Talk about confusing the consumer. Ally Bank offers a free checking account that pays interest – yes, pays interest. The problem is that it failed to name its account Ally Free Checking. Yet, we see in this magazine ad in the February 24, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, Ally manages to use the powerful marketing word [...]
Attention bankers and consumers: Free Checking is alive and well and isn’t going away anytime soon! On the other hand, if you believe a majority of the media stories on the future of the free checking account, you would already have come to the conclusion that your valued free checking account is going the way of the [...]
What are the odds that this time next year we’ll be reading an article with a headline that goes something like this: “Free Checking Didn’t Disappear After All.” This came to mind after reading an article about overdraft protection that was passed to me by a colleague this morning. Appearing in the money blogs section [...]
This is a very informative article on free checking profitability from Bob O’Meara, director or research for the Raddon Financial Group. O’Meara takes a closer look at the impact of NSF fees, debit card interchange fees, and spread income have on free checking profitability. The recent overdraft opt-in legislation impacting NSF fees is having some [...]
Ally Bank free checking advertisement found in Business Week magazine. Ad reads: A checking account should accumulate interest, not fees.
Ally Bank free checking ad found on a bus stop in San Francisco. Reads, “We don’t take money. We take care of it.”
Ally Bank runs a magazine ad for its Interest Checking Account.
The nation’s largest banks are testing how much their customers are willing to pay for checking-account services that used to be free. Bank of America Corp. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the two biggest banks as measured by assets, have begun trying new fees in pilot tests from Hayward, Wis., to Newnan, Ga. They include [...]
It’s important to distinguish between online-only banks that offer a free checking account and being able to apply for a free checking account online. This brief article will cover the internet-only banks offering free checking online. At this time of publication, your author is aware of only six U.S. banks that qualify as online-only banks. [...]
Attention financial writers – many of the articles over the past year about the pending death of free checking are based on erroneous information. One of our goals with this site dedicated to the free checking account is to provide the truth about free checking. As a financial writer we trust you’ll visit this site [...]
ATTENTION CONSUMERS: Not all free checking accounts have the word “free” in them. Yes, I agree it doesn’t make sense for a bank or credit union to offer a free checking account yet call it something other than free checking. But, this is exactly what the two hottest online banks have done. The free checking [...]
The banner ads are all over the Internet. Recently, the marketing team at Ally Bank began aggressively marketing the checking account it launched in January 2010 – a free checking account. What’s strange is that for some reason they decided against naming it “Free Checking” or in the case of Ally Bank, “Free Checking with [...]