What are the safest USA banks

Quote from fullblotter:

people's deposits will always be safe even if every bank in america fails. first, politically it would be death if people lost money in a bank run. second, guaranteeing all the deposits is a drop in the bucket compared to the other stuff that gets bailed out. third, there is nothing inflationary about guaranteeing deposits. people are just getting money that they thought they had anyway.
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It begs the question, "Why doesn't the US Treasury guarantee ALL deposits in the US banking system beforehand?"

Or basically give some deposit guarantee "badge of honour" to those banks that met certain regulatory or customer service standards? This would create a pretty big bargaining stick for the Fed / US Government. Banks don't have to sign up to regulatory standards and can give shitty service but you won't get the guarantee...

What am I missing here? Would guaranteeing all US bank deposits reduce demand for US Treasuries? What are the other reasons for not doing this up front?
 
Thanks for all replies!

Do you have first hand experience sending wires from your office using any of these?

I tried Bank Of America's Cash Management system and for some reason they never got me fully operational. I'm doing OK sending wires from the offic to China and all points of the world using my current bank, but I'm learning to have a backup plan for when things don't go as planned, plus i like to stay beneath the FIDC insured limits per bank.

2 or 3 of these caught my eye and i will be sure to look into them, but it would be nice to know their wire services are working for others.
 
BAC is the absolutely worst bank in US. not only it's worst in terms of speed,confusing online services, it's imo most expensive in terms of various fees and minimum balances,etc.
if you do a lot of international transfers you probably will be better with Citi. TD is also very simple and friendly,lots of branches in US,FDIC insured with headquarter in Canada
 
Um.... it does... through FDIC. Since the vast majority of depositors don't exceed the limitation on FDIC insured fund per account, isn't this exactly the answer to your question?

Or is that not what you mean? In that case, I'm missing your point.

Quote from benwm:

It begs the question, "Why doesn't the US Treasury guarantee ALL deposits in the US banking system beforehand?"

Or basically give some deposit guarantee "badge of honour" to those banks that met certain regulatory or customer service standards? This would create a pretty big bargaining stick for the Fed / US Government. Banks don't have to sign up to regulatory standards and can give shitty service but you won't get the guarantee...

What am I missing here? Would guaranteeing all US bank deposits reduce demand for US Treasuries? What are the other reasons for not doing this up front?
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BAC is as you said, a poor choice. But i currently use them for incoming international wires because they have a Swift code and not many banks have one.

When a bank don't have it's on Swift code, then many international people paying you must send to an intermediary bank and then you often have 2 account numbers involved and from time the payments get returned to the payer as they don't use all the needed info.

Regions Bank and BAC both have there own Swift Code. I'm sure there are others but that's the only 2 i know about.

2 years ago i was using a small local bank where i had to walk inside the bank and pay $100 for each wire.

Now i can send wires from my office and my current bank (not BAC) only charges me $25 international and $10 domestic.

That's ideal, but i need a back-up with the shares of this bank falling like a rock, plus i like a bank that pays 1% interest if possible.

I'll check them out!
 
Why do you care. It's FDIC insured.

Quote from birdman:


That's ideal, but i need a back-up with the shares of this bank falling like a rock, plus i like a bank that pays 1% interest if possible.
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Quote from birdman:

Now i can send wires from my office and my current bank (not BAC) only charges me $25 international and $10 domestic.
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All the US banks I know of you have to walk in to send a wire or send in a fax in some cases. NO online system for international wires for security reasons. Only big business accounts are provided with an interface for their backoffice to do wires. Which bank are you using?
 
Tennessee Commerce Bank stock symbol TNCC

works well but would be better if they had their own Swift
and they were paying over 2% interest this time last year and now it's .3 whereas some pay over 1%

I think many banks now offer what's called a Cash Management System where you can send wires and ACH all from your office.

I tried to use one at BAC before TNCC but could never make it work.

Some good names in those replies. We will see :)
 
Bank safety ratings can be checked out (free) at weissratings.com and for a small fee they will send you a comprehensive report. TNCC has been recently downgraded :( so you might want to keep a watchful eye on them as their rating is one of the worst I have seen.



Quote from birdman:

That's ideal, but i need a back-up with the shares of this bank falling like a rock, plus i like a bank that pays 1% interest if possible.

I'll check them out! [/B]
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