My Bank Sold Out. Here’s What I Did:

Entrepreneurialism

Aug 1

Since moving to northern New Hampshire in 2009, I banked with the same institution.

All of my account were there: Personal checking, business checking, savings, mortgage, my Health Savings Account (HSA), and even my Roth IRA for a time.

When I was 17, I worked at this bank as a teller, and later a residential loan assistant. When I started my photography business, they hired me to photograph their staff and a sample of their customers.

I felt connected to this bank, and appreciated its small size and community mindedness.

Then they sold out.

To be fair, I live in a rural area and several of our other local banks have merged over the years. But the dominating bank was always located within a few hours, typically within state.

Not the bank that’s buying mine, they’re more than five hours away and have dozens of locations throughout northern New England. Their branding, coastal, and doesn’t look right against our mountainous region.

But mainly, the entire transaction feels off.

Since all of my account numbers will be changing and I’ll have to go through the work of updating every auto pay and direct deposit we have set up, my husband and I decided to transfer to a different bank instead of waiting to see if my bad feeling was off. (They usually aren’t.)

Personal Accounts

Last year we opened an account on SoFi, an online bank. We wanted our money to earn a higher interest rate, and SoFi offers high yield checking and savings accounts - the savings account earning 3.80% APY (as of the writing of this blog) - much higher than any local bank could offer.

Their high yield savings account also offers sub accounts called “Vaults,” where we can set up savings goals. We have a vault for emergency, travel, and winter car savings.

SoFi also has credit score monitoring, and I’ve been able to tie my loans and credit cards into the account to see my debt allocation and even my net worth. It also tracks and categorizes my spending, allowing me to ensure our money is going towards what we value.

Eventually I’ll transfer my SEP IRA and Roth IRA to SoFi where I can either self-invest these funds or use a roboadvisor. I appreciate having my money in one place; it makes managing and keeping track easy.

Unfortunately SoFi doesn’t yet offer HSA accounts, so I transferred my HSA to Fidelity where I can begin investing it.

While I love SoFi, we still wanted to keep some money in a local bank. I like withdrawing cash a certain way, and ATMs (which are used to access money in a SoFi account) are typically limited to tens and twenties.

We originally planned to refinance our mortgage and open a checking account with a different local bank, but our mortgage interest rate is too good to change. And because I can easily transfer money from our checking account to the mortgage, we’re keeping this account open. But we only deposit enough money to pay the mortgage and to withdraw cash.

Check out SoFi →

Business Account

Unfortunately SoFi doesn’t offer business banking, so I did some research and discovered Found.

Another online bank, Found works similarly to SoFi in that it also offers a sub account system, which it calls Pockets. I have Pockets for emergency, estimated quarterly taxes, business investments, and my HSA contributions (which I use as a holding account until I transfer the money to Fidelity).

What I really appreciate about Found is that I can set my income to auto allocate into these Pockets. So when I receive a payment from a client, a certain percentage goes to each of these pockets. What’s left over is used for operating expenses and paying myself.

Found can also be used for bookkeeping, but I’m going to stick with Quicbooks for now.

Check out Found →

The Drawbacks

I’m quite traditional when it comes to money. I don’t like using debit cards for my personal accounts, which is why I prefer to withdraw money from the bank instead of an ATM. With SoFi, I need to have a debit card in order to access cash, which is one of the reasons why we kept our checking account at our local bank.

I’m also skeptical of mobile check deposit. Another reason we kept our local bank checking account: I can cash or deposit checks the old fashioned way.

Unfortunately, Found is the only account I have to access my business finances - and I don’t want to have multiple accounts. I prefer simplicity.

When I closed my business checking account at my local bank, they gave me a treasurer’s check for the balance. I tested mobile deposit for the first time on 7/31, and Found won’t make these funds available until 8/7. Hopefully this delay is because my account is new, but if not, waiting a week for a check to clear is ridiculous.