Seeking community bank

[olszowka.livejournal.com]

Hi,
I'd like to move my personal banking business from BoA to a local community bank which will support local business.  Can anyone provide recommendations?
Thanks. 

Comments

[ron_newman]

I'm happy with Wainwright Bank, but not everybody here is. Click on the 'banking' tag to see many earlier posts on this subject.

Small or community banks in Davis Square: Middlesex Federal Savings, Central Bank, Winter Hill Bank, Wainwright Bank

Others, a short walk from the square:

Cambridge Savings (Porter Square shopping center, Elm Street side)
East Cambridge Savings (Highland Ave at Cedar St, or Mass. Ave. near Milton St)
Century Bank (Mass. Ave. near Meacham Road)
USAlliance Credit Union (Porter Square)

[wavilyem.livejournal.com]

I've had an account with Cambridge Savings for about five years and have been very happy banking there. My favorite perk they offer (at least on relationship accounts with a minimum balance of $2,500) is that when you use other banks' ATMs, they don't charge fees of their own plus they reimburse any fees other banks charge for using their ATMs up to $10 a month.

[ron_newman]

I like Cambridge Savings, but I'm not happy that six days ago, they dropped out of the SUM ATM network.

[wavilyem.livejournal.com]

Huh, I wasn't aware of that! But given that CSB customers who don't use ATMs more than once a week or so don't pay any more or less to use other SUM ATMs as opposed to non-SUM ATMs, their customers weren't getting as much benefit from participating as other banks' customers were getting from CSB's ATMs. So I can't really blame them for making a business decision to drop out, even if that does suck and limit free options for customers of other SUM network banks like you.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

also cambridge trust, which has a branch in porter, which is not the same back as cambridge savings.

[ron_newman]

I'd call it "between porter and harvard" -- it's down past Linnean Street.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

sure, and the business i was involved with that they supported was near park st station over the river at the time, and is presently in malden. perhaps my notion of "local" and "community" is a little larger geographically than yours?

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure Ron's comment was about precision in location rather than accuracy in terminology. It's generally worth giving him the benefit of the doubt on these things ;P.

[ron_newman]

Yep - basically just so that people wouldn't wander around Porter Square proper looking for this bank branch. Cambridge Trust is another fine local choice.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Cambridge Trust also has the relationship banking benefit where if you keep a certain balance you get to use any ATM you want and they will refund the fees. It's a pretty high balance though.

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]

Another Wainwright fan here.

[ethanfield.livejournal.com]

I'm also a very happy 7-year Wainwright customer. I especially like that Maria, who helped me open my account, is still there in the Davis Branch. I've opened and closed savings accounts, CDs, etc. all with her.

On the other hand, as this moveyourmoney movement has gotten going, I've been reminded that Wainwright is for-profit and publicly traded, which are both corporate-y... even if they use a lot of those profits for subsidizing community-related stuff. If I were doing this for the first time, I might try to learn more about credit unions.

[ron_newman]

Somerville Local First tell me that Central, Century, and Wainwright banks are not eligible for membership in their organization because they are publicly traded. Middlesex Federal and Winter Hill Bank are eligible, but haven't (yet) joined. East Cambridge Savings Bank and Cambridge Portuguese Credit Union have joined SLF.

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

CSB + Wainwright both have no-fee no-min-balance checking, which Cambridge Trust doesn't. I have an account at CSB and at Wainwright, and haven't had major problems with either.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Cambridge Trust has no-fee no-minimum checking if you have direct deposit, or if you get an ATM Convenience Account and write less than 8 checks per month.

Wainwright is pretty good, but their internet banking is awful

[jimmyfergus.livejournal.com]

I've been with them for a while - feel good about the place though I only do everyday simple banking

However, their internet banking is embarrassingly "Web 0.2" and terrifying from a security perspective. It appears to have been thrown together by amateurs. Amateur web banking is not quaint and charming.

My red-flag security concern is if you forget your password, they email it back to you in clear text. This is an utter violation of reasonable and conventional security practices, and it makes me very concerned for the whole site. A site should never be storing a plain text password. If you think it is impossible to do the site without storing the password, then you shouldn't be making a banking website either ;), but that's ok, you're not a bank.

Their online bill paying service is handled by a third party, and I'm not impressed with that either. I failed to cancel a repeating payment in time once, and the recipient didn't cash the check. The money left my account though, and the service never responded to my two formal requests to get the money back. Eventually I forgot about it (~$300), until right now...

Re: Forgotten password

[ron_newman]

Yikes! I've never clicked on that link before, but I just now did, and ... you're right. Both of us should talk to someone at the bank pronto about this!

(Other than this, I've been pretty happy with their online banking. I don't need fancy, I just need basic, and I've never had a bill payment go astray.)

Re: Wainwright is pretty good, but their internet banking is awful

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

I have to agree about Wainwright's internet banking. It is embarrassingly awful. Aside from the security issue you mention, it has serious usability issues. Like, if your session times out, you just get a couple lines of text telling you to go back to the login screen. With no link! That's just inexcusable in 2010, sheesh.

Other than that I've been mostly fine with Wainwright though.

[masswich.livejournal.com]

East Cambridge Savings Bank has done me alright for 10+ years with no strange fees. And their Internet banking is at least 2.0.

I'm also a big credit union fan if you have any particular affiliation (I don't understand the big ones that let anyone join- the whole reason I feel safe is that there are fewer degrees of separation between me and the other people in the credit union.) I am a member of 2 and the interest rates are great for things like car loans and CD's.

CSB

[wonkywheels.livejournal.com]

I love Cambridge Savings Bank. I use SuperSmart Checking and get 4% interest!!!