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The Best Banks in America
While high fees and low yields are still the norm, MONEY's annual survey uncovered a few financial
institutions that are offering the opposite. You may just want to move your money to one of them.
Best teen and college student checking winner: Citibank and U.S. Bank (Tie)
Branches: 3,087 in 25 states for U.S. Bank, 982 in 13 states and the District of Columbia for Citibank,
MONEY looked at 36 checking accounts geared toward teenagers and/or college students. Two-thirds had no
minimum balances or maintenance fees, though about half did not offer any discernible perks over a normal
account.
The winners combined free accounts with educational tools to teach budgeting and financial skills and offered
at least a few free out-of-network ATM transactions a month (an important consideration for busy college
students, who often forget to take out cash until the last minute).
Which of the two is best for your child depends on which offers the closest ATMs, so as to reduce the ding of
out-of-network fees or surcharges.
Why they are winners
Citibank's account for college students has no minimums or fees, plus out-of-network ATM usage won't rack
up charges (at least not from Citibank). Also, if parents are co-signers, they can receive SMS or email alerts to
keep them abreast of account activity. Another perk is Citi's suite of online financial management tools. These
are available for all customers -- not just students -- but can be particularly useful to those on a budget for the
first time. Your child can track goals, set bill reminders and budget alerts, and create spending reports.
U.S. Bank's no-fee student checking is open to both high school and college students, and it features
educational materials geared toward young people on money management topics like avoiding overdrafts and
preventing identity theft.
Although this account waives only four out-of-network ATM fees per cycle, the high number of ATM locations
(the bank has 5,000 plus participates in the MoneyPass -surcharge-free ATM network, adding another 25,000
nationwide) means there's a good likelihood teens can limit withdrawals to U.S. Bank ATMs. As with Citi's
account, co-signing parents can receive SMS or email alerts on account activity.
Caveats
Teenagers who are not yet in college can't use Citibank's account. U.S. Bank provides educational articles but
no tools for budgeting or money management beyond basics like account alerts.
MONEY looked at the 40 biggest retail banks by consumer deposits and number of branches, plus the 15
biggest online banks and three biggest credit unions by deposits, according to financial services
consulting firm Novantas. Banks with more than 1,000 branches were in the running for Best Big Bank,
while those with fewer were up for Midsize. All banks surveyed were candidates for best customer
experience, business accounts, app, and standalone accounts.
The top consideration for checking picks was maintenance fees and ease of waiving them, followed by
other charges, restrictions, and perks, like interest. For savings and CDs, MONEY weighted rates first,
followed by fees, minimums and other rules. For customer experience, we looked at the availability of
service; for mobile, breadth of features and ease of use. As a tiebreaker, MONEY used data from
independent customer service studies.
By Susie Poppick and Taylor Tepper @CNNMoney - Last updated November 06 2013 03:03 PM ET
http://money.cnn.com/gallery/pf/2013/11/05/best-banks/11.html