Michael

Isn't your electronic bill pay free or at a minimum a monthly charge for all bills paid electronically with B of A?

RICH

Most payees yes, (cable/ electric) but not to transfer to another bank/ with me as payee.

edit: the free-ness of the suntrust account is based on the mortgage being paid out of it.

I could have part of my pay deposited in suntrust, but it seems so convaluted.

EricK

Yes I can set up auto pay for utility bills. However, if I want to transfer money to my wife's account (she banks at the same HSBC branch as me) I need to write her a check.

I wanted to set up a regular electronic payment to my landlord for rent payments, again he banks at the same branch of HSBC as me. I can do this online, although they end up mailing him a physical check.

If I want to pay an invoice, I can't do a one time electronic transfer - again I can do it online although that ends up in a physical check being mailed from the bank.

There is still progress that needs to be made.

Michael

But if you don't use it except to pay your mortgage, why keep it?

RICH

I don't know another way to pay the mortgage. Maybe a cheque?

Pulaski

Surely on-line on Suntrust's web site is possible, drawing from any US bank? Mrs P usually takes care of our mortgage payments to Chase and either pays on line, or uses phone banking.

Michael

Wells Fargo has bill pay to SunTrust and suspect B of A has also. That should be different than you as the payee.

You can probably also get them to debit that amount monthly from your B of A account if you didn't want to bother with bill pay. You'll probably need to physically sign an agreement with SunTrust authorizing direct debit of your B of A account.

Pulaski

Yes, there is, but most of it is now up to the banks to implement the technology, it is not "the system" that is to blame. Bank-bank, account-account transfers are possible, but it is taking time for many banks to catch up.

RICH

It may be possible to "pull" from boa to suntrust for free, but I have found it not free to "push" from boa to suntrust. I will need to investigate Suntrust online further.

AdobePinon

Agreed. I bank at a local bank with maybe a half dozen branches. Accounts are free in most ways. The online banking is free and actually useful, with token cards instead of 'golden questions'. I get about five different ways of doing electronic transfers for free, although I really only use ACH (which is usually good for next day) and very occasionally wire. I'm not even sure what the others are good for. I can do international wires for free if in US$, or for a fee in another currency. I can get that currency in cash for the exchange rate plus a flat $2.50, although I haven't done such a thing in at least a decade. They underwrite all their own mortgages and never sell them. More than 0.1% interest would be great, but that's been explained above. If you want a decent return, the bank isn't the place to put your money anyway. My only complaint is that I get charged for ATMs out of my area, but I have another account elsewhere for that, and as I mentioned, I can ACH the money over for that.

dlake02

Progress !!!! I have moaned and moaned how backwards UK banks are - electronic payments outside the UK used to be unheard of but the norm in most other EU banks. Cheques took 3-5 days to clear, and BACS transfers the same. This is Byzantine by comparison.

Thank goodness now most of us have stopped using cheques and BACS is virtually instantaneous including to the rest of the EU 24/7.

I had not been in a bank branch for over 20 years before moving here - no need given that telephone banking has been around since the mid-80s. TBH all these quasi-public services (phone, mobiles, Internet, public transport, electricity, banking, etc) seem so uncompetitive and stuck in the dark ages here....

AmerLisa

I haven't been in my branch for years either! Probably because our credit union (that I've been a member of since 1995) is down in California and we're here up in Washington. When we moved over here we effortlessly wired money to our checking account (from our Abbey's current account (although they have different name now) that charged us for the wire.) Our pay is debited to our account with no problems and I set up bill pay through our bank, again no problems. The only issue I've had over the years here is that we have one car loan through a credit union that still sends out coupon books and I still have to write a check to pay (yes I could set up a bill pay through my credit union but they would have to send off a check from California, kind of stupid!) Our insurance bill is direct debited from our account, but that's the only account that I have set up that way, I could do more, if I chose. Any check that I happen to deposit into my account (I can now take a photo, front and back, and don't have to go anywhere to deposit) is never held till it clears. I would imagine that it's because we've been with our credit union for many years...

It's been pretty effortless for us, but we aren't talking high stakes here.

Pulaski

TBH Most of us don't have huge issues with the banking system, the US has several banking options: large, medium, or small banks, or CUs, that more or less serve our needs and we have other things to occupy our time than stress about the differences between the US banking system and that in the UK or other countries.

May I politely suggest you either get over it and find something more important to worry about, or if your banking experience is so central to your quality of life that you leave the US and go somewhere else. I hear that South Korea has a particularly high tech banking system.

N1cky

I've adjusted to the banking system here, but I have one issue that I just cannot sort out.

We had a loan on a car we traded in last year, the payment was set-up to come out of our joint bank account, by me on our Internet banking. Around 4 years ago we had a fraudulent charge on our account, the bank cancelled our cards, and closed our Internet banking account, saying because it was linked to the card it had to be closed. I had to set-up the Internet banking again. As it has a different user name, it no longer shows me the payment to Ford, so no way for me to cancel it.

I've spoken to the bank several times, and they say the only way I can stop the monthly payment is by closing my account, and re-opening a new one

When I finally get around to it, I will close the account, but I will go elsewhere to open a new one. I can't believe this is the only solution, what a ridiculous situation.

GeoffM

UK Direct Debits aren't infallible either, or at least the bank staff operating them. I had someone fraudulently set up 3 DDs on my HSBC account. Got them wiped off, no problem. Got a new account number anyway. A couple of months later had 3 more set up... WTF? A "helpful" HSBC staffer had noticed that somebody tried to set up a DD on my old (closed) account and manually transferred them to the new account instead and ignored the existing dummy DDs set up by the manager which clearly stated "DO NOT SET UP NEW DDS WITHOUT CUSTOMER APPROVAL". Clearly customer approval to this staffer was (a) a different name; (b) a different signature; (c) on a closed account; (d) for three mobile phone accounts in one day. I switched to a new bank.