions across the country.

I am sure others will jump in with their experiences.

I recently opened both NFCU and Alliant accounts. But I do most of my banking with Ally - they provide free personal checks which is a big deal for me.

I wanted to try Shared secure loan with Alliant. I opened NFCU because of all the excitement going on about them here, but I don't what I can do with them- I already have good checking account and credit cards. Maybe I will use NFCU for a future auto loan or I will just close the account. The only feature NFCU has that Ally doesn't is the ability to do International wire transfers, which I don't really need .

I know some members here like to keep multiple active accounts, I would love to hear how they extract value from multiple accounts.

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Revelate — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 21:21:51 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
You will get several answers. But top runners on here seem to be NFCU, PenFed and Alliant.

I am a member of NFCU and Alliant. I really like them both. Both of them have awesome customer service, in my experience. And Alliant is part of the Shared Branch Network. I use Alliant as my major checking and savings hubs because their checking and savings account interest rates are higher than NFCU.

There is a thread in the Credit Card forum started by Ballers and it contains a lot of information on different credit unions--just do a search. I believe it is called the Official Credit Unions Thread. It comes from the perspective of applying for Credit Cards. But there is alot of valuable information in there on many different credit unions across the country.

I am sure others will jump in with their experiences.
I recently opened both NFCU and Alliant accounts. But I do most of my banking with Ally - they provide free personal checks which is a big deal for me.

I wanted to try Shared secure loan with Alliant. I opened NFCU because of all the excitement going on about them here, but I don't what I can do with them- I already have good checking account and credit cards. Maybe I will use NFCU for a future auto loan or I will just close the account. The only feature NFCU has that Ally doesn't is the ability to do International wire transfers, which I don't really need .

I know some members here like to keep multiple active accounts, I would love to hear how they extract value from multiple accounts.

Leaving aside the deposit account bonuses that can be chased much like credit card signup bonuses, a lot of it depends on what you need as it's impossible that one institution is ideal for all things. My lineup:

Chase: it has branches, apparently I occasionally need them for cash deposits, and I've wrapped my arms around them for their credit products (within reason but I digress), and my mortgage is through them too which they gave me a righteous deal on.
USAA: insurance and they shuffle money between places better than anyone as near as I can tell: fast and free.
DCU: had them for 15 years, excellent loan rates, and their HELOC rate is simply superb. Helps that I clear their minimum UW which for a lot of products is only 675 EQ FICO 5 currently, where my flatlined 693 is just fine.
Penfed: Have a LOC through them which is OK, I could get a credit card and I might if 5% gas actually makes a material difference to me in the future now that Sallie is gone, but it won't this year. Also has good auto loan rates, sometimes better sometimes worse than DCU depending who is offering what when.
Alliant: don't know I'll do anything more with them but they were the original lender I tried the share secured loan trick with and can't complain.
First Tech: Chip + PIN priority; it was either them or UNFCU as pretty much the only two current lenders (Diners Club is closed to new members) that offer a true Chip + PIN card, and I wanted a mastercard in particular (exchange rate and most of my cards are VISA anyway)
Unify: Local CU, only just opened it, but a local CU can sometimes be useful, and they offer a dizzying array of products. They're there if I need them.

I've had others (like Logix was the local CU before Unify) but these are the ones I'm actively using... in general not every lender is going to do all things well, and it's vanishingly unlikely they do a lot of things truly excellently. Really out of the entire list the one that likely gets whacked is Alliant as the SSL doesn't do anything for me now and I haven't seen any of their products I really want unless I start churning cards but it'll cost me hardly anything to keep it open and they're not a bad place from other user reports; also First Tech is kind of a one trick pony so far and I don't need that trick once the international travel gig comes to an end, but we'll see how they do. The rest I can't see getting rid of, too useful.

When I have cash in hand again I may open up a high interest account now for my emergency reserve, maybe; near cash like in any standard brokerage account is probably good enough for me personally as that can be sorted in a few days worst case for access.

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 23:39:09 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

I know some members here like to keep multiple active accounts, I would love to hear how they extract value from multiple accounts.

As Revelate just observed:

"... deposit account bonuses... can be chased much like credit card signup bonuses."

What he's getting at is that you can open an account at a bank that is offering a promotion, get the signup bonus, then close it six months later. With some banks you can do this as often as once a year. Chase is a classic example: I open a checking and savings with them once a year, get the $500 bonus, then close them. (There is something a little ironic about the fact that Chase is one of the favorite banks of bonus chasers.)

I open maybe 8-9 accounts a year and make about $3000 each year doing it. It's a hobby, but one that pays me to do it. (My other hobby pays me a little, which is going out with the boys to play trivia once a week at the local pizza joint. Our winnings pay for some of our pizza.)

If you want me to point you to some links where you can learn more about bank bonus chasing, let me know.

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 17:48:16 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

I know some members here like to keep multiple active accounts, I would love to hear how they extract value from multiple accounts.
As Revelate just observed:

"... deposit account bonuses... can be chased much like credit card signup bonuses."

What he's getting at is that you can open an account at a bank that is offering a promotion, get the signup bonus, then close it six months later. With some banks you can do this as often as once a year. Chase is a classic example: I open a checking and savings with them once a year, get the $500 bonus, then close them. (There is something a little ironic about the fact that Chase is one of the favorite banks of bonus chasers.)

I open maybe 8-9 accounts a year and make about $3000 each year doing it. It's a hobby, but one that pays me to do it. (My other hobby pays me a little, which is going out with the boys to play trivia once a week at the local pizza joint. Our winnings pay for some of our pizza.)

If you want me to point you to some links where you can learn more about bank bonus chasing, let me know.

Hi CreditGuyInDixie,

A couple of questions regarding your comments:

1. As you are opening a new account, doesn't your INQ take a hard pull?

2. If so, how much on average are you seeing your scores drop due to the HP for opening the account?

Also, can you point out some links where we can learn more about bank bonus chasing? - it is very intriguing.

Thanks in advance.

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Revelate — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 22:26:38 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

I know some members here like to keep multiple active accounts, I would love to hear how they extract value from multiple accounts.
As Revelate just observed:

"... deposit account bonuses... can be chased much like credit card signup bonuses."

What he's getting at is that you can open an account at a bank that is offering a promotion, get the signup bonus, then close it six months later. With some banks you can do this as often as once a year. Chase is a classic example: I open a checking and savings with them once a year, get the $500 bonus, then close them. (There is something a little ironic about the fact that Chase is one of the favorite banks of bonus chasers.)

I open maybe 8-9 accounts a year and make about $3000 each year doing it. It's a hobby, but one that pays me to do it. (My other hobby pays me a little, which is going out with the boys to play trivia once a week at the local pizza joint. Our winnings pay for some of our pizza.)

If you want me to point you to some links where you can learn more about bank bonus chasing, let me know.
Hi CreditGuyInDixie,

A couple of questions regarding your comments:

1. As you are opening a new account, doesn't your INQ take a hard pull?
2. If so, how much on average are you seeing your scores drop due to the HP for opening the account?

Also, can you point out some links where we can learn more about bank bonus chasing? - it is very intriguing.

Thanks in advance.

Not for most deposit accounts; some CU's pull for membership, there is often a ChexSystems inquiry when we're talking the banks that are offering routine savings / checking offers, but that doesn't land on the main credit bureaus... different purpose dataset on that one.

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 23:10:11 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

I know some members here like to keep multiple active accounts, I would love to hear how they extract value from multiple accounts.
As Revelate just observed:

"... deposit account bonuses... can be chased much like credit card signup bonuses."

What he's getting at is that you can open an account at a bank that is offering a promotion, get the signup bonus, then close it six months later. With some banks you can do this as often as once a year. Chase is a classic example: I open a checking and savings with them once a year, get the $500 bonus, then close them. (There is something a little ironic about the fact that Chase is one of the favorite banks of bonus chasers.)

I open maybe 8-9 accounts a year and make about $3000 each year doing it. It's a hobby, but one that pays me to do it. (My other hobby pays me a little, which is going out with the boys to play trivia once a week at the local pizza joint. Our winnings pay for some of our pizza.)

If you want me to point you to some links where you can learn more about bank bonus chasing, let me know.
Hi CreditGuyInDixie,

A couple of questions regarding your comments:

1. As you are opening a new account, doesn't your INQ take a hard pull?
2. If so, how much on average are you seeing your scores drop due to the HP for opening the account?

Also, can you point out some links where we can learn more about bank bonus chasing? - it is very intriguing.

Thanks in advance.
Not for most deposit accounts; some CU's pull for membership, there is often a ChexSystems inquiry when we're talking the banks that are offering routine savings / checking offers, but that doesn't land on the main credit bureaus... different purpose dataset on that one.

Hi Revelate,

Thanks for the clarification. I did not realize that. I guess I need to do some research into making a little money from opening an account- of course with the stipulation of knowing the requirements of such. Thanks again! ;-)

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 01:16:40 GMT

Yup, as Revelate explains, there are two kinds of inquiries that a bank might do.

(1) Some banks or credit unions do an inquiry with one of the three big CRAs that you hear being typically mentioned on this site: TransUnion, Equifax, Experian. If the bank does such an inquiry, it is more likely to be a soft inquiry than a hard one. Soft inquiries have no impact on your credit score (FICO, Vantage, whatever).

Thus, for TU, EQ, and EX, opening a bank account will likely have no FICO impact: either because they did not do an inquiry at all to these three CRAs, or because the inquiry was soft.

(2) There are two others CRAs that specialize in information about saving and checking accounts (TU/EQ/EX in contrast specialize in credit accounts, like loans and credit cards). These two other CRAs are ChexSystems and Early Warning Systems (EWS). If you get too many inquiries (or new accounts) on your CS or EWS reports, a bank may refuse to let you open a checking or savings account the next time you apply. Many bonus chasers report having a LOT of inquiries on their CS or EWS reports and they still get approved for each new bank account they open. Reasonable advice is to avoid opening a large number in a very small timeframe: e.g. accounts at three different banks in the same month. That behavior is associated with people who have stolen someone's identity and are trying to kite a lot of bad checks quickly.

The best site I know of to get an overview of bonus chasing is Doctor of Credit.

The first link I would look at is the DoC overview:

http://www.doctorofcredit.com/a-beginners-guide-to-bank-account-bonuses/

Then I'd look at their monthly roundup of best bank bonuses currently being offered. I am not excited about the offerings right now, but that could change in a week's time. You should certainly look at their state-specific offers to see if there are any that are good for your state. I see some for $500 and $300 there.

http://www.doctorofcredit.com/best-bank-account-bonuses/

Finally they have a reference page that gives many other links and resourcces:

http://www.doctorofcredit.com/bank-account-reference-pages/

One more note:

Bank bonus chasing can be especially lucrative when it is combined with CC bonus chasing. The reason is that you can open a new credit card that has a big minimum spend requirement in order to get the CC bonus. Then, as soon as it is opened, you can use the card to "fund" a bank account that you have opened (to fund an account means the initial deposit you make in the bank account. The funding transaction may well count toward meeting your minimum spending and might be coded as a purchase rather than a cash advance. The folks at DoC typically give details for this stuff. Example: many people chose to open the Chase Sapphire Reserve and meet much of its minimum spend by opening a PNC checking acount. They therefore got 100,000 Chase points and $300 from PNC. Nice result for two quick applications.

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 07:27:32 GMT

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 07:28:39 GMT

I want to thanks everyone for their time and advice

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 08:58:10 GMT

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 12:06:23 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Yup, as Revelate explains, there are two kinds of inquiries that a bank might do.

(1) Some banks or credit unions do an inquiry with one of the three big CRAs that you hear being typically mentioned on this site: TransUnion, Equifax, Experian. If the bank does such an inquiry, it is more likely to be a soft inquiry than a hard one. Soft inquiries have no impact on your credit score (FICO, Vantage, whatever).

Thus, for TU, EQ, and EX, opening a bank account will likely have no FICO impact: either because they did not do an inquiry at all to these three CRAs, or because the inquiry was soft.

(2) There are two others CRAs that specialize in information about saving and checking accounts (TU/EQ/EX in contrast specialize in credit accounts, like loans and credit cards). These two other CRAs are ChexSystems and Early Warning Systems (EWS). If you get too many inquiries (or new accounts) on your CS or EWS reports, a bank may refuse to let you open a checking or savings account the next time you apply. Many bonus chasers report having a LOT of inquiries on their CS or EWS reports and they still get approved for each new bank account they open. Reasonable advice is to avoid opening a large number in a very small timeframe: e.g. accounts at three different banks in the same month. That behavior is associated with people who have stolen someone's identity and are trying to kite a lot of bad checks quickly.

The best site I know of to get an overview of bonus chasing is Doctor of Credit.

The first link I would look at is the DoC overview:
http://www.doctorofcredit.com/a-beginners-guide-to-bank-account-bonuses/

Then I'd look at their monthly roundup of best bank bonuses currently being offered. I am not excited about the offerings right now, but that could change in a week's time. You should certainly look at their state-specific offers to see if there are any that are good for your state. I see some for $500 and $300 there.
http://www.doctorofcredit.com/best-bank-account-bonuses/

Finally they have a reference page that gives many other links and resourcces:
http://www.doctorofcredit.com/bank-account-reference-pages/

One more note:
Bank bonus chasing can be especially lucrative when it is combined with CC bonus chasing. The reason is that you can open a new credit card that has a big minimum spend requirement in order to get the CC bonus. Then, as soon as it is opened, you can use the card to "fund" a bank account that you have opened (to fund an account means the initial deposit you make in the bank account. The funding transaction may well count toward meeting your minimum spending and might be coded as a purchase rather than a cash advance. The folks at DoC typically give details for this stuff. Example: many people chose to open the Chase Sapphire Reserve and meet much of its minimum spend by opening a PNC checking acount. They therefore got 100,000 Chase points and $300 from PNC. Nice result for two quick applications.

Good Morning CreditGuyInDixie,

Both Revelate and your explanations have been very helpful. You both have enlightened me to possible blessings with bank accounts. *Wow*

I have saved your posts in a text file, as I often do when I find very useful information.

Thanks again for everything!

Re: BEST CREDIT UNION BANK

Anonymous — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 18:59:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
You will get several answers. But top runners on here seem to be NFCU, PenFed and Alliant.

I am a member of NFCU and Alliant. I really like them both. Both of them have awesome customer service, in my experience. And Alliant is part of the Shared Branch Network. I use Alliant as my major checking and savings hubs because their checking and savings account interest rates are higher than NFCU.

There is a thread in the Credit Card forum started by Ballers and it contains a lot of information on different credit unions--just do a search. I believe it is called the Official Credit Unions Thread. It comes from the perspective of applying for Credit Cards. But there is alot of valuable information in there on many different credit unions across the country.

I am sure others will jump in with their experiences.

First determine your needs and go from there. Good luck!