Managing your finance starts with getting a checking account which will act as a transactional focal point as you can easily track your income and expenditure. Checking accounts comes with basic features like debit card, online banking and chequebook. Some banks do offer additional features like overdraft and if you are maintaining your credit score well banks usually review accounts to provide finance benefits like personal loans as well. To get the best advantage of the available options careful analysis of a few factors must be done to select the checking account that best suits your needs.
Understanding Checking accounts
In United Kingdom checking accounts are commonly known as the current accounts which is simply an account where your salary is credited. These accounts provide debit cards to enable easy access to your money. This account may provide you with an overdraft facility depending upon the analysis of your credibility by the bank. Some banks may even charge you a fee for keeping a current account and in return you can get various benefits like rewards for spending using your debit card and even insurance offers in some cases.
Key Factors to Consider
Fees: Banks might charge you for monthly maintenance of your account, any overdraft facility that may choose, monthly charges for your debit card. Hence this has to be the first item in your checklist that you should be done with in the process of consideration for your checking account.
Interest Rates: We all want our money should earn some amount of interest if it is in our checking account. Hence it is important to choose the account giving better interest rate than the other options available.
Access to ATMs: A decent enough network of ATM machines is a factor that you cannot afford to miss. Banks with a decent network of ATMs give more accessibility to your money if cash is required for transaction.
Online and Mobile Banking: This is the feature that can make any bank stand out from its competitors as an efficient online banking system is bound to make customers attracted towards the bank’s services. If this efficient online banking service is combined with a responsive mobile banking service you have the bank of your dreams for your checking account.
Branch Availability: In this modern age of banking, it depends whether you are an old school customer who likes to get to his bank’s nearest branch and get your issues resolves or you are a person who likes to call customer service for answers. If you are the former one you should select the bank with better network of physical branches near your house.
Customer Service: An efficient and effective customer service is clear indicator of any bank’s service quality. A responsive customer service distributed among various communications channels means your bank takes its customers seriously.
Types Of Checking Accounts
Basic Checking Accounts: As the name suggests these are account basic account services and have very less to no requirements for maintenance. Best suited for you if you only need an account transactional purpose.
Interest-Bearing Checking Accounts: If you are an someone who usually maintain a fairly large balance in your account than this is the account for you. Even though the interest given is not as large as provided by the savings account you will earn some interest on your account balance each month.
High-Yield Checking Accounts: As the name suggests these accounts maximize the earning potential of their account balance. However, these accounts do have some requirements like minimum balance and initial direct deposit.
Student Checking Accounts: As the name implies these are tailor made for students’ requirements as they provide benefits like no monthly fees associated, no minimum balance requirement and usually come with an overdraft protection. The reason for the popularity for these accounts is that they provide what is required for their target population.
Online-Only Checking Accounts: As the name says online only accounts, these are accounts provided by banks operating exclusively online. These accounts have exceptionally efficient online and mobile banking capabilities. They make up for the lack of physical presence by providing low fees and high interest rates for their customers. Some of these accounts may provide interesting reward earning schemes as well.
Tips for selecting checking account
Selecting the checking will have an effect on your financial health and it will decide the course of your financial journey. As you will be frequently dealing with your checking accounts it should be convenient to use. It must align with your banking needs like how much you want to keep in the accounts, what rewards and features are you expecting. Now as you will be using the checking account for a relatively longer there should be ideally very less to no fees associated with the checking account and it should have a minimum balance requirement.
As you would be monthly transacting with this account it should have a robust security mechanism, an efficient identity theft protection. It must have desirable features like free checks, redeemable rewards, travel insurance. In this modern age it is not unfair to ask for an account which has efficient online banking and mobile banking system to give that ease of access. A well distributed network of physical branches and ATMs should also be a factor in your consideration because someone in your family may also need a checking account who is old and is not tech- savvy.
Your bank account must have a responsive and caring customer service which can support your needs on a 24/7 basis so that your financial queries would be resolved with the highest priority. Finally, it must have high ratings and has to be recommended financial institution.
If you are selecting your checking account provider carefully a major portion of financial worries is taken care. As this is the decision which will not only save you a great deal of money but will also open new horizons as most of the checking account providing financial institutions have investment services which can give you an edge in your journey towards your financial goal.
