LouisB

Interesting, I have a uk £ Amex MasterCard, could that be useful in any way for US credit history etc?

Pulaski

Unless it was issed BY Amex, then it won't help you at all. ..... But you can apparently now swap a UK Amex card with as little as three months of history, so it probably isn't too late to open a UK Amex card, use it a little, then swap it for a US Amex card even if you have been in the US for a month or longer.

H Bomb

That must have changed recently. When we moved they required 12 months and we had only had an Amex for 11 months so it was a no go.

Pulaski

Yeah, it dropped from 12 months to 3 months fairly recently, probably because of the end of the exclusive agreement that Amex had with Costco - which I heard was worth as much as ALL of Amex's business in Europe! In other words, they're looking for more business wherever they can find it!

cautiousjon

I bank with Chase for checking and I find the bank very pleasant to deal with. It's very easy to talk with people in any branch, and Chase has good online banking and a fairly good mobile app.

I know people who bank with Wells Fargo and Capital One and I haven't heard any bad reviews.

Most banks in the USA will have reasonable online banking facilities and mobile apps. However, be aware that the USA doesn't have an equivalent of UK's (free) Faster Payments system, which allows you to make near-instant transfers between UK banks (with a delay of up to 2 hours). You can do expensive wire transfers in the USA (which are very rarely used by most people, if ever), and there is a system called Automatic Clearing House (ACH). ACH payments can be made between banks for free but transfers take a few days.

I think that most banks offer fast/instant transfers within the bank though (i.e. from your Chase account to another person's Chase account). Chase's version of this is called QuickPay. There is some third-party providers for sending cash to other people like Venmo and the like, but I've never used them.

Indeed, I heard the same from various people who work for Costco. I was told that Costco wanted 2% cashback for gas for its Costco Amex cardmembers and Amex said no, so Costco canceled the contract, which VISA picked up a few months later with an offer of 4%.

Pulaski

I have had money emailed to me (I know Bank of America and Wells Fargo offer this service, also by txt, I hear, I presume other banks also have the same service), and the money goes straight into my WF a/c. It is so quick that I get an email from WF telling me that the money has been received BEFORE I get the email from the person who sending me the money - the sender ONLY has my email address.

I still have no idea how the bank intercepts the email, because the sender has no idea which bank the money is going to be received at, much less any account details. I just had to register my email address against the account that I wanted the money to be received in.

loubiblu

I pay my rent via Chase QuickPay to my landlord who banks with BoA. I think it's instant between Chase accounts, but not to other banks. It shows as 'pending' for anything up to 24 hours when I send to my landlord. One disadvantage of QuickPay is the $2000 daily limit so I schedule payments over several days.

The scheduling tool on the Chase app is really easy to use.

tom169

Word of warning - with ACH choose your transfer days wisely.

For example, set a transfer going on a Friday before a holiday weekend and you may end up waiting until Wednesday the following week for the cash to appear on the other end!

cautiousjon

Indeed. Chase tells me what day the money will arrive in the recipient's account, and it's usually three to five days after I send the payment.

Bob

Another option might be to look into using a credit union. They're often better, certainly for new folks but wouldn't have as large of a branch network if that were important.

If you're coming here on a work visa, might be worth asking colleagues who they use.

Pulaski

As we're talking about banks, I think you meant "who uses them".

malch

I opened a credit union account when I first moved to the USA. It was fine.

However, my recent experience with credit unions (CU) has been horrible.

We set my daughter up with a CU account when she went off to college. It's been a PITA with rules, restrictions and fees. Perhaps some of the issues are specific to this particular CU but they tell us that many of these restrictions are imposed on all CU's by law.

Our son will have a "real" bank account when he sets off to college in another year or so.

AdobePinon

Interesting. My ACH transfers often complete same day, and hardly ever take more than next business day.

tom169

I don't think they even do checking accounts under the Barclays brand. If they do, I've never heard of them having physical presence.

LouisB

I believe that is the case. They do UK domiciled $ accounts (I have one) and some international banking but nothing physical in the US at this time. Shame really, they really are excellent.