Which bank to open an account?

**Good2cu** · September 27th, 2009, 03:13 PM

Seems like it's happening - I'm supposed to move at the start of november, for a two year gig.

One of the first things I'd like to do is open a bank account. Is there any particular bank you'd recommend?

One thing I'd value a lot is online technology. In the uk you can do virtually everything at the click of a mouse, but I understand that may not be the case with the American banks.

**Alonzo-ny** · September 27th, 2009, 03:54 PM

Chase are pretty good.

**User Name** · September 27th, 2009, 09:21 PM

Bank of America is good as well.

**Stroika** · September 27th, 2009, 09:53 PM

Online technology is good at Bank of America.

I think the biggest retail banking-related annoyance for someone coming from the UK to the US is less likely to be online services and more likely to be ATM fees. For obnoxious reasons I fail to understand, if you try to withdraw money from an ATM not controlled by your bank, you usually pay a fee of $1.50 to $3. It's chump change, perhaps, but if you withdraw cash every 3 days from an ATM other than your own bank's, that means you end up paying $180-$360 over the course of a year in bank fees. Not cool.

**lofter1** · September 27th, 2009, 11:16 PM

Not only does the bank you withdraw from (if you don't have an account there) charge you a fee, lately Citibank has been adding charges when a CB account holder withdraws from a non-CB ATM.