Recommend a bank/credit union

I've been with USAA for about 20 years now, and recently it's dawned on me that there's basically no reason or benefit for me to stay with them. My wife and I will be moving to western NY state early next year so there might be some local credit unions with good perks, but I wanted to ask in here as well.

Does anyone have any recommendations for banks or credit unions that are especially good? I've already switched my savings over to Discover, 4.25%, hard to argue with that.

PenFed?

Navy Federal

If they have Kroger Grocery stores in the area they should have KEMBA credit union.  I've been really happy with them.  All the benefits of the big guys with none of the BS.  They even have brick and mortar locations when you actually need a human for something like wire transfer etc.

When I lived in Western New York, I found M&T was fairly decent. That was a while back, though. Time tends to change how banks operate over time. I tend to dump banks often because they start off with great rates and then inflict fees once they get bigger or get taken over. No way I'm paying a bank to hold my money. If it ever gets to that point it's back to shoe boxes in old fridges with guard dogs and a rifle .

Find a local credit union that participates in shared branching.

There's a difference between a bank and a credit union.  Guess which is not-for-profit?

In reply to bludroptop :

Non-profit is a misnomer. Just means at the end of their year the balance sheet needs to be largely zero or negative. They can still make millions as long as they give it away in some form.

Ranger50 said:

PenFed?

PenFed IME has the same issue - hardly any branches, and at least the last time I looked, doesn't take part in the shared branching network anymore. I'm a member, and I'm fortunate to have a branch in "driving distance" - at least 90 minutes away (:/).

I think local-ish bank or CU is probably the best choice if one doesn't want to have an account with a TBTF bank.

Ranger50 said:

In reply to bludroptop :

Non-profit is a misnomer. Just means at the end of their year the balance sheet needs to be largely zero or negative. They can still make millions as long as they give it back to the membership in the form of lower rates and higher dividends.

Fixed  :)