Seattle: Need a new credit union or bank!

October 25, 2007 12:56 PM

Seattle: Please recommend a great bank or hopefully credit union

Hello All,

We just moved to just south of Seattle. Will likely be moving much closer if not into Seattle proper or north Seattle in the next few months.

I am looking for a great bank or ideally full service credit union. I have a couple needs:
1. Personal checking
2. Business checking and saving
3. Have to have EXCELLENT customer service. ie. I want to be able to email and or call managerial level people at the bank directly once in a great while. Do not want to deal with a central answering service in India. CANNOT deal with large monolithic "you are a number" impersonal banks.
4. Excellent online banking services with easy transfers between accounts. Online bill pay is a nice feature but not essential.
5. We will likely be looking at buying a home and car within the next year or two; would like to have a place that can handle all this for us.

I'm more partial to credit unions if possible.

Thanks!

posted by Bob Dobbs to work & money (9 comments total)

Check out BECU https://www.becu.org/
posted by crustix at 1:14 PM on October 25, 2007

BECU. All WA residents are eligible. I do my Bill Pay and Auto Loan thru them, they're great. I can also recommend First Tech.
posted by rdhatt at 1:15 PM on October 25, 2007

No experience with other Seattle CUs, but I've been with BECU since back before they opened up the eligibility requirements.

No complaints whatsoever, and their rates are quite nice compared to various banks my friends have had the (un)fortune of dealing with.
posted by whycurious at 1:38 PM on October 25, 2007

I am in love with Spokane Teacher's Credit Union and continue to use them despite the fact that I moved to the east coast several years ago. I have a money market, savings and checking account with them. Their customer service is flawless. You can get them via phone (real person, with a name, in Spokane), email or IM. While I like to think I'm also an awesome customer, occasionally I make stupid mistakes and they graciously fix them. They have online billpay that is free and easy to use. I get NO SPAM from them, ever. They have online classifieds and some other stuff that is helpful for local folks. I can transfer between accounts totally simply, click click click. I haven't gotten a car loan or mortgage with them so I don't know about that but click around their website for a while and see what you think.
posted by jessamyn at 1:52 PM on October 25, 2007

If you are looking more towards Tacoma and South Sound, I recommend Harborstone CU. Wonderful customer service. We've been using credit unions for almost 20 years and would never go back to a big bank.
posted by monopas at 2:27 PM on October 25, 2007

If you or your spouse(?) works in the tech industry I think you can get an account at First Tech Credit Union, hands down the best bank I've ever worked with ever. I don't live anywhere near Seattle anymore and I've kept my account because they are so great.
posted by ch1x0r at 5:01 PM on October 25, 2007

i'm another happy first tech customer.
posted by rmd1023 at 6:46 PM on October 25, 2007

If you're a state employee of any sort, you can join WSECU. Otherwise, your best deal is BECU.

As for the banks... they're all pretty bad.
posted by dw at 9:06 PM on October 26, 2007

Credit Union: BECU is very customer oriented and they have locations in grocery stores but it does not have the best rates, that would be School Employees Credit Union on Eastlake.

Bank: Depending on where you live in North Seattle I would, from personal experience, recommend Homestreet Bank for having the best customer service.
posted by ptm at 3:45 AM on October 27, 2007