Any fellow Angelenos have suggestions for a new bank, now that Chase is a' chiselin'?

[PurityOfEssence]

I don't want to pay the service charge that they're about to start assessing on both my personal checking and business accounts.

Yeah, I guess I can keep $1.5K hostage in the personal checking to avoid the charge, but I just don't want to, and I'm a freelancer, so I can't set up an automatic deposit. The business account is much more annoying: they want a balance of $5K for this.

Any suggestions?

[Angry Dragon]

1. Check out a Credit Union

[DBoon]

4. Here you go

Straight from the LA Business Journal to you

http://www.cbjonline.com/a2labj/lists/2010-Credit-Unions-1-25.pdf

[dembotoz]

2. yep

generally
kinder and gentler

[denbot]

3. We have bailed from the banks 5 years ago.

We belong to two credit unions.

[Lionel Mandrake]

5. Shop around.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Those minimum balances sound high to me. Some other bank probably has a better deal.

2. Most banks have special deals for seniors (which may or may not apply to you).

3. You might be able to schedule your own automatic deposits from an account at another financial institution. The banks don't care where the money comes from; they encourage automatic deposits to reduce the traffic at the tellers' windows.

[PurityOfEssence]

6. Thanks Guys!

We already have one account at a Credit Union, so I'll research that some more, but I was being lazy and relying on this as a resource.