Chase Bank Account Review – Best Checking Options
I’ll be taking a look at a few Chase Bank account options for consumers today. We’ll talk about what each checking account type has to offer and whether it makes sense for you and your money. Chase is another Bank that’s pretty big and historic. They actually started way back in the late 1700’s, if you can believe that.
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They offer a handful of different products – from credit scores to business services, credit cards to checking/savings Chase Bank accounts. You can find investment products, home and auto loans, and even commercial banking services with them.
Checking Options For A Chase Bank Account
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You have a couple different options here. Chase currently offers eight options for checking accounts. Those are within the groups of Everyday, Kids & Students, & Premium. Let’s take a look through the Everyday options and see what those look like.
Everyday Options
The most popular one they have within Everyday is their Chase Total Checking. The monthly service fee can either be $12 or $0. The fee is only waived if you deposit at least $500 or more into this Chase bank account each quarter.
Alternatively, your fee is waived if you have $1,500 or more at the beginning of each day in the account. In addition to those, if your average balance at the beginning of the day is $5000+ in that account or in combination with other qualifying Chase accounts – the fee is waived.
That does sound like kind of a lot, though. This may not be your best option if you live paycheck to paycheck. If you can’t meet those minimums, consider a credit union checking account instead.
Features of the Everyday Chase bank account
Something really awesome about using a big bank like Chase or Wells Fargo is the amount of ATMs around. Having this account gives you access to 16,000 of them and over 4,700 branches. That is the definition of convenience.
Actually, the online banking, bill pay, and mobile banking are the definitions of convenience. They also have something called “Autosave” which makes saving easy with automatic transfers to a Chase savings account. I’ll admit, I like that their marketing team probably slid that in there. If I still played videogames, that would definitely hit home for me.
Other Services
You also get overdraft services and Chase First Banking, their checking account for you + your child and it comes with a debit card. I’m not sure if I would necessarily want my kid to have a debit card, I didn’t get one until I was about 16.
The Chase fee is not waived at non-chase ATMs on this account. Fees are also not waived with this Chase bank account for counter checks, money orders, or cashier’s checks. Nor is the monthly service fee waived on linked personal Chase Savings accounts.
Chase College Checking
Chase also has a college checking account that could be a good fit if you’re between 17 and 24 years old. This Chase bank account has easier ways to avoid its monthly fee of $6, too.
In order to skip the monthly fees, you just need to be in college (and be able to prove it). Alternatively, you can skip it by making any electronic deposit each month. That could be particularly appealing for teens with a part-time job where direct deposit is an option.
The less realistic final option to avoid monthly fees is having an average beginning day balance of $5000. I can’t say I ever had that much in my checking account during college, but maybe you have a high-paying internship or just work a ton on top of going to class.
Their same ATM and branch accessibility apply from Total Checking – 16,000 ATMs and 4,700 branches.
Other Features/Fees For This Chase Bank Account
This college checking Chase Bank account offers their online banking, bill pay, and mobile banking services. The Autosave program is also available. I’ll admit, it is a little more difficult to move money to savings manually.
The non-Chase ATM fees aren’t waived with this one and neither are fees for counter checks, money orders, or cashier’s checks.
The monthly service fee is waived on any linked personal Chase Savings accounts. An account must be linked for you to have overdraft protection. The fees are not waived for checks.
Also, you can send money using Zelle in seconds to friends and family. There are no fees associated with that.
There are some important disclosures for these accounts that you can check out here.
Final Thoughts
Chase Bank (really JPMorgan Chase Bank) is one of the big ones. They’ve been around for a long time, a lot of people use them, and they have robust financial offerings. There are way too many other products to go over here, but, they do have a lot of others.
Should you set up a checking account with them? That’s up to you, but I’d say it would be probably be a great experience if you did. Just make sure you get the right account for your age.
