Valleydirect
They’Ve Been Pretty Good To Me
ValleyDirect has been good to me since I opened an account with them. The competitive savings rate that they’ve recently increased for new and existing customers is what keeps me with them. Their customer service has been helpful to me when I needed it.
Valley Bank has been around for a while and is in the top 50 banks in terms of assets nationally. They definitely don’t get enough attention for their competitive offerings, but they should! I’ve now moved all of my banking to Valley.
Daily Withdrawal Limits
FYI - If you're using their Savings Account for high $$$, there is a daily withdrawal limit of $25,000. Fine for 99.9% probably, but not for all. Then again, it's YOUR money so why the cap when others like CIT or DollarSavingDirect, etc., have none?
Beware Transfer Limits
Beware of transfer limits that make it near impossible to get your money if you need it quickly. You can send up to $3,500 per day and $12,500 per month.
You can receive up to $45,000 per day and up to $75,000 per month.
Only other way to get large sums is through a check that they will mail to you.
Also I believe they will not verify ownership of your account with other financial institutions if you want to connect your other bank accounts through their system to get around the limits.
I would NOT bank here if you plan on transferring larger sums of money.
Not Worth The Hassle
I have very good credit, and 7 credit freezes going. I temp lifted Chexsystems, since that's the one Valley told me they check. When I applied, I was rejected. The email said something about "3rd Party Freeze". I literally spent/wasted an entire day dealing with this. Long story short, I temp unfroze ALL of my freezes, and tried again the next morning. Rejected again. Same reason given via email, even though I now had no active freezes. Tried calling ValleyDirect CS again, and (as usual) waited on hold for 15 minutes, and finally said, screw this.
I checked out Vio Bank, looked okay, same great rate, called CS as a test and they picked up immediately, and they were nice and helpful, so applied on their site, the process was easy, they asked me security questions (proving, I think, that my LexisNexis freeze was indeed temp unfrozen), it all worked, the two trial deposits were in my external account the next morning, and that morning I was up and running with my new Vio account and online banking. Easy, and smooth. The opposite of Valley Direct.
The couple times I spoke with Valley Direct CS (after waiting on hold for too long, IMO), they were very nice, which spurred me to keep trying, but it just wasn't worth the hassle, not when there are so many other viable options.
Health Grade Components
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| FDIC Certificate # | 9396 |
| Year Established | 1927 |
| Employees | 3901 |
| Primary Regulator | OCC |
| Profit Margin | |
|---|---|
| Return on Assets - YTD | 0.99% |
| Return on Equity - YTD | 8.4% |
| Annual Interest Income | $1.51B |
| Assets and Liabilities | ||
|---|---|---|
| Assets | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $61.70B$54.44B |
| Loans | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $49.47B$43.11B |
| Deposits | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $49.78B$43.92B |
| Equity Capital | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $7.31B$6.92B |
| Loan Loss Allowance | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $436.4MM$468.8MM |
| Unbacked Noncurrent Loans | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $269.0MM$329.9MM |
| Real Estate Owned | Q2 2023vs Q2 2022 | $824.00K$422.00K |