Charles Schwab and Chase Bank Review 2023

Charles Schwab

Charles Schwab is widely regarded as one of the best traditional investment options, but they also offer two different bank accounts with some pretty unique features for investors that I have never seen before. So right now, Charles Schwab offers what they call “high-yield investor checking accounts” and “high-yield investor savings accounts.” There are also a few other niche account options that we’ll talk about later in this blog post, but as the name suggests, these accounts are meant to seamlessly integrate with the popular Charles Schwab investing platform.

But that begs the question: who is this bank account for, and is it right for you? Starting with the Schwab Bank high-yield investor checking account, which has no monthly fees, no minimum balance requirements, and pays a flat APY of 0.25% on all account balances, Remember that this is a checking account, so earning any kind of interest at all is great, and many of Schwab’s national competitions have different balance tiers with higher account balances earning a higher APY.

So I do like the fact that this is a flat APY across the board for all account balances. Now Charles Schwab claims that there are no fees, and for the most part that is true, but if you actually dig into the fine print, their version of overdraft protection only applies if you have your Schwab checking, savings, and brokerage accounts linked together in order to cover that overdraft.

The Schwab checking account does come with the brokerage account, and they’re meant to be used together, which we’ll talk about in a second, but if you opt not to take advantage of all of those different features, then there is a $25 insufficient funds fee per transaction, so definitely keep that in mind. There are also no foreign transaction fees, which is great if you are frequently traveling internationally, and unlimited ATM fee reimbursements worldwide.

That means that no matter where you decide to withdraw cash around the world, not only is Schwab not going to charge you a fee, but they will also reimburse any and all ATM fees that the ATM provider may charge you. Personally, I’ve only ever seen this before with my Novo business banking account, and I absolutely love that feature, and have always wanted to see it with a personal bank account, so the fact that Schwab is finally offering this is a huge bonus in my opinion.

And honestly, it’s probably the best feature of this entire account. Speaking of withdrawing and using your cash, this account does come with the Schwab Bank Visa Platinum debit card. There’s nothing too special here, but this is going to offer you basic features like contactless payments, the ability to add this to your virtual wallet and pay with your phone, the ability to view and set transaction alerts using the Schwab app, lock and unlock your card, use two-factor authentication, travel alerts, and all of the card security and benefits that come with Visa Zero Liability Protection.

Moving on from there, we have the Schwab Bank High Yield Investor Savings Account, which again isn’t anything too flashy, but it offers you 0.28% APY at the time of writing this blog post, the same no-fee structure as the check-in accounts, and of course, unlimited ATM fee reimbursements worldwide. Again, 0.28% is nothing to write home about, but what I will say is that it is still 28 times better than their competition, such as Wells Fargo and Chase, which pay only 0.01%, as we’ll discuss in a moment. 

This is really meant to be used in conjunction with your Schwab brokerage accounts, meaning that the target audience of this product is really going to be investing the majority of their liquid cash, so they’re probably not that concerned about the return that they’re getting on their uninvested cash. Now, regardless of which account option or combination of accounts you decide to go with, every Schwab account can be managed online or from the highly-rated Schwab mobile app, and while I am a huge fan of being able to track multiple financial accounts under one application, the Schwab mobile app leaves a lot to be desired.

Don’t get me wrong, it does everything that you could possibly need, including managing your balances, viewing transactions, depositing checks remotely, transferring money, and all of that. It even has a pretty good education and news section where you can learn about what’s going on in the market and financial industry, but overall, the design just seems a little bit clunky and oversimplified in my opinion, but remember that that’s coming from someone who loves the sleek and modern designs of many of today’s most popular financial technology companies.

So if you’re coming from something like Chase or Wells Fargo, then this app is going to work great for you. But if you’re coming from something like SoFi or Chime and the sleek design that those platforms offer, then you’ll definitely be a little bit underwhelmed. I’ll also mention that all of the money in this account is fully FDIC insured up to $250,000 at this point.

But perhaps the best feature that we have not yet talked about is Schwab’s partnership with Zell. Zell is a third-party peer-to-peer payment processor, similar to Venmo or Cash App, and Zell has strategically partnered with a number of the largest national banks over the past few years to make it easier for you to send and receive money to and from basically any bank account in the United States.

In fact, this is a feature that a lot of modern fintech companies like SoFi do not currently have and something that a lot of users, myself included, have been asking for for a very long time. I absolutely love this integration, and it’s as easy as selecting the transfer and payments within the Schwab app, then selecting “send money with Zell.” And again, you can then send money to almost any U.S. bank account right from your smartphone in a safe and efficient way.

We’ve still got to talk about the really unique way that these accounts integrate with the Schwab brokerage accounts, but before we get to that, there’s one other curveball account option that I’m a pretty big fan of with Schwab currently. This is actually under the investment section of Schwab’s website since it’s technically a fixed-income vehicle, but that would be their certificates of deposit, also known as CDs.

Now, Schwab itself does not currently offer CDs, but they’re able to source the best rates across the industry right now, and they’re definitely doing a great job because right now, a one- to three-month CD is paying 2.42%, and a 10- to 18-month CD is paying 3.2% at the time of writing this blog post. So put that in perspective, in order to get 3% or more from a lot of their competitors, you’d be looking at locking your money into that CD for five years or more.

So the fact that you’re getting such a high guaranteed rate of return by locking your money away in a CD for just a few short months is definitely going to get a huge thumbs up from me. Now, I know that a certificate of deposit isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but getting a guaranteed rate of return of over 3% is definitely worth mentioning.

So I mentioned earlier that the Schwab high-yield investor bank accounts come with a standard Schwab brokerage account, and while the investing side of Schwab is not the topic of this blog post, needless to say, their investment options are abundant. Each of these accounts will have its own account number, but they can all be managed through the same Schwab mobile app, providing a convenient way to transfer funds between your banking and brokerage accounts, as well as setting up overdraft protection through the brokerage account.

So if you’re looking for a robust investing tool with every single investment option that you could possibly need that also has a decent banking platform attached to it, then this is likely going to be the best option on the market today. Before we wrap this one up though, I of course want to talk about Schwab’s customer service, which is actually really decent, and they offer phone and chat support, with their phone support being available 7 days per week.

Plus, while they are few and far between in my experience, Charles Schwab does have over 360 physical branch locations, so depending on where you live, if you do need to go into a brick-and-mortar bank for whatever reason, then at least you have that option as well. We have covered a lot of ground fairly quickly in this one, but the final question still remains: who is this account for?

While looking at the banking features on their own, there’s really nothing too crazy here, and while I do love the worldwide ATM fee reimbursement feature, that isn’t good enough on its own to make me want to open this account. If you want a hybrid banking model without going completely online, I believe the Capital One 360 accounts are still a better option.

However, if you already have a Charles Schwab investing account or you’re looking to open a more traditional investment account, then Charles Schwab beats out much of their competition. Capital One doesn’t offer any kind of investing, while Fargo’s investing platform is literal trash, and Chase, of course, has JP Morgan Chase investments, but again, the integration between the Chase banking platform and JP Morgan is not as seamless in my opinion as what Charles Schwab is currently offering. So if you’re looking for that one-stop investing and banking solution, but you don’t want to be fully online with a fintech company like SoFi, for example, then I’d say that these options from Charles Schwab are your best bet. 

Chase Bank

So in all seriousness, I do want to give Chase Bank a fair shot in this blog post since they are the highest-valued bank on the planet. Clearly, they’re doing something right, so let’s run through all of the account features and ultimately help you decide if it is still worth it in 2023.

So starting on the checking side of things, we have eight different account options, which I know sounds ridiculous, but for a majority of consumers, you’ll be looking at the everyday checking accounts, which consist of Chase total checking, Chase secure banking, and Chase premium plus checking. These are all largely the same, with only a few differences in the ATM fees and the check designs that you’re able to get, but for 99% of consumers, the Chase total checking account is going to be your best option.

With this, you have access to their network of over 16,000 free-to-use ATMs and 4,700 physical brick-and-mortar locations. And they also now have their Chase deposit-friendly ATMs, where not only can you withdraw cash, but you can actually deposit cash into your account at an ATM, which I think is pretty cool.

Now, there’s no minimum deposit requirement in order to open this account. However, the first red flag that we run into here is the $12 monthly service fee that applies to this account unless you jump through some hoops in order to get it waived. Now truthfully, getting that monthly fee waived is not that difficult, and you either have to have $500 of direct deposits each month, a daily balance of $1,500 or more, or an average daily balance of $5,000 or more across all of your linked Chase accounts.

So if you’re using this as your main banking platform, then more than likely you’ll have $1,500 in this account, but I think we can all agree that if you don’t meet one of those requirements, you absolutely should not open this account, because paying a $12 monthly fee if you’ve only got $1,000 in here is absolutely ridiculous, and there are way better options on the market that cost nothing.

With this account, you obviously have access to a number of online features as well, including Chase Quick Deposit, their online bill payment features, their partnership with Zell that allows you to send money to pretty much any US bank account, and most of the basic features that you would come to expect from your average bank account. 

Now, as I said, there are also two premium versions of the checking accounts called Chase Sapphire Banking and Chase Private Client Checking, which both have monthly fees of $25 and $35, respectively, that you can likely get waived, and these premium accounts do come with some higher transfer limits, dedicated customer service, and a few other bells and whistles that the everyday checking account does not have, like no-fee ATM withdrawals worldwide.

Again, though, I wouldn’t bother with these accounts unless you are able to get that monthly fee waived, which, in the case of the Chase Sapphire Banking account, means you need $75,000 or more in this account in order to get that fee waived. And lastly, on the checking side of things, we have perhaps the best account options of the entire Chase Banking platform, and that would be the Chase First Banking, Chase High School Checking, and Chase College Checking, which obviously are all accounts that are geared towards specific age groups, starting from 6 years old, going all the way up to college students at 24 years old.

These accounts have similar features to what we just talked about but come with tools for parents, like the ability to set recurring allowances and assign chores, limited overdraft protection, autosave tools, and some other features that I honestly wish the regular everyday checking accounts had. We’ll come back to the checking accounts at the end of this blog post, but we’ve still got a lot to cover, so let’s move on to the Chase savings accounts.

Similar to the checking account, there are standard and premium versions of the savings account, but thankfully there are fewer options to choose from since we only have the Chase Savings and Chase Premium Savings. Again, both of these accounts come with the same basic features, but the premium version does come with better customer service and supposedly better interest rates, but that brings us to the biggest red flag across the entire Chase banking platform.

I’ll preface this by saying that, in my opinion, interest rates aren’t that important on a bank account, because if you’re really that concerned about getting as much return as possible on your money, then you’ll probably be investing that money instead and earning way more each year than any bank account could offer. 

However, I know that for me, despite the fact that I have a majority of my net worth invested in the stock market, I still keep a lot of cash on the sidelines, and I also have my emergency fund on the sidelines, and it’s nice to earn a little bit of interest on that money, but unfortunately, Chase offers just 0.01% APY, and even with the premium savings accounts, which they claim offer premier relationship rates, it still only pays you 0.02%.

To put that in perspective, the bank account that I currently use is paying me 2% APY at the time of writing this blog post, which is 200 times more than what Chase is currently paying. And to add insult to injury, if you do have to pay that monthly service fee for whatever reason, it’s probably going to be several years’ worth of interest, plus they charge some random $5 savings withdrawal limit fee and, worst of all, a $34 insufficient funds fee. 

So not only do you have to pay to open this account and jump through a bunch of hoops in order to get that monthly fee waived, but even if you do all of that, they’re still going to pay you next to nothing in interest, charge you ridiculous fees if you withdraw from this account too many times, and charge you a huge fee if you accidentally overdraft on the account.

I understand that all of these things were common in the banking world like 20 years ago, but with so many better options on the market, I just can’t understand why Chase refuses to adapt to the modern, no-fee, high-yield banking model that the entire industry is moving towards. Obviously, they have a ton of financial tools across the board, and JP Morgan Chase, again, is the highest-valued bank on the planet, so they’re clearly doing something right.

But, if they continue on this path, I wouldn’t be surprised if, in my lifetime, some of these popular online financial technology companies take a significant amount of market share away from Chase, if not completely pass them. Stepping off my soapbox for a second, the good news is that the Chase mobile app is actually pretty decent, and while it’s not going to win any awards for design, you are able to not only track and view your Chase banking tools from this app, but also your investment accounts, your Chase credit cards, and any app that allows you to view multiple Having all my financial accounts and tools on one platform are going to be positive for me.

Another positive is that Chase does have a ton of CD options, but once again, that positive is quickly squandered by the fact that even with a 10-year CD at relationship rates, it pays just 0.05%, and that’s only if you have $10,000 or more in that CD. Again, to put that in perspective, Charles Schwab has a one-year CD right now, paying 3.2% at the time of writing this blog post, with no minimum deposit requirements or any loopholes to jump through, so at the 0.02% rate that most of the CDs from Chase currently pay, it would take you about 160 years in a Chase CD to match just one year in that Charles Schwab CD.

So what is this overarching theme in all of this? Obviously, things are not looking great for Chase. Well, honestly, this account only makes sense to me if you either do not care about the rates that you earn on your money or if you want to have a vast network of physical banks that you can go into at any time.  But the fact is, having giant fancy buildings in New York and San Francisco is really expensive, and someone has to pay for that, and unfortunately, that someone is you in the form of foregone interest rates. The reason SoFi is able to offer 2% APY is that they don’t have any giant buildings to maintain in some of the most expensive cities in the country, and a lot of those savings then get passed on to the customers as a result.

Now I will admit that Chase does have some of the best youth account options for teenagers and college students, and I like the fact that those products are specifically focused on that age group. You all also know that Chase offers some of my favorite credit card products that are on the market, and while that has absolutely nothing to do with banking, if you do have a number of Chase credit cards that you frequently use, then having a Chase bank account might make sense if you want to have everything under one application.

But if you’re just looking for that hybrid banking model that still offers a brick-and-mortar location and has some more modern features, then personally, I feel that Capital One has seen the writing on the wall and has rapidly adapted to the changing banking world as a result. But this is all just my opinion, and I truly wanted to give Chase a fair shot. And I hope I achieved that in this blog post, but there are just some major red flags, which is why I feel it’s time for all of us to break up with Chase. I’d love to know what you think of Charles Schwab and Chase Bank in the comments section below and whether or not you think they are worth it in 2023.