Are you ready for Amazon checking?

[mptfan]

Amazon is in talks to create a checking account like product with banks such as JP Morgan Chase in an attempt to create a product to attract younger consumers, mainly those without bank accounts.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amaz ... SKBN1GH205

[Alexa9]

If they run it like Ally: simple with competitive rates, I'd go for it.

[jebmke]

My bank works fine. Until there is a national standard to eliminate checks there isn't any reason to switch from what I have today.

[Independent George]

The article is light on details - I have no idea what features this would have to differentiate it from any other account.

[bh7785]

My bank works fine. Until there is a national standard to eliminate checks there isn't any reason to switch from what I have today.

How about an interest-bearing checking account? One that pays more than 0.0001%

[jebmke]

My bank works fine. Until there is a national standard to eliminate checks there isn't any reason to switch from what I have today.

How about an interest-bearing checking account? One that pays more than 0.0001%

I keep a near-zero balance in my checking account.

Most of my expenses hit a credit card or are direct debit transactions. I have the credit card cycles set up so that most of the cash requirements are concentrated at the beginning of the month along with the DDs. By the last week of the month, I pretty much know what my cash needs are for the next month and I pull that from VG using ACH.

At some points I have kept some funds in an online savings account. I can move those to checking in 24 hours or less.

[SuperGrafx]

Nothing against Amazon, but I'm happy with my current banking and brokerage setup.

[THY4373]

I'd be all over it if I can fund it from my Credit Cards .

[Random Poster]

I wonder if the account will always offer an interest rate equal to the Prime rate....

[RRAAYY3]

Amazon will pretty much own/run everything at some point

[2b2]

Of course they will.
That's why the arrow in their logo runs from A to Z.

2b2

[wrongfunds]

If only now Buffet will provide the money for the checking account, we might understand what the Trio could have in the mind. HealthCard?

[Broken Man 1999]

My bank works fine. Until there is a national standard to eliminate checks there isn't any reason to switch from what I have today.

How about an interest-bearing checking account? One that pays more than 0.0001%

I keep a near-zero balance in my checking account.

Most of my expenses hit a credit card or are direct debit transactions. I have the credit card cycles set up so that most of the cash requirements are concentrated at the beginning of the month along with the DDs. By the last week of the month, I pretty much know what my cash needs are for the next month and I pull that from VG using ACH.

At some points I have kept some funds in an online savings account. I can move those to checking in 24 hours or less.

Same here. Actual physical checks are down to a handful per year. Checking account at credit union has offered bill pay free for years. I joined CU in August of 1973, 30 days after I joined MegaCorp. The credit union once was once open only to MegaCorp employees, so I had a 30 day probationary period before I was an "official" MegaCorp employee.

I try not to mix banking and investments. Any banking is done at the CU, any investing is done at Vanguard.

So, honestly I don't have much interest in Amazon's new area of opportunity. Amazon would have to have a real incentive to attract my banking business. Perhaps they will roll out a great product. We shall see.

Broken Man 1999

[MnD]

Both my kids have Schwab checking - free everything including photo check deposit, reimbursement of all ATM fees and it pays some interest.
One asked me why anyone would not have a Schwab checking account - they said all their friends checking accounts were much inferior deals.
But if Amazon has a better deal they might switch. They see zero need for a physical bank or CU.

We are going to dump our brick and mortar bank within the next few weeks. It was "as good" as Schwab when we were at platinum level but now that cash pays some interest in select bank and in brokerage money markets, its a cost to keep enough cash to keep that level.

Our grocery store (economically mixed area) always has a huge line at customer service.
An employee told me its mostly people cashing checks that don't have a bank account.
I don't see that crowd signing up for banking at Amazon.com.

[nisiprius]

...How about an interest-bearing checking account? One that pays more than 0.0001%...

To an old-timer that sounds strange.

In The Beginning it was illegal to pay interest on checking accounts.

And then a bunch of banks in New England came up with something sneaky called "negotiable orders of withdrawal" (hence "NOW accounts"), which included slips of paper which looked like checks, felt like checks, had MICR numerals on them like checks, but weren't legally checks. And paid real interest, just a hair less than savings accounts.

A Consumer Reports article said "Critics charge that NOW accounts are just interest-bearing checking in disguise. We like NOW accounts because we think the critics' accusations are essentially true."

And then they wiped out a bunch of regulations and actual interest-bearing checking became legal.

And then the interest rate dropped to about the stated cash value of a supermarket coupon.

[Toons]

Count Me "In"

[snowman]

Both my kids have Schwab checking - free everything including photo check deposit, reimbursement of all ATM fees and it pays some interest.
One asked me why anyone would not have a Schwab checking account - they said all their friends checking accounts were much inferior deals.
But if Amazon has a better deal they might switch. They see zero need for a physical bank or CU.

Not to steal the thread, but I recommended Schwab to my son as well based on rave reviews here and elsewhere over the years. I have been with ING Direct (now CapitalOne) and Fidelity for years, so I have no direct experience with Schwab and really no need for it.

The one thing he told me that I did not expect is that transfers into Schwab take 4-5 business days, instead of the usual 2 that I am used to. He called CS and was told that's their policy, and as an example said if you initiate transfer on Monday, it will be available next Monday. How do people put up with it in this day and age? Do your kids have the same experience?

[alfaspider]

My bank works fine. Until there is a national standard to eliminate checks there isn't any reason to switch from what I have today.

How about an interest-bearing checking account? One that pays more than 0.0001%

I keep a near-zero balance in my checking account.

Most of my expenses hit a credit card or are direct debit transactions. I have the credit card cycles set up so that most of the cash requirements are concentrated at the beginning of the month along with the DDs. By the last week of the month, I pretty much know what my cash needs are for the next month and I pull that from VG using ACH.

At some points I have kept some funds in an online savings account. I can move those to checking in 24 hours or less.

It would be nice if someone offered a no-frills account that paid interest like Ally but allowed a small number of paper checks and allowed regular ACH withdrawals for bill pay. That would eliminate the need of having to manage separate checking and savings balances.

[marklar13]

My bank works fine. Until there is a national standard to eliminate checks there isn't any reason to switch from what I have today.

How about an interest-bearing checking account? One that pays more than 0.0001%

I keep a near-zero balance in my checking account.

Most of my expenses hit a credit card or are direct debit transactions. I have the credit card cycles set up so that most of the cash requirements are concentrated at the beginning of the month along with the DDs. By the last week of the month, I pretty much know what my cash needs are for the next month and I pull that from VG using ACH.

At some points I have kept some funds in an online savings account. I can move those to checking in 24 hours or less.

It would be nice if someone offered a no-frills account that paid interest like Ally but allowed a small number of paper checks and allowed regular ACH withdrawals for bill pay. That would eliminate the need of having to manage separate checking and savings balances.

FYI Capital One 360 is pretty close to what you are asking for (and I'm guessing others might have similar features).

• Transfers between MM and checking are instant
• You can set up auto-overdraft protection so if you overdraw your checking it pulls from MM

This basically seems to be what you are asking for, since you can keep your cash in MM and (pretty much) treat it as available for checking purposes. Only downside is that the overdraft protection in that case counts as 1 of your 6 allowed monthly withdrawals, so you probably need to keep a reasonable floor in the checking account... which will cost you a (probably) very small amount of interest.

I don't really keep a lot of cash on hand anyway, but find that this setup is easily manageable for what I do keep in the bank.

[MnD]

Both my kids have Schwab checking - free everything including photo check deposit, reimbursement of all ATM fees and it pays some interest.
One asked me why anyone would not have a Schwab checking account - they said all their friends checking accounts were much inferior deals.
But if Amazon has a better deal they might switch. They see zero need for a physical bank or CU.

The one thing he told me that I did not expect is that transfers into Schwab take 4-5 business days, instead of the usual 2 that I am used to. He called CS and was told that's their policy, and as an example said if you initiate transfer on Monday, it will be available next Monday. How do people put up with it in this day and age? Do your kids have the same experience?

They haven't mentioned anything about excessive delays. They aren't transferring funds in from another linked bank account though.

[dollar_elbow]

Schwab banking in principle is very good (I have an account), but in practice it has slow processing times for deposits, and real-time banking alerts are non-existent (two critical features of a checking account in my opinion). If you want to know what your balance is or are worried about fraud, you must manually log into the app or website to see any transactions; you will never be alerted about deposits or withdrawals. The only way to get debit card alerts is to enroll the debit card in Visa Alerts separately, which is imperfect since every transaction is treated as a purchase, so if you withdraw $20 from an ATM, the Visa Alert will look like you spent $20. Schwab does not even advertise that their cards work with Visa Alerts. I call that extremely an poor design. The two factor authentication is cumbersome and requires entering a token each time you login and disables touch id on smartphones; it's good that they offer it, but is poorly implemented.

I've never really understood why Schwab banking gets such stellar reviews here. Yes, it has some good features, such as the free ATM use, but few people on this board criticize its shortcomings. I would add that Fidelity's cash management account has similar issues so it seems to be a general problem with Brokerages who offer checking-like accounts as an afterthought.

Both my kids have Schwab checking - free everything including photo check deposit, reimbursement of all ATM fees and it pays some interest.
One asked me why anyone would not have a Schwab checking account - they said all their friends checking accounts were much inferior deals.
But if Amazon has a better deal they might switch. They see zero need for a physical bank or CU.

Not to steal the thread, but I recommended Schwab to my son as well based on rave reviews here and elsewhere over the years. I have been with ING Direct (now CapitalOne) and Fidelity for years, so I have no direct experience with Schwab and really no need for it.

The one thing he told me that I did not expect is that transfers into Schwab take 4-5 business days, instead of the usual 2 that I am used to. He called CS and was told that's their policy, and as an example said if you initiate transfer on Monday, it will be available next Monday. How do people put up with it in this day and age? Do your kids have the same experience?

[snowman]

Schwab banking in principle is very good (I have an account), but in practice it has slow processing times for deposits, and banking alerts are non-existent (two critical features of a checking account in my opinion). If you want to know what your balance is or our worried about fraud, you must manually log into the app or website to see any transactions. The only way to get debit card alerts is to enroll the debit card in Visa Alerts separately. I call that extremely poor design. The two factor authentication is cumbersome and requires entering a token each time you login; it's good that they offer it, but is poorly implemented.

I've never really understood why Schwab banking gets such stellar reviews here. Yes, it has many good features, but few people on this board criticize its shortcomings.

Thanks, it all makes sense now!

[snowman]

They haven't mentioned anything about excessive delays. They aren't transferring funds in from another linked bank account though.

Thanks for replying. I told my son to also open online savings account, so that's where his deposits are coming from.

[Cycle]

Yes, but will need to pay more interest than BCU credit union for me to switch 2%

[VictoriaF]

My preference it NOT to get new financial accounts, except occasional credit cards for sign-on bonuses. However, the Amazon partnership with Chase may be valuable if it provides a fast track to URs.

Victoria

[Beach]

Hopefully they have a huge signup bonus that I can use to my advantage, then promptly cancel the account because I am totally happy where I am.

[pasadena]

The article is light on details - I have no idea what features this would have to differentiate it from any other account.

The monitoring of your accounts and transaction so they can make more amazing personalized offers to you.

[gasdoc]

I've enjoyed Amazon's services so far. I think they would do a good job with an online checking. I'll bet it would work seamlessly with making Amazon purchases.

gasdoc

[purpleKatz]

I wonder if they plan to give interest as a form of Amazon credit. It would be a good way to generate Amazon sales from those without credit cards. They could also afford to be more generous with the "interest".

[Independent George]

I've never really understood why Schwab banking gets such stellar reviews here. Yes, it has some good features, such as the free ATM use, but few people on this board criticize its shortcomings. I would add that Fidelity's cash management account has similar issues so it seems to be a general problem with Brokerages who offer checking-like accounts as an afterthought.

For me, it would be because those shortcomings really don't matter to me. I already monitor my account weekly (at minimum), so alerts for every transaction would be more irritating than useful. And I haven't even noticed any slow deposit times; every check I've ever posted has cleared within a day, and my paycheck clears immediately.

[flamesabers]

It's an interesting idea, but unless Amazon offers a substantial reward or incentive to open a checking account with them, I'll pass if this idea ever comes to fruition. The idea of banking with Amazon is no more appealing to me then banking with Walmart or a local grocery store.

I wonder if they plan to give interest as a form of Amazon credit. It would be a good way to generate Amazon sales from those without credit cards. They could also afford to be more generous with the "interest".

Would such "interest" be taxable though?

[Nate79]

Feels a little bit like the fox guarding the hen house. I don't want Amazon near my checking account when I'm also spending a lot of money with them as a retailer. I'm perfectly fine with my Schwab checking and brokerage service.

[Halicar]

It seems to me that checking accounts are pretty much a commodity at this point. I don't really know what makes one better than another.

[Doom&Gloom]

I am ready for it to be offered. Competition is almost always a good thing. And it would not be compulsory for anybody to use.

As to whether I am ready to use it: it depends.

[Taco Knight]

I wonder if the account will always offer an interest rate equal to the Prime rate....

Just to let you know at least one reader appreciated this...

[miamivice]

Amazon is clearly on a monopoly path. I'll bet within 5 years they get investigated as a monopoly and either they dramatically change practices or they get split up.

They are involved in too much of our life, from video doorbells to retail sales to grocery stores to banking to video rentals to web storage space.

[SmileyFace]

Amazon is clearly on a monopoly path. I'll bet within 5 years they get investigated as a monopoly and either they dramatically change practices or they get split up.

They are involved in too much of our life, from video doorbells to retail sales to grocery stores to banking to video rentals to web storage space.

They are investing in many areas but aren't even close to a monopoly in any area I am aware of - Azure competes with AWS, walmart.com competes with amazon.com, etc. No monopoly - major competitors in every market they are in.

[mptfan]

It seems to me that checking accounts are pretty much a commodity at this point. I don't really know what makes one better than another.

Umm, let's see...ease of use of website interface, quality of customer service, the hours of availability of customer service, the speed of processing ACH transactions, the ability to make mobile deposits, the ubiquity and availability of free ATMs inside the U.S. and internationally (or reimbursement of ATM fees both domestic and international), the amount of the cash withdrawal or cash advance limits, the amount of any fees (e.g. minimum balance fees), the availability of 2 factor authentication or other security features like transaction alerts. These are just some of the factors that differentiate one checking account from another.

Oh, and the availability of an "ATM only" card that can only be used to withdraw cash from ATMs or banks, and cannot be used for purchases as a debit card and does not link the checking account to the Visa network for purchases. Or, if that is not available, the ability to set the point of sale or purchase transaction limit of the Visa/debit card at $.01 so that the card cannot be used for debit purchases and effectively becomes an ATM only card. I am not interested in a checking account that does not provide one of these options.

[FraggleRock]

Hopefully they have a huge signup bonus that I can use to my advantage, then promptly cancel the account because I am totally happy where I am.

I like the cut of your jib.
For me: Fidelity + CU (#15 in size, member since 1967). Why would I change?

[annielouise]

Isn't the idea to create checking accounts for the unbanked? The unbanked are used to paying large fees (stand alone debit cards, check cashing, etc), so I wouldn't be looking for a product that rivals existing online banks.

[dollar_elbow]

I've never really understood why Schwab banking gets such stellar reviews here. Yes, it has some good features, such as the free ATM use, but few people on this board criticize its shortcomings. I would add that Fidelity's cash management account has similar issues so it seems to be a general problem with Brokerages who offer checking-like accounts as an afterthought.

For me, it would be because those shortcomings really don't matter to me. I already monitor my account weekly (at minimum), so alerts for every transaction would be more irritating than useful. And I haven't even noticed any slow deposit times; every check I've ever posted has cleared within a day, and my paycheck clears immediately.

I like to know immediately when money moves in and out of my accounts so I consider it unacceptable that Schwab cannot offer even rudimentary banking alert features. Every other major bank seems to, so why can't they? For me, I value a well designed user interface for banking over stellar customer support. I've always been on quite long holds the few times I've called Schwab support so I wouldn't really rate their support that highly either.

[smectym]

I've never really understood why Schwab banking gets such stellar reviews here. Yes, it has some good features, such as the free ATM use, but few people on this board criticize its shortcomings. I would add that Fidelity's cash management account has similar issues so it seems to be a general problem with Brokerages who offer checking-like accounts as an afterthought.

For me, it would be because those shortcomings really don't matter to me. I already monitor my account weekly (at minimum), so alerts for every transaction would be more irritating than useful. And I haven't even noticed any slow deposit times; every check I've ever posted has cleared within a day, and my paycheck clears immediately.

Totally agree with George, we just deposited a fair-sized check with Schwab and it was good funds immediately. Their algorithm for making such calls might depend on a number of inputs.

[AlohaJoe]

The one thing he told me that I did not expect is that transfers into Schwab take 4-5 business days, instead of the usual 2 that I am used to.

This only applies to the first transfer from an external account. This is pretty common nowadays -- everywhere I've set up an account in the last 2-3 years does the same thing. It gives the bank a chance to reverse the ACH if someone decides it was fraud and complains. Schwab says this clearly in both their online documentation and in the email when you first set up an external account. (I just did this a few days ago, which is why it is fresh in my memory.)

After the first transfer it only takes 1-2 days.