Work and money? Technology? Religion and Philosophy?
May 12, 2010 6:06 PM   Subscribe

Is there a bank or credit union with branches/ATMs in Cleveland, OH that meets the following criteria?
  • Has all the expected features of online banking: see your balance, pay your bills, transfer, etc. Super great online banking, with features/interface similar to Quicken Online or Mint.com would be a big big plus.
  • Allows its customers to use either Quicken Online or Mint.com -- or another free online service -- to track their spending?
  • Since I freelance and am paid by paper check, it would be nice if they didn't sit on checks forever for no reason.


My fall-back is USAA, which is a pretty good one, but I want to make sure I know what my local options are as well.

This is a followup to a previous question about getting Mint or Quicken Online to work with KeyBank's online banking; no one had an answer, although eventually Key told me that if I downloaded desktop Quicken from them for free, I could use it to then download my bank statements blah blah blah for a small price according to a complex fee schedule which was difficult to find. I have resisted this temptation so far.
posted by chesty_a_arthur to Work & Money (5 answers total)
 
A note on your third point:

Be careful careful careful if a bank seems to clear checks quickly. Trust me, you DON'T want that. I got burned a few years ago when my bank (US Bank) showed the money from a client's check in my account, but a few days later, they said the client's check bounced.
posted by 2oh1 at 6:33 PM on May 12, 2010


I've had really good luck with FirstMerit. I've been with them on and off (off when I didn't live in the area, and for a brief, ill-fated fling with National City) since the mid-90s, and they've been nothing but fantastic for me.

They have all the basic features of online banking: see your balance, pay your bills, transfer money, access multiple accounts, that sort of stuff. It's not super great, but it's functional and easy to use.

I use mint.com with my account and have no problem with it. I haven't tried Quicken, but I assume that it'd be the same.

They don't sit on checks too long--it seems that their standard is 3-5 days, which isn't bad at all.

Nice things about FirstMerit: They don't charge ATM fees, so if I go to National City and use their ATM, I don't get charged by FirstMerit for it. FirstMerit ATMs are pretty common, and there are ton of fee-free (MoneyPass and Allpoint) ATMs around--between the three, I don't remember the last time I had to pay to get money, regardless of where I was.

You get one refunded bounced-check fee a year--just call and ask that they refund you for it, and they do. These accumulate--I think that I have three or four of them now, which is awesome because it means that if something goes wrong, I'm not going to be out $100 or whatever in bounced-check fees.

Their debit cards have rewards attached--5c each time you use the card as a credit card (without entering the PIN). It's sent to you on the anniversary of the account's opening on a Visa giftcard. Last year, we got, I think, about $140 back.

I've used branches in three counties (Lorain, Cuyahoga, Summit) on a regular basis, and with one exception (a branch in downtown Akron) I've had good service and no trouble. I've disputed charges, had my card stolen, and been double-charged (on the merchant's end), and it's always been fixed, no questions asked and next to no effort on my part.

I've also banked with Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and National City, and my experiences have ranged from mediocre to awful. I realize that this sounds like a shill, but I'm not affiliated with FirstMerit, just happy to have found a bank that I feel okay recommending to other people.
posted by MeghanC at 7:10 PM on May 12, 2010


I, too, have had good experiences with FirstMerit, so good that I stick with 'em despite not living in NEO anymore.
posted by box at 8:38 PM on May 12, 2010


Best answer: Don't know about 3), but 1) and 2) are going to be met by just about any major bank--not working properly with Mint is definitely the exception rather than the rule. That said, Bank of America is the only major bank I know of with a Mint-like feature built into its online banking site, and they don't seem to have any branches in Cleveland, so you probably won't find that. Chase seems to be one of your better bets for online banking in the Cleveland area (I think they have branches there). National City's online banking is fine and will probably get much better once PNC gets around to switching bank accounts over to their system.
posted by phoenixy at 9:45 PM on May 12, 2010


Best answer: I think PNC sounds like what you're looking for. It should have a ton of ATMs since it bought National City. I like its online banking enough that I keep my main bank account with them even though there are no ATMs near me. I just checked with my brother about mint.com and it works.
posted by oreofuchi at 12:48 AM on May 13, 2010


« Older What makes someone a good dancer?   |   Host-to-host megatransfer Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.