How to Choose a Bank

Finding the right banking partner is crucial to ensuring your short and long-term financial wellness.

Your bank should help make every financial decision and transaction easier while making you feel more secure and in control of your financial future.

It’s important to review the various pros and cons of different banks to find the one that’s right for you.

In this article, we’ll cover a few key factors to consider when choosing between different banks.

1. Understand your banking needs

When evaluating a prospective banking partner, your first and most important consideration should be whether the bank meets your specific financial needs.

For example, most all banks offer a variety of checking and savings options for your money.

However, not all of them provide the specific perks or account types you may need to effectively manage and make the most of your funds.

Common additional accounts to look for include investing options such as IRAs, CDs and money market accounts and more advanced credit options such as the option to open a home equity line of credit (HELOC).

Put simply, you should understand your own unique banking needs before you begin looking for the right banking partner.

Having a list of your exact financial needs can help you make decisions about banking partners by helping to exclude the ones that don’t have the accounts or features you want.

For example, if you’re a small business owner you may want to choose a bank with small business focused resources to help you streamline your finances and reduce your organization’s overhead.

Meanwhile, if digital banking is an essential for you, you’ll want to find a bank that’s heavily invested in ensuring you have consistently exceptional online banking experiences.

No matter your financial goals, needs or preferences, the key takeaway is that your banking partner should align perfectly with how you choose to manage your money.

When choosing between different banks, this should always be your first and primary consideration when weighing each bank’s pros and cons.

2. Think about the kind of banking experience you want

Once you’ve established your financial needs and scouted banks that align with your goals, take a moment to think about the kind of experience you want out of your banking partner.

Banks come in all different sizes and structures, and no two banks are exactly the same.

Take the time to get to know your top picks before you choose a particular bank or other financial institution.

Should I choose a bank, a credit union or something else?

There are several different types of financial institutions where you can put your money, each with different pros and cons:

• National Banks — National banks operate at scale to provide consistent experiences to clients across the country. They have the widest range of accounts and services and often have developed account support and online banking offerings.
• Regional Banks — Regional banks are smaller and tend to focus on the needs of a particular geographic region. These banks often focus on service and relationship-building and are more grounded in their local community. When regional banks offer high-quality administrative services, such as online banking and experienced customer support options, they become the perfect blend of scope and service for customers in their geographic area.
• Credit Unions — Credit unions are not-for-profit financial institutions with the sole goal of providing financial products and services to members. They often have requirements for joining (such as being in the military or making donations to local charities) and are usually smaller and more in line with regional banks.
• Online-Only Banks — Online-only banks have only been around since the early 2000s and are based on the idea of improving interest rates through reduced operating costs (since they don’t have to maintain brick-and-mortar locations). These banks generally have fewer account types, instead focusing on common savings and checking account options.

When choosing from different banking types, it may be helpful to think about the broad focus of each bank type.

For example, national banks tend to focus on providing a consistent experience through sheer force of scale. Meanwhile, credit unions tend to focus much more on the individual by providing exclusive offers to members.

Regional banks tend to strike a balance between the two strategies by providing consistently excellent experiences tailored to individual customers.

Online-only banks try to subvert these three other strategies by focusing on perfecting specific aspects of the banking experience. However, their sole focus on specific account types can sometimes mean you’ll have to go to a different bank for other services, such as mortgages or business banking.

Each of these banking options exists to serve a particular market of consumer.

Weighing your needs and how they match the offerings and specialization of each bank type is a great way of narrowing your search down to the financial institutions that operate in your local area.

3. Consider the features you’ll use every day

Once you have a shortlist of banks that meet your needs, you should make a list of the features you intend to use regularly.

Does the bank provide superior customer service? Can you quickly and easily access your funds without incurring fees or penalties? What are your options for online or mobile banking?

Try to find the answers to some of these common questions—and more—to determine if a particular bank is the right fit for you.

For example, if you want to focus on growing your money, you may want a bank with options for high savings or interest rates on common accounts like CDs.

Meanwhile, if you intend to use your checking account regularly for purchases or other financial needs, you may want to make sure the specific account offerings have low or no fees for regular use.

Think back over the last several months about the different ways that you used your financial accounts.

What frustrated you? What elements did you like? Were there any moments you wished for a particular feature or service that your current banking solution doesn’t have?

At the highest level, banks exist solely to make managing our finances easier.

Because of this, you should ensure that your new bank’s features help make managing your funds as fast and easy as possible.

4. Ask your friends and family for help

At this point, you should have a shortlist of only a few banks that meet all your needs based on their service offerings, features and other related qualities.

If you’re still struggling over which bank to choose, this is where it may be helpful to ask your friends and family for suggestions.

Lists of services and benefits can only get you so far, and sometimes the best way forward is simply to listen to stories about other people’s experiences with a particular bank.

Creating and curating a reputation in your community for consistent banking excellence, however, is something much more difficult and rewarding.

Ask around in your local network to see what people’s experiences are with different banks.

If you know any entrepreneurs, what bank do they use for their businesses? Where do your coworkers and friends choose to manage their funds?

People like to talk about the solutions (and problems) they’ve found for managing their finances.

Ask people about why they use (or don’t use) a particular bank and you may be surprised at the strong opinions and engaging stories you’ll find.

5. Choose the bank that best matches your financial and personal goals

After taking all these factors into consideration, you should arrive at a bank that best matches your financial and personal goals.

Remember, your banking partner should make you feel safe and secure in your financial decisions.

Whether you want to save more money for retirement or take out a line of credit for some home improvements, your bank should help you chart a course toward meeting and surpassing your financial goals.

If you’d like to discuss the ways that Associated Bank may be right for you, our customer support teams are happy to discuss the various benefits, accounts and services we have available to members of our local community.

Give us a call at 800-236-8866, schedule an appointment online or visit us at any of our Associated Bank locations to learn how Associated Bank can help you better manage your finances and save for the present and the future.