These typical “death of free checking” stories that pop up everywhere the mega-banks have locations say free checking began in 1994 at Washington Mutual.
Wrong.
Free checking was not invented 20 years ago by the executives at another regional bank either (as some stories claim), or by any big bank.
ACTON Marketing was the first marketing company to promote free checking accounts — for community banks — beginning in 1982.
That’s almost 30 years ago and at least a dozen years before free checking was “born” at WaMu — according to those “experts” the journalists like to quote.
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