The bank I worked in 1989-2008 had lots of ex BoA folks. They referred to it as "The Evil Empire" BofA was famous in the biz for periodically axing senior middle management and replacing them with cheaper, younger junior officers using a new postion title to avoid age discrimination claims.
My grandfather was a traveling guy, and when he and his friend heard about the 1906 quake in San Francisco they wanted to see it, and they went there and saw AP Gianinini, the founder of Bank of America up on a wagon, handing out cash to the people on the street who needed it to eat and live, and rebuild their houses. Beside him was a man with a great big ledger writing it down. Where did Gianinini get all that money?Why, by lending to immigrants, which no other banker would do. He was an immigrant and he believed in immigrants, and that was his secret, and you can look it up.
And then my grandfather's friend Nicholas Pantages went to LA and founded the Pantages Theatres, and my grandfather went to Massachusetts and became a millworker.
Ever since the NationsBank merger ('99 I think), BofA has turned into the anti-christ. I was living in SF at the time anf the three people I knew that worked there left within a year, it got so bad. The CEOs of the two banks had an agreement to alternate the job on a 2 or 3 year schedule, but a few months in, the NationsBank guy fired all the BofA C-Suite executives. HellspawnBank would've been a better name.
First thing we do (lawyers get to live for a while) is seriously revise and gut both the Patriot Act and the Bank Secrecy Act. Or at least if the gummint is going to make banks and other MSBs act like financial cops, the gummint has to pay them directly for the work.
"Christians" don't have any more damn idea of what the fuck John of Patmos was talking about; any more than you or I do; or for that matter, than John of Patmos did after the ergot kicked in.
Well - it figures. BMO Harris is owned by a Canadian company (Bank of Montreal). Banking is very different in Canada. Credit Unions in the US are something like 10-15% of the market. In Canada, it's more like 70-80% and even the non-CU's tend to operate less aggressively than the big banks in the US.
Thanks for the detailed reply. There's a CU literally at the entrance to my subdivision (in fact, it used to be a branch of my bank, until the bank got acquired and it shut down), so if eligibility goes by geography, I could do it.
Thing is, I may have been cheesed when my bank, BMOHarris, shut down that branch, but I have to say, they've been pretty good otherwise. Very good sometimes. A couple of years ago, when it was clear I was going to be fired, their financial consultant developed, at no charge, a couple of contingency plans for my retirement savings. And as far as I could tell, they were totally objective, which stands to reason; he's paid by BMOHarris, not by the funds or annuities he recommends.
So I guess I'll stick with BMOHarris, unless they turn into BofA or Wells Fargo. But if that happens, it's nice to know that the credit union might be an alternative.
I'm pretty sure the police don't give permits to hold a parade on private property. From the photo, it looks like he was on a company campus which is private property. Or are the MAGAts now claiming Twitter, Google and Facebook have to let them do what they want on company physical property too?
Mortgages are a different animal. CU's (and bank) sell the vast majority of those to Fannie Mae anyway. So the interest you are paying is going to them (or Fredie Mac), which oddly enough are Government Sponsored Entities (funny how banks love socialism when it helps them). The banks/CU's get .25% a year to service the loan, which they do like. Some banks actually mark up your payment and take a higher percentage to do the servicing - because they're pricks.
All that said, with rates where they were a year ago and are today, you probably wouldn't get as good a rate as you already have anyway. I'd never recommend that someone do something that would cost them more for the same product.
But in genearl, the nice thing about CU's is that they typically charge less than banks AND are actually nice people.
Safe deposit boxes have been going the way of the dinosaur. Home safes and fireboxes are cheap and CU's hate the compliance issue (you never know what someone is putting in those). That said, the older branches usually keep them. And it's amazing how little cash CU's keep on hand. A typical branch will have under 300K, including the vault. Of course we're largely a cashless society nowadays, so it's not as necessary as it once was. .
“If they can make your post appear on the third or fourth page, you’re basically invisible,” said Bergquam, who runs the Frontline America website." or in other words, "I'm not one of the popular kids and Google isn't making the other kids like me, Wahhhhhhh!"
You can probably join any local credit union. The short version is, call them and ask. It may take a workaround, but if they can make it work, they will. For the long version, keep reading.
For background, I do strategic planning and risk management consulting for credit unions and a few not-for-profit foundations and other financial institution cooperatives that aren't technically credit unions. I've worked with about 60 credit unions all over the country, including some very large ones. So this is something I care about a great deal. Please excuse the long answer.
Credit unions are chartered for specific "Fields of Membership". Those take two forms.
First, they can be "SEG-Based", in which case you need to be a member of a SEG (Select Employee Group - although it doesn't actually mean employees). That's the model that you're thinking about. But in the modern credit union world, a SEG-based credit union will probably serve several hundred SEG's and those affiliations can be extremely tangential.
For example, most SEG based CU's partner with a local museum or foundation where if you join that for $10-20, you can join the CU. For a lot of corporation-SEG's, you can be a shareholder - so buy one share of stock - and join. And once you're in, you're in. They don't revoke it because you don't keep a membership up or sell the stock. There is always a work-around. Usually the work-around is free, but sometimes there is a nominal charge.
As an example, Redstone FCU is by far the largest in Alabama (it's in Huntsville). It was originally chartered for employees of the Redstone Armory and their families. It is still SEG based, but has over 1,500 SEG's today. Basically, if you are even remotely connected to anything in the area you can join.
BUT - most credit unions nowadays are "community based". They are chartered for a specific geographic area and that anyone who "lives, works, or worships" in that area can join. I've been solicited (in a friendly way) to join about half the credit unions I worked with on the basis that as a consultant in their building, I was "working" in their geographic area. These credit unions are all over the country and I could join even though I live in Texas which could be 1500 miles away. FWIW - I am already a member of the CU affiliated with my grad school and feel that joining a CU that is a client could be a conflict of interest - so I always decline. But I could join if I wanted to.
As an example, BECU used to be Boeing Employees (and is mentioned below), but changed their charter a few years ago and now, anyone who lives, works, or worships in Washington State can join.
There is almost certainly one in your area (or another area) that you can join.
And please, please, please use the credit union as your lender, not just a piggy bank (talking to everyone who reads this, not you).
Credit Unions (and all financial institutions) make money lending, not on deposits. They need the deposits to be a cheap source of capital to then lend out, but in the end you don't make money paying interest and getting clobbered in compliance costs. You make money collecting interest and interchange fees (which they charge stores and merchants when you use your debit or credit card).
Your local credit union will be thrilled to have you as a member and take your deposits. But know they are getting crushed financially if you just put your deposits there and keep your loans at a bank. OTOH - the banks love it when we do that.
The bank I worked in 1989-2008 had lots of ex BoA folks. They referred to it as "The Evil Empire" BofA was famous in the biz for periodically axing senior middle management and replacing them with cheaper, younger junior officers using a new postion title to avoid age discrimination claims.
They may crochet covers for it though.
My grandfather was a traveling guy, and when he and his friend heard about the 1906 quake in San Francisco they wanted to see it, and they went there and saw AP Gianinini, the founder of Bank of America up on a wagon, handing out cash to the people on the street who needed it to eat and live, and rebuild their houses. Beside him was a man with a great big ledger writing it down. Where did Gianinini get all that money?Why, by lending to immigrants, which no other banker would do. He was an immigrant and he believed in immigrants, and that was his secret, and you can look it up.
And then my grandfather's friend Nicholas Pantages went to LA and founded the Pantages Theatres, and my grandfather went to Massachusetts and became a millworker.
Ever since the NationsBank merger ('99 I think), BofA has turned into the anti-christ. I was living in SF at the time anf the three people I knew that worked there left within a year, it got so bad. The CEOs of the two banks had an agreement to alternate the job on a 2 or 3 year schedule, but a few months in, the NationsBank guy fired all the BofA C-Suite executives. HellspawnBank would've been a better name.
First thing we do (lawyers get to live for a while) is seriously revise and gut both the Patriot Act and the Bank Secrecy Act. Or at least if the gummint is going to make banks and other MSBs act like financial cops, the gummint has to pay them directly for the work.
"Christians" don't have any more damn idea of what the fuck John of Patmos was talking about; any more than you or I do; or for that matter, than John of Patmos did after the ergot kicked in.
Well - it figures. BMO Harris is owned by a Canadian company (Bank of Montreal). Banking is very different in Canada. Credit Unions in the US are something like 10-15% of the market. In Canada, it's more like 70-80% and even the non-CU's tend to operate less aggressively than the big banks in the US.
Yep! See you then! Hope we don't get too many of our windows smashed in!
Thanks for the detailed reply. There's a CU literally at the entrance to my subdivision (in fact, it used to be a branch of my bank, until the bank got acquired and it shut down), so if eligibility goes by geography, I could do it.
Thing is, I may have been cheesed when my bank, BMOHarris, shut down that branch, but I have to say, they've been pretty good otherwise. Very good sometimes. A couple of years ago, when it was clear I was going to be fired, their financial consultant developed, at no charge, a couple of contingency plans for my retirement savings. And as far as I could tell, they were totally objective, which stands to reason; he's paid by BMOHarris, not by the funds or annuities he recommends.
So I guess I'll stick with BMOHarris, unless they turn into BofA or Wells Fargo. But if that happens, it's nice to know that the credit union might be an alternative.
I'm pretty sure the police don't give permits to hold a parade on private property. From the photo, it looks like he was on a company campus which is private property. Or are the MAGAts now claiming Twitter, Google and Facebook have to let them do what they want on company physical property too?
Mortgages are a different animal. CU's (and bank) sell the vast majority of those to Fannie Mae anyway. So the interest you are paying is going to them (or Fredie Mac), which oddly enough are Government Sponsored Entities (funny how banks love socialism when it helps them). The banks/CU's get .25% a year to service the loan, which they do like. Some banks actually mark up your payment and take a higher percentage to do the servicing - because they're pricks.
All that said, with rates where they were a year ago and are today, you probably wouldn't get as good a rate as you already have anyway. I'd never recommend that someone do something that would cost them more for the same product.
But in genearl, the nice thing about CU's is that they typically charge less than banks AND are actually nice people.
Safe deposit boxes have been going the way of the dinosaur. Home safes and fireboxes are cheap and CU's hate the compliance issue (you never know what someone is putting in those). That said, the older branches usually keep them. And it's amazing how little cash CU's keep on hand. A typical branch will have under 300K, including the vault. Of course we're largely a cashless society nowadays, so it's not as necessary as it once was. .
All children should be above average!
“If they can make your post appear on the third or fourth page, you’re basically invisible,” said Bergquam, who runs the Frontline America website." or in other words, "I'm not one of the popular kids and Google isn't making the other kids like me, Wahhhhhhh!"
You can probably join any local credit union. The short version is, call them and ask. It may take a workaround, but if they can make it work, they will. For the long version, keep reading.
For background, I do strategic planning and risk management consulting for credit unions and a few not-for-profit foundations and other financial institution cooperatives that aren't technically credit unions. I've worked with about 60 credit unions all over the country, including some very large ones. So this is something I care about a great deal. Please excuse the long answer.
Credit unions are chartered for specific "Fields of Membership". Those take two forms.
First, they can be "SEG-Based", in which case you need to be a member of a SEG (Select Employee Group - although it doesn't actually mean employees). That's the model that you're thinking about. But in the modern credit union world, a SEG-based credit union will probably serve several hundred SEG's and those affiliations can be extremely tangential.
For example, most SEG based CU's partner with a local museum or foundation where if you join that for $10-20, you can join the CU. For a lot of corporation-SEG's, you can be a shareholder - so buy one share of stock - and join. And once you're in, you're in. They don't revoke it because you don't keep a membership up or sell the stock. There is always a work-around. Usually the work-around is free, but sometimes there is a nominal charge.
As an example, Redstone FCU is by far the largest in Alabama (it's in Huntsville). It was originally chartered for employees of the Redstone Armory and their families. It is still SEG based, but has over 1,500 SEG's today. Basically, if you are even remotely connected to anything in the area you can join.
BUT - most credit unions nowadays are "community based". They are chartered for a specific geographic area and that anyone who "lives, works, or worships" in that area can join. I've been solicited (in a friendly way) to join about half the credit unions I worked with on the basis that as a consultant in their building, I was "working" in their geographic area. These credit unions are all over the country and I could join even though I live in Texas which could be 1500 miles away. FWIW - I am already a member of the CU affiliated with my grad school and feel that joining a CU that is a client could be a conflict of interest - so I always decline. But I could join if I wanted to.
As an example, BECU used to be Boeing Employees (and is mentioned below), but changed their charter a few years ago and now, anyone who lives, works, or worships in Washington State can join.
There is almost certainly one in your area (or another area) that you can join.
And please, please, please use the credit union as your lender, not just a piggy bank (talking to everyone who reads this, not you).
Credit Unions (and all financial institutions) make money lending, not on deposits. They need the deposits to be a cheap source of capital to then lend out, but in the end you don't make money paying interest and getting clobbered in compliance costs. You make money collecting interest and interchange fees (which they charge stores and merchants when you use your debit or credit card).
Your local credit union will be thrilled to have you as a member and take your deposits. But know they are getting crushed financially if you just put your deposits there and keep your loans at a bank. OTOH - the banks love it when we do that.