DISQUS

elroy · 1 year ago

I like my USAA Billpay. It works for me. Recurring payments, e-bills, etc.

BryanThatcher · 1 year ago

Citibanks not bad, they just recently refreshed the interface. Bill pay is good and the reporting ok. One pet peve is that you have to wait a day to retrieve statements older that 3 months. My Merrill Lynch account is instant, but the bill pay kinda sucks, and the rest of the interface to the banking is like so 1999

Mike Jamison · 1 year ago

I love Washington Mutual. Everything is free. Easy to edit a payment on a drop-down menu.

Aeontech · 1 year ago

Citibank interface is decent, but over the last few months we've had several occasions where their online balances are behind reality by 3 or more days, which is extremely inconvenient when you are trying to schedule a payment or write a check and need to know if you have enough money.

jtyost2 · 1 year ago

I use ING Direct and couldn't be happier. The web interface is nice, free bill pay, high interest on savings and checking accounts, free first class postal mail of checks, and they are really fast at processing transactions. I've enjoyed their customer service the few times I have had to call them.

dave · 1 year ago

I think your last item is the most important.

I don't have to enjoy their service, I just want it to be simple, dial the number, ask the question, get it answered, get off the phone.

I've found, for example, that my credit card company is very easy to deal with this way. I just look on the back of the card for the 800 number, call it, identify myself and then just do the business.

Some companies are easy that way, others like BofA are a nightmare. (Sometimes I think it's a function of how many mergers they've done.)

Adrian Bye · 1 year ago

I am also extremely happy with ING Direct, also for all the reasons listed above. Two thumbs down for HSBC.

Justin · 1 year ago

I'm with ING direct and I love it. Customer service is the best of any bank and the strangest thing is... I've never had to deal with customer service. I was fed up with my local bank and switched about two years ago... best decision I ever made. 5 stars for ING direct.

justcorbly · 1 year ago

A bit offtopic, but BofA has this thing where they sometimes want to know the state in which you opened the account. Dunno why, but it is the kind of thing people are likely to forget. I've tried to "transfer" it to my state of current residence. No can do. Odd.

radix42 · 1 year ago

That's because in the days before a bank could operate in more than one state, BofA was actually multiple banks, chartered and incorporated separately in each state with a common parent corp owning them.

Brian McCaffrey · 1 year ago

usaa.com. You have to be eligible to join, but their site and UI are outstanding. They have no branches and therefore can dedicate all their efforts to the site.

vitorcon · 1 year ago

Dave, I know that I won't help you but just for information the brazilian banks all have great web interfaces. our banking system is very high-tech. They had to invest heavily in technology on the 80s to cope with the high inflation and all the monetary changes (we had 6 diferent currencies in my lifetime - 34 years old).

And when we finaly tamed inflation the banks had to cut costs and relied heavily on ATMs and Internet Banking for that.

greetings,
Vitor.

Bryan "bytehead" Price · 1 year ago

My bank used to have the weirdest UI for the bill pay. I would click on the link which would bring me up to a page that I would have to click on a different link to actually go to the bill payer. While I was in South Africa in July (I'm almost done uploading pictures, next is editing and uploading the video), they upgraded, and now it's only one click away. But the formatting is borked for Firefox (2.x and 3.x, I've tried both, and I haven't tried IE to see if it's any better...), and maneuvering around isn't real intuitive when you're entering an item to pay. It looks like you could enter a bunch of items at once, but it really only excepts one at a time. This is VyStar Credit Union, which if you still lived in Florida, would still be pretty useless to you. :-P

At least changing a recurring payment is pretty obvious and easy on their (old) system.

Todd Mitchell · 1 year ago

Dave,

I just spent the better part of 12 months bouncing around attempting to locate a decent bank with amazing self service tools. I would much rather do something myself in 20 seconds than have to wait on hold and give blood to identify myself.

My trial and error of banks included:

Wells Fargo
Wachovia
HSBC
Chase
Bank of America
Washington Mutual

I've been in technology for some time and the best selling feature of a bank is a full featured web interface. After spending a month or two with all of the various banks, I ended up staying with Chase. Not only is the interface extremely functional and logical, but it works every time, unlike most of the other banks. Chase will also let you know well in advance of any scheduled maintenance.

On a side note, when having to go into the bank or get them on the phone, they've always been quick and very helpful. I have their Premier Platinum Checking. I think it gets me to the front of the line when I call in. But all account types have the same web interface.

I'd recommend giving them a shot. They've worked very well for me over the last 4 months.

Todd

justcorbly · 1 year ago

I've got a couple of Chase cards and one account and will second that. Still, I use BofA's site almost dailiy without annoynce.

justcorbly · 1 year ago

I use BofA to pay almost all my bills. Never ran into that particular problem, though. Did you try cancelling the existing payment and creating a new one?

A year or so ago, I typoed a bill payment amount -- keying a comma rather than a period -- which resulted in a payment an order of a magnitude greater than intended. BofA's customer service was very helpful in fixing things. I suggested that their web interface should include an "Are You Sure?" mode to prevent such things. Happily, now I'm given a chance to edit my payment before finalizing it.

I have, however, found that BofA publicizes too many phone numbers: The number on your credit card, the number(s) on the site, the number on your statement. The last time I went overseas -- last autumn -- I called to tell them I was going to be using their card in Europe, lest they disallow the transactions. It took a bit of bouncing around to find the right people.

However, BofA does offer a "mail" service at their site that accepts queries from customers. I've found that to be reliable way of getting a good, documented, answer, if you can wait a day or so.

Tim · 1 year ago

yep, National Austrralia Bank, but probably of little use to you Dave :)

Tim · 1 year ago

For interest sake (no pun intended) here's what I would have to do to accomplish the same thing with my bank:

1. Sign-in
2. click "funds transfer list" from main menu dropdown
3. on next page select account from dropdown list of accounts
4. list of past and future transfers from selected account appears. I scroll to desired upcoming recurring transaction and click the "Modify" link next to it.
5. the details are displayed. I edit the amount and click "Next" button
6. the new details are displayed for confirmation and I click "Submit" button

Job done. 5 clicks.

Scott · 1 year ago

I agree that BoFA's online experience is horrible. I also use Citibank and find it better but not great. I have also used WAMU before (wife's accounts). also OK. For my money (literally) Wells Fargo has the best performance and overall best online banking. Citibank has at least one great feature though - inter-institution transfers - that Wells does not.

Also, Wells has the best integration with Quicken, which is essential for me.

Dg · 1 year ago

DCU, Digital Federal Credit Union