[panzer_wyrm]

Slighlty offtopic - but why are not debit cards popular in US. A card in which you put money and withdraw/pay untill they ran out. No overdraft/credit/direct debit bullshit to be concerned with.

They are perfect solutions for the poor and underbanked... whatever that means. Small fees, small charges, impossible to rack gazzilion dollars in penalty fees.

[stephen_g]

The whole idea of being 'unbanked' or 'underbanked' is so foreign to me (as an Australian). The whole state of banking just seems so antiquated in the US...

I'm 26, and I've never written a cheque. Public schools over here have (or at least had, not sure how it works today) programs where every student would get a bank account in the first grade with no fees (until they finished study). You'd actually bring in your bank book and deposit money (you did have to visit the branch to withdraw with a parent to sign for it). Once you reached 13 years, you could get a debit card (this was 2003 for me), and then I got Internet banking when it started getting popular in 2006 (I was in the 10th grade). Internet transfers have pretty much always been free and are usually overnight (or immediate if it's to another account at the same bank).

By the time I graduated University, and would have had to start paying fees, the state of bank competition meant that it was pretty rare for any personal banking to charge fees. I now have three personal transaction ('checking') accounts and two savings accounts across two different banks, and none of them charge fees (My company account is the exception, at $10 a month).

Pretty much everybody here has bank accounts, so cheques are pretty much unheard of (mostly used by people over 60), everybody is paid into bank accounts, you pay taxes and bills electronically, etc... Surely it's similar in Europe? The US just seems like a different world.

[SyneRyder]

> Public schools over here have... programs where every student would get a bank account in the first grade with no fees

I think those are actually promotional programs run by the banks (but I agree they're a good thing). I'm 10 years older, but we were all given Commonwealth Bank Dollarmites accounts. There's more info on the Dollarmites program here, apparently schools get affiliate fees & commissions for every deposit the children make ($5 for every account opened, 5% commission on every deposit):

https://www.commbank.com.au/personal/kids/school-banking.htm...

> the state of bank competition meant that it was pretty rare for any personal banking to charge fees

That might have changed, last time I checked the major Australian banks all (except NAB) charged a $5 monthly fee, unless you agreed to setup an automatic monthly deposit of at least $2000. You used to be able to get fee-free accounts so long as you maintained a minimum balance level.

[falsedan]

> Commonwealth Bank Dollarmites

I still have the plastic piggy-bank somewhere (and a Fat Cat one, to really date myself).

By the time I went to uni, I had enough saved for a brand new Pentium Celeron system. It sure helped that interest rates were 10-15%…

[SyneRyder]

> I still have the plastic piggy-bank somewhere (and a Fat Cat one, to really date myself).

We're probably a similar age, I met Fat Cat on an Ansett flight once ;)

But clearly customer acquisition at a young age is huge for banks - I'm part of a focus group for Westpac, and recently they tested several different designs for piggy banks.

(Another initiative is already public, where they've giving $200 to every child born in Australia this year. Catch is, the parents have to open a Westpac account to claim it, and the money can't be withdrawn until the child turns 18.)

[flukus]

> I think those are actually promotional programs run by the banks (but I agree they're a good thing)

Commonwealth bank was government owned at the time.

[stephen_g]

Yep, my first account was through the Dollarmite program too.

Looks like you're right on fees - I didn't realise. One (NAB subsidiary) doesn't have fees, and for the other two transaction accounts I don't get charged the $4 p/m fee because I have my salary put into the savings account they're linked to.

[VLM]

"The whole idea of being 'unbanked' or 'underbanked' is so foreign to me"

I explained it to Korean coworker that our debtors prison is implemented as a house arrest or like an economic parole release.

So if you owe child support because you're unemployed you can't use a bank because the money would disappear. You can't get money from a job in the system it would disappear so cash pay please. Or you can't go to the courthouse and get it fixed because lawyers cost money and see above you're unemployed. Once you're in debtors prison there's a whole bunch of things you can no longer do, just like being under house arrest or parole. For example, for a couple decades 90s-10s we had universal default as a stated written policy. We still have it, just unstated, which confuses foreigners. On paper we don't have universal default since 2010 or so. In practice we still have it today, more or less.

Adding to the complexity we do have actual debtors prisons most famously in the rural south but to some extent or another there are some everywhere.

I guess another way to explain it is part of our culture is explicit and written and people read it, like generally speaking the bible or the -ez single page income tax form. Then there's a layer thats written and people make a great show of not reading like mortgage or car loans or insurance contracts. Next down there's unwritten stuff that people understand like the debtors prison thing is I think fairly uncontroversial and reasonably well informed. Below that there's stuff we kinda unconsciously by osmosis know, like the "unbanked"="house arrest debtors prison" or "underbanked"="financial equivalent of parole complete with abused arbitrary rules". At the bottom there's weird esoteric stuff like non-propaganda related economic theory and history. And the level of awareness is extremely uneven across the entire nation (fairly uniform across subcultures, mostly).

[eddieroger]

Debit cards are popular in the US, but so are overdraft fees (from the bank's perspective, anyway). When I last opened a checking and savings account, I was offered overdraft protection on my debit purchases, and though the default was to have it, I opted out. Why risk the fee? Granted, I'm not necessarily in the same position as every American, or even those in the article, but I would rather be embarrassingly denied my $4 cup of coffee than have it turn in to a $104 cup of coffee.

[peteretep]

    > No overdraft/credit/direct debit bullshit
    > to be concerned with

I admire your faith in the altruism of banks, but my UK bank used to happily let me go overdrawn using my debit card, and then hit me with an unarranged overdraft fee.

[d4rti]

Sure, this can happen. I think it's a reasonable assertion to say that the UK banking system is, by and large, better than the US one across all income groups.

[Zachery]

They are, but only kind of. Most places give you a MasterCard Debit or a Visa Debit. Its just linked directly to your bank account.

They (the banks) pass the security and processing to the CC systems instead of a unified debit network (that is still around).

When I got my first fancy visa debit i was told if i used it as a debit card, I'd get charged 25 cents, but if used it as credit there were no transaction fees. This was back in 2001-2 ?

I bank with a local(ish) bank that is growing, I have a free checking account and have for a very long time. They've also been really good to be about waiving fees, etc, though part of that is being on a legacy account older than I am. However other friends and family have reasonably similar experiences.

They're also still offering a free checking account: https://www.huntington.com/Personal/checking/asterisk-free-c...

[flukus]

I was wondering the same thing. From the comments it seems as though the US banking system seems to be stuck in the 80's. I can't believe they still have checking accounts, in my mid 30's now and I've cashed one check in my life.

[briandear]

Come to France. People use checks all the time. You still have to visit your "personal banker" to accomplish many tasks. If US banking is in the 80s, then French banking is in the 60s.

And "checking account" doesn't mean "with this account I write a lot of checks." In the US there are general two types of accounts, checking and savings. I haven't written a check on my US account in over 15 years.. Though in France I probably write a few paper checks a month.

My point is that "checking" account is just a terminology -- the vast majority of people don't write checks (unless you're over the age of 80.)

[alkonaut]

> "checking" account is just a terminology

It's what you might call a "salary account" in other places then. It's where your pay(check - haha) ends up, and what you use for regular day to day transactions such as paying bills.

I also get confused when abroad and there are buttons to withdraw from "checking" "savings" etc. I have a handful of accounts that I name myself so it's always hard to know.

[falsedan]

> you might call a "salary account" in other places

UK => Current Account

AU => Transaction Account (although my bank brands it as an 'Everyday' account)

The worst thing about US Checking accounts is that they don't come with checks, and you have to arrange with a third-party printer to get a book of checks sent to you.

[MrRadar]

When I opened my account with my credit union they gave me 2 free boxes of checks. In the 5 years since I haven't even used a single book of them so this should be a sufficient supply for a lifetime.

[alkonaut]

I'm so glad I have never used a check. I'm 40 and haven't even paid a bill without using the internet (so basically for 22 years now).