topic Re: Penfed CU check by WF in Personal Finance

Penfed CU check by WF

NoMoreE46 — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 01:29:29 GMT

So I closed my PF membership (card and savings) and got a check for the $5.00 I had in there for membership.

What caught my eye while depositing is that the PF check is issued thru Wells Fargo...

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Re: Penfed CU check by WF

TrapLine — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 04:09:38 GMT

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive" ...

Got'ta love it! A puppet of Wells Fargo Financial (or not).

Re: Penfed CU check by WF

FicoMike0 — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 04:47:07 GMT

That is odd.

Re: Penfed CU check by WF

Patient957 — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 13:15:58 GMT

It's not that unusual. My Schwab brokerage account takes deposits via a Chase account.

Re: Penfed CU check by WF

Anonymous — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 02:43:00 GMT

@Patient957 wrote:
It's not that unusual. My Schwab brokerage account takes deposits via a Chase account.

Schwab (+ Fidelity, my Cash Mangement has a UMB routing number) aren't banks, so for certain things need to go through a bank. But I would have assumed that a CU wouldn't need to!

Re: Penfed CU check by WF

TrapLine — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 09:00:46 GMT

One item that came to mind after reading on this post. Some financials partner with what is titled a "correspondent bank" and certain items are processed using the correspondent bank.

It was mentioned that Schwab and Fidelity Investments use banks since neither one holds a bank charter so, they "partner" with bank(s) that do.

Features of a "Correspondent Bank" may include:

A correspondent bank is an authorized financial institution that provides services on behalf of another financial institution.
Correspondent bank's services may include funds transfer, settlement, check clearing, and wire transfers.
The accounts held between correspondent banks and the banks to which they are providing services are referred to as nostro and vostro accounts.
Domestic banks can serve their international clients and gain access to foreign financial markets by using correspondent banks, rather than setting up branches overseas.

Re: Penfed CU check by WF

NoMoreE46 — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 00:54:17 GMT

Yes thank you @Anonymous and @TrapLine .

I can see Schwab being in a Correspondant bank relationship

PenFed is a major CU 😆.

Re: Penfed CU check by WF

Matt9543 — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 19:38:56 GMT

Well to be fair, Charles Schwab does have a full bank subsidiary with an ACH routing number and FDIC insurance

Re: Penfed CU check by WF

UncleB — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 22:26:14 GMT

@Matt9543 wrote:
Well to be fair, Charles Schwab does have a full bank subsidiary with an ACH routing number and FDIC insurance

Yeah, Charles Schwab Bank is very much an actual bank. This is one reason I went with their checking account over Fidelity's CMA; in the unlikely event there's a problem I want one-stop shopping for the resolution.

There's obvious separation between the brokerage side and the banking side... that said, I admit it's always been a head-scratcher why they'd use Chase on the brokerage side for ACH clearing over their own bank, but I'm sure there's a good reason. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯