Steve Topper, writer for ActonFS, writes in rebuttal to this blog post: How Durbin will Speed the Decline in Branch Banking. I find it both astonishing and disappointing that so many people either in banking or writing about banking believe the free checking account is the source of today’s bank profitability problems. I was reminded of [...]
How Durbin will Speed the Decline in Branch Banking Brett King, author of Bank 2.0 In the UK and Australia, account keeping fees are nothing new. In the US, however, since the introduction of the Durbin amendment, many US banks have been moving to monthly fees on checking accounts (we call them current accounts generally [...]
First Northern Bank, founded in 1910 in Dixon, California, continues offering Totally Free Checking to its customers in the surrounding counties which includes Sacramento. In addition to Totally Free Checking, the bank also offers 50+ Free Interest Checking (for customers age 50 and older) and Direct Deposit Free Interest Checking. These three checking accounts were [...]
California’s largest credit union, Golden 1, continues promoting its free checking account. During March, 2012, a simple two-panel marketing flyer or buckslip is being distributed inside the branches in brochure holders located at the teller windows. While this is great news, the words “FREE CHECKING’’ are the smallest words on the front of the flyer [...]
This page-dominant ad for free checking being offered by the Nebraska Bank of Commerce appeared in the January 15, 2012 edition of the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper. The downside to this free checking ad is that it contains what could be mistaken as three competing headlines. The key point to be made with this ad [...]
More brokerages are offering free checking accounts at a time when big banks do not. Are brokerage checking accounts a viable alternative to bank accounts? Definitely. They may even be better. Firstly, just like banks, deposits in brokerage checking accounts are FDIC-insured. This is a common concern because brokerage investment accounts are not FDIC-insured. Accountholders [...]
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 [...]
While I encountered numerous online articles about this move, it was one sentence in the article by JD Malone of Allentown, Pennsylvania’s newspaper The Morning Call that got my attention. The sentence reads: “Wells Fargo told Reuters that it believes 80% of customers will avoid the fee altogether and that it is offering a $2 discount on [...]
I’ll start by setting the record straight on the origin of the free checking account. It wasn’t created by a banker. It was created in 1982 by a team of experts working at a small direct mail agency located in Lincoln, Nebraska.
It was one of seven unique checking accounts that were combined with a free gift and marketed as a complete turnkey marketing program under the name of Totally Free Checking and a Free Gift Too!
Another online bank introduces Free Checking. The week of February 13, 2012, teachers’ retirement plan tiaa-cref launched an online consumer bank named tiaadirect. One of its product offerings is a free checking account. Unfortunately, like its competitors Ally Bank and ING Direct, tiaaDirect failed to name its free checking account Free Checking. Instead, like Ally [...]
Golden 1 Credit Union placed a full page ad for free checking inside the Sacramento Bee. Top third of ad reads: “Free checking to go! Free checking has all the right ingredients.” Bottom third of ad has a photo of a smiling woman with bullet points of free services and copy to the right about [...]
Free checking is labeled “free” for one simple reason – the word “free” is the single most powerful word used in marketing. Consumers love acquiring something of value that’s free. The free checking account as we know it today was first introduced in 1982. At the time, it was launched as Totally Free Checking and [...]