One of my readers asked me to look at the W
ikipedia section on banking and see what I could do. There is too much to fix so I decided to do occasional pieces here on banking. My perspective is as consumer who knows how the system works.
First choose a bank that has branches or ATMs where you travel, commute or a bank that subsidizes your ATM transactions. Roughly 95% of your transactions will be with ATMs or online. If you travel internationally, open a Citibank account so you get local cash in most parts of the world. Getting an online payment system is necessary especially if it is free. Otherwise an online banking service is worth a few dollars a month. I write only three checks a month these days the rest of my payments are online.
Next figure out how to get overdraft protection on your account. A savings account is the best choice for overdraft protection. Overdrafts are one of the main sources of revenue for banks these days. The overdraft fees are high.
Worse than the high fees for overdrafts is the Bank Overdraft Hell. If you get three overdrafts in a short period and don't pay the fees within three months you join five million Americans on the no-bank-account list. The list will ban you from opening a bank account for five years. No appeal exists.
Enough banking for today.