Switching Over to Ally Bank

Right after college I wanted to get a new bank account so I didn't have to rely on the local one in my hometown, so I looked up which had the most ATMs near me and basic reviews. That led me to getting US Bank as my main bank. (I know, it's not Ally but we'll get there soon, I promise.) Now while working, I decided to set around half of my income just for savings, so I had a pretty nice amount in my savings account. After almost 2 years passe
d by, I looked at the interest I collected through that time and I saw that I collected a pitiful $12. I checked what US Bank was giving me as interest and it showed up as a 0.02%. With that amount that it gave me, I felt like the whole savings account was hardly necessary.

I didn't give up on my savings though, as I was bound to find a better deal. I read up on quite a few different banks to find something that felt worth having a good sum of money in that still would be practical if I needed to take the money out. I noticed that a lot of people were giving great reviews about Ally bank. They were offering a 1.45% interest rate on the general savings account. That is a huge difference between the 0.02% that I was currently getting, instead of getting a few dollars a year I would be getting a few hundred. That was enough to get me to switch over from having my savings in US Bank to having an Ally Savings account.

Over the time that I have had Ally, I've had to contact them a few times for support. The first time was the worst, they were having problems with their online web chat so I had to call in and sit on hold for about 20 minutes. The next time was a lot simpler since the web chat was online again, just requiring me to open up a little message box and typing my question. The web chat was slow to find someone, however. I spent 30 minutes or so waiting on an agent (although it's a lot nicer than waiting that time on the phone) and most of that time was spent as "#2 in the queue". The most recent time that I've contacted them I did a web chat and it was the best experience I've had with them. The response was almost immediate, I had almost no wait at all. Overall with the customer service though they were great, all of the people were really easy to understand, polite, and informative. I never had any problems with US Bank's customer service, but I just found Ally's customer service to be a bunch better.

Recently there have been a few more updates to my banking routine, including a checking account at Ally. I made that switch after I found out that US Bank charged me $30 when I ordered new checks (Ally gets you them for free) and that Ally gives 0.10% interest on the checking (Which is better than nothing). My main concern with this switch is getting cash immediately since the only way to get money through Ally is through an ATM (they give some ATM fee reimbursement) and there are usually withdraw limits to those. I decided to keep my US Bank checking in case of emergency needs for some cash and all else goes through my Ally account.

Although I haven't had any personal quarrels with US Bank, I think Ally is just going to be the better fit for me. I do all of my banking online anyway, so an online banking account doesn't bother me. The customer service has been great and speedy (at least lately). The interest rates on both the savings and checking can help quite a bit. Probably the least important thing that I enjoy is just how simple and clean the Ally interface seems to be. If you are in the market for a new savings account, I recommend taking a look into Ally Bank and also Capital One 360 as I have heard of many good things from that one as well.