The biggest rip-off in American banking is that narrow banking is effectively illegal (not the banks' fault), but HYSAs are starting to get around that.
An important qualifier! I get the impression that probably 95% of consumer deposits in the US either earn zero interest or some comically low rate like 0.00121% that all of the big banks offer on their savings, Interest Checking, and even "money market" accounts. And they also exploit people with monthly fees that can only be waived with minimum balances or by jumping through hoops like debit card usage. And "using other ATM" fees from 2 banks at once usually.
But apparently it could be worse with transaction fees and negative interest!
I feel like the few in the US who are savvy about personal finance have found the banks/CUs (i won't list them to avoid sounding promotional) that don't do any of the above. It doesn't say in the article where they are seeing these outflows actually go. I wonder if Europe also has good banking options that not everyone is aware of.
Sure, and those worst banks have massive market share[1]. I'm sure maybe 50-60% of the people with these accounts actually manage to correctly avoid the fees by minimum balances or direct deposits or the "use your debit card 10 times a month" policies. But like, Chase, BofA, Wells Fargo, Citibank... combined, their market share is massive. Chase, BofA and Citi are $12, Wells is $10. All require you to do certain things each month to waive the fee -- which seems easy to me with a steady job and savings, but a lot of people don't have that.
[1] https://wallethub.com/edu/sa/bank-market-share-by-deposits/2...
Coincidentally, just two days ago I commented on the distinction to someone suggesting this kind of service: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35790913
The Fed, for various reasons, implicitly disallow this type of narrow bank. Several people have tried but the Fed always denied their application to join the system.
It’s in general very hard to open a bank account in some EU countries even though you’re a lawful resident. There’re some “money laundering laws” that prevent no money laundering.
And the quality and quantity of additional services the banks offer sucks. I actually like banking super-apps in other countries, something you won’t find here.
Are you a US citizen? American laws make US citizens costly to have as customers.
Roughly speaking Congress was worried about Americans hiding money abroad to avoid taxes so they passed extremely punitive laws. This ended up being mostly pointless because the real tax evasion is done by people who pay lawyers and lovbyists to make sure it's all legal.
If a foreign financial institution has a US depositor they have to fill out a ton of IRS paperwork. If they mess it up the IRS can impose an extra 30% tax on all the institution's US income.
The bank I expect will kick me out doesn’t want non-EU citizens who are not EU residents. The bank that did, I think it was because of my citizenship (I was a German permanent resident at the time) but I’ll never really know as they didn’t give a reason, just 60 days notice.
Banks will deal with you, but not all banks, and some banking products (like brokerage accounts) are off limits.
Give them a hard time about it.
"If you are legally resident in an EU country you are entitled to open a basic payment account".
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr...
Doesn't seem ideal while simultaneously repeatedly begging the same rare US nationals with Swedish residence permits to move to work their mainframes, but who am I to judge.
In the UK Monzo and Revoult have quick access free bank accounts. I don't pay anything to have debit cards and saving accounts.
1 account in Germany, I pay 2€ per month for the account, includes a saving account, but no debit or credit card, only online access.
2 accounts in Poland where I also don't pay anything, unless I don't spent 300-350PLN (65e) per month using the debit cards. If I don't use debit card enough banks subtract 14PLN (3€). My saving accounts in PLN are 7%, 8% and 10%.
Maybe talk to your coworkers about better banks and deals, you're being taken advantage of.
Then you go to Greece and you pay exorbitant transaction fees for everything. 3E for any incoming transfer, regardless of amount. 10-15E to transfer 10k between banks in the country. Sky high interest rates for lending, unreasonable guarantee requirements and it's still really hard to get a loan. And then you get 0.25% for saving accounts. e-banking that may be pretty looking but a shame functionality wise. And you only have 4 banks (+1 zombie bank). The bankers are still making bonuses like it's 2007 and the public is funding them with transaction fees. The traditional banking business model of making money from the spread between lending and savings rate is pretty much dead.
I can't believe there can be any other country worse than Greece in the EU. Change my mind =)
ING still has 7.5% offer.
See https://www.wired.co.uk/article/revolut-trade-unions-labour-...
I recommend Wise.com though. Free. Multicurrency. Pays about 3.5% interest on your money (via a market fund).
It's not like these companies that do this don't have extremely rough interviews and clarify expectations of 55 hour weeks prior to employment. If you don't find enjoyment in working long hours, seems like that's not the company you want to be working at? There are plenty of companies with a better work/life balance, but they tend to pay less.
Demanding you recruit hundreds of customers, for free, to even be considered for an interview is downright exploitative. I don’t think any but the most predatory companies do this and it’s probably not even worth the legal exposure.
I suspect however this acts as a filter. By making people jump through this hoop, you make sure you’re only keeping docile and compliant people in your pipeline who can be abused and overworked.
Not the world I want to live in and that’s why I point it out every time I can to hopefully sway customers away from them.
What is unfair about this? What is so wrong about dedicating yourself to a company you beleive in? Revolut is an awesome company, doing amazing things.
I worked at Tesla, and unless you had something fun to do for the weekend (Like tahoe or something) they expected you to be in the office. I LOVED working at Tesla. I ended up leaving to start my own company a few years ago, but i will remember my time at Tesla for the rest of my life.
>Demanding you recruit hundreds of customers, for free, to even be considered for an interview is downright exploitative. I don’t think any but the most predatory companies do this and it’s probably not even worth the legal exposure.
This literally makes no sense and I think you are conflaiting something here? How would i recruit customers if i didn't work at the company? Are you talking they hired a bunch of people who had very high referals to the company? I know they offer a bonus if you refer your friends, so looking through those logs and hiring all the people who have high referals sounds like a great business move to me.
> making people jump through this hoop, you make sure you’re only keeping docile and compliant people in your pipeline who can be abused and overworked.
Or you ensure you are hiring the most highly motivated people who believe in the mission. "Docile and compliant" doesn't work at high pressure, tech companies... You are eaten up and spit out pretty quickly at the brashness, demands and stress to perform.
Say no more. Let’s just agree to disagree.
> This literally makes no sense and I think you are conflaiting something here? How would i recruit customers if i didn't work at the company? Are you talking they hired a bunch of people who had very high referals to the company?
It’s the third paragraph in the article I linked:
> The instructions on the exercise said the applicants should recruit at least 200 clients in a week to have a chance at passing to the next interview phase.
Never heard of 40eur/month - that seems like you have some sort of super premium account with multiple credit cards or so.
> My first guess would be that Europeans have a perception that their banks are exploiting them, and given any other rational option they will try it out.
Because that's the case! Most banks are STILL giving you 0.001% as interest, which is a joke considering everything happening around. Some banks are promising 3% p.a. for X months only (for new accounts only) - they really don't want to lose a cent. What other option do we have? Burning money on the bank with inflation going up like crazy and banks getting, as usual, even richer.
The fee banks that do pass it on will only do so for newly deposited money.
Are you a resident though? If you pay your taxes in the EU, you should have access to advantageous deposit rates and you'll pay no charges for transfers (inside the EU). FWIW In France currently banks pay about 4% on deposits (up to a certain ceiling). The only charge I currently pay for my banking services is 2€/month, including a debit card.
There is literally no bank in my country that doesn't charge fat fees. Even credit unions want at least like 8€/month for just a starter account with online banking, plus the 1.5€ fee for each SEPA transfer, seriously. Back when I learned that this isn't standard procedure worldwide my mind was completely blown.
As for alternatives, there are pseudo-banks one might use like N26, Revolut, Wise and similar, but each one of those can at any point terminate your account for no reason, some don't even allow receiving money from accounts not in your name so you can't use them as actual bank accounts. They're not exactly a thing one can keep savings in.
From what I understand, Europe typically has postal banking that's minimal fee and should be a release valve against other banks' excess, which would for the "legit price" hypothesis.
But if it's very very difficult to start new banks, or for existing businesses to start serving this demand, that would favor the cartel hypothesis.
Haven't heard of any postal banks, but digging a little it seems like we did have at least one... which merged with a commercial bank a decade ago. Sounds about right.
But generally speaking, my European friends all have an animosity towards banks I have not seen in other countries.
My current banks in the EU? One charges up to 1% percent per transaction and yes, that includes going to the bank to make a withdrawal. Another charges 40€ per month for a basic savings account. A third will probably kick me out soon, because I’m not an EU citizen.
My first guess would be that Europeans have a perception that their banks are exploiting them, and given any other rational option they will try it out.