Do I even need a brick and mortar bank anymore?

[bae]

When we moved from the big city to Hermann, we put $100,000 in a Hermann bank* because I wanted to establish obvious roots in the Herman business community. It’s a very small town.

When I first moved here, I established an account with "Islanders Bank", a very small local-created bank with 3 branches, one on each of our major islands. My initial thinking was similar to Iris' - to get connected to the community. This bank was a very nice one, it understood local needs quite well, and reinvested local capital into the community with great impact to the economy.

It was purchased by Banner Bank a few years ago, and is no longer *quite* the same, but it's still mostly the same people working there, and still retains a lot of the local touch. I think it is a loss to the community in some fundamental way that our "local" bank is no longer quite so local.

My usual method of operating is to transfer $$$ from my Schwab accounts into the bank, and use the bank for my normal living/household expenses. In truth, I don't really need the local bank, I could just use the Schwab accounts directly. It still serves the social purposes somewhat, and it *does* provide a cutout from the banking information I give people for transactions, and my real assets.

[nswef]

We have 2 "local" banks that have been bought out. One gets our social security deposits and the other our retirement. We go to one brick and mortar frequently to cash checks and count change and get notarized things (hardly ever). We also have 2 online banks-and use them for transfer for the other banks if needed.

[Tybee]

I used to select our banks by the food they provided on Saturdays; BOA had cinnamon rolls and coffee, thus the winner.

[iris lilies]

I like having a brick and mortar bank for a reason I just saw highlighted in a news report. It was about a scammer who managed to get thousands of dollars from a man.


Apparently there is technology that “spoofs “a bank’s phone number and directs the caller to the scammer. This is shocking. Here’s what happened:


1. A man got an email from “his bank“ (really a scammer) asking “did you wire $15,000 to so-and-so? “


2. The man responding to the email said No


3. Some further communication happened between this man and the scammer posing as his bank. At some point the man, not an old senile person, but a person who is savvy about things, thought he should talk directly to his bank securely, knowing it was his bank for sure, so he called the bank.

4. He dialed the bank’s advertised phone number, the number in all of their communications.

5. The scammer had “spoofed “that phone number so that the man thought he was talking to the bank.

There were several communications that I won’t detail here, but one problem was that the man somewhere in your contact at his banks fraud department, and the fraud department told the man they could not find any record of conversations he was having with the fraud department. That caused the man to think the bank was incompetent, or their records were not accessed by the right people, or something.

Anyway – this made me think that it has some value to be able to walk to a brick and mortar facility and say look I’m having these problems.

What do y’all think about this?

[gimmethesimplelife]

I like being a member at my local credit union. They are active in our community and do a lot of outreach to our Latino community.

I took all my money out of Chase when I read they had dealings with Jeffrie (sp) Epstein.

Years ago when I worked for Multnomah County (OR) I was a member of both Multco and PACE Credit Unions - both opened my eyes towards avoiding for profit banks. They were both great CU's but I understand both have since been taken over. I think the one that took over Multco might be the CU you are referring to? Rob

[KayLR]

Years ago when I worked for Multnomah County (OR) I was a member of both Multco and PACE Credit Unions - both opened my eyes towards avoiding for profit banks. They were both great CU's but I understand both have since been taken over. I think the one that took over Multco might be the CU you are referring to? Rob

No, you may not know I've moved a bit further north, just north of Olympia. The CU I belonged to in SW WA was only within Clark County.

[Rachel]

* We chose our bank based on their building. Yes, I am that impractical. There are three banks in Herman and two of them have new ugly buildings. One of them has a cool old building And that is the building I chose.

I 100% agree and endorse, Iris Lillies! You are supporting Beauty.

[iris lilies]

Here’s another reason to have a brick and mortar bank: hobby groups. I’m the treasurer, president, or knowledgeable board member with several hobby groups and banking issues are a little complex.

There is constant drama in these hobby groups about the bank account because people die or fade away who are signatories on the account. We need a brick and mortar bank so that I can walk into their doors, sit down with a banking representative, and deal with these issues and problems. They will NOT do this stuff over the phone or in digital communications.

[SiouzQ.]

I've been questioning the same thing, Pinkytoe. I have too much money in a Money Market account from my credit union back in Michigan that I still use. It makes a little bit of interest each month (when I said LITTLE, it is something like .75%). However, I am a creature of habit, even when I could be earning quite a bit more in a Vanguard account. All of my accounts are at this same old credit union back in Michigan that I have used for something like two decades. Any deposits I need to do locally in Santa Fe is through the shared banking system at a credit union here. Then I just go online to move my money around, pay the monthly bills from one account to another, get my Social Security deposited to. It's easy-peasy and I've been doing it forever.

My brother is a retired CPA and is very good about saving and investing. I ask him questions from time to time and this latest query ended up with him looking into all my accounts, my IRA, my annuity account, basically EVERYTHING. He found that I could be making so much more with money with my money than I have been. For years I have been using a financial advisor at the Michigan credit union (I think since around 2010 during my guitar shop years - one day when I was deposting my paycheck I noticed a sign they had there for a financial advisor. I ended up using him back then to pull all these random old 401k's from past jobs together into an IRA and have had a very good relationship over the years as he helped me navigate being a single parent with a low income. I have come to rely on him doing all the stuff that I don't really understand but my brother found that his investment strategies pale comparitively to what I could have been making if I switched over to some Vanguard accounts. Plus his fees are quite high, which I decided I could live with over the years since I would have had NO IDEA what to do with my money

So soon I will be in the process of opening a Vanguard account and moving some of that extra money over. Then I think I need to get a different credit card than the one I've been using from the credit union, basically to pay my monthly bills with and transfer money between accounts. After that I suppose my brother will suggest that I move my IRA and annuity over as well but all of this is overwhelming to me so I think I need to start with small steps. Another thing to think about down the line is that I will inherit a significant amount of money when my Mom passes. I don't think it will be any time soon as she is a healthy 94 year old but you never know.

Is it weird that I will feel bad for breaking up with my financial advisor down the line? I've always really trusted him and he is very responsive to my questions and has helped me through many financial trials and tribulations over the years. But when my brother shows me in charts and graphs how much more my money would earn if I invested in mutual funds...

[iris lilies]

No SQ, it isn’t weird to feel bad about discontinuing a business relationship with someone. We waited until our Edward Jones guy moved to a different brokerage house to move money to our local Edward Jones office.

do you know anything about if they charge exit fees? I just know I was shocked about one of the investments I’ve had for a few decades when I wanted to move that amount to Vanguard.ugh.