I Need Two Banks

Hobbs_M | Jun 21, 2024 | 38 posts since 2024

Has anyone had any dealings with First National Bank of Pennsylvania? This is one of the banks that Moody's and Weiss have moved to negative status and/or considering downgrading. I am currently doing business with F.N.B. Corp. It's difficult to limit dealings with only the 7 largest banks. The safety rating has remained A for F.N.B. Corp for quite a while and only recently declined.

Has anyone had any dealings with PNC or Fifth Third, I see that they are also on the negative list. I'm looking for 2 banks other than the big 7, safety being the first criteria, service and interest also being key points.

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Answers

txFish1 | Jun 21, 2024 | 476 posts since 2023

Hobbs_M My wife and I had a joint account at PNC that included their virtual wallet and a couple of CD's for many years. We used it as a backup to our Fidelity brokerage account and to have a local brick and mortar close by. When we first opened the accounts they were OK but in recent years the service was awful. Spent way too much time correcting their mistakes and the last 2 CD's we had with them when they matured it took 2-3 days just to get the funds into our savings for transfer. We closed all of our accounts with them a little over a year ago so maybe it has changed. Just my experience. Good luck!

111 | Jun 22, 2024 | 672 posts since 2019

Also - to the new DA.com powers-that-be and to ya'll, the users -

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Hobbs_M | Jun 22, 2024 | 38 posts since 2024

Thanks to everyone for your experience regarding PNC. Your input has always been valuable to me. I continue to receive advertisements for PNC and Fifth Third for 4.65% interest through Sept. But I'm not interested in banks that may be experiencing financial or service challenges. I've moved some liquid bank funds to my Fidelity cash management account. Currently they pay 2.72% and they use multiple banks to qualify up to $5 million FDIC protection or you can select SPAXX for 4.96% but it does not qualify for FDIC insurance. I also use Vanguard to a lesser degree; their cash management earns around 4.6% and they use multiple banks to qualify up to $1.5 million FDIC protection. I also use them for low risk investments that earn around 4.5-5.5%, money markets, etc. They both have their nuances and I wish the CDs earned compound interest but I can deal with small charges and reinvesting the money. I have Schwab for other reasons but not for their cash management account. If anyone uses another brokerage with cash management solutions they would recommend or has savings or money market rates guaranteed through a financial institution for 9+ months please share. Thanks again for your input. Have a great evening!

sams1985 | Jun 23, 2024 | 781 posts since 2022

I have had this same dilemma on what to do with excess liquid funds and settled on Fidelity’s US treasury only MMF- FSIXX. It’s been paying about 5.2% state tax exempt(not 100% but very close) for over a year now. I saved thousands in state income taxes last year alone. There is a one million dollar minimum buy in but once the buy in amount threshold is met you can remain in the fund even if you go below $1 million. There’s no FDIC/SIPC coverage but 2 things :

1) the MMF investments are backed by the US treasury and thus the US govt (unlike spaxx, etc.)
2) Fidelity investments is never going to fail.

IMHO, it’s essentially safer than any bank or other MMF out there.

The best part - while the money is in the MMF I can still access it anytime bc it’s my core position. It essentially acts as a fully liquid account. I pay all my bills with my fidelity CC and when my auto pay date hits Fidelity will automatically sell off the corresponding amount from my FSIXX holding. Interest is deposited monthly and gets automatically reinvested in the same fund.
In the extremely rare event that I ever need to write a physical check or need boat loads of cash, I have 2 checking accounts with capitol one and chase opened. I can send a free wire from fidelity and have access to any amount of money within an hour.

Vanguard has a similar fund that has a slightly higher yield but I like Fidelity’s private client status much better.

Hobbs_M | Jun 23, 2024 | 38 posts since 2024

sams1985

Good info -thanks for the heads up on FSIXX. I just transferred more money into Fidelity so it's definitely something I will look into. I have the PCG status but haven't really taken advantage of it as of yet. I'm sure a need will arise in the future. I don't want to initiate any action that results in continuous phone calls. But I'm sure that isn't the case with PCG.

Hobbs_M | Jun 21, 2024 | 38 posts since 2024

Any help is much appreciated!

I_eat_bass | Jun 21, 2024 | 37 posts since 2024

no offense but does the thought of bank failures seriously keep you up at night???? just stay under 250k / 500k or find a credit union. they're much less like to fail Calvin

Hobbs_M | Jun 22, 2024 | 38 posts since 2024

No offense taken...I_eat_bass

Personally I'm trying to prevent going through a bank failure versus dealing with one.

Hobbs_M | Jun 22, 2024 | 38 posts since 2024

And no I_eat_bass
possible bank failures do not keep me up at night. I'm blessed, I enjoy life and try to keep things in perspective but if I do have a sleepless night the challenges our country faces as well as those of my loved ones would be my heavy hitters.

111 | Jun 21, 2024 | 672 posts since 2019

Hobbs_M - I've had accounts at PNC since well before they took over National City Bank in my area (IL), which was circa-2010. That itself was kind of amusing - being Midwestern, Natl. City was not really a player in the main "sand state" subprime mortgage financial crisis - that occurred mostly in banks who did business out West. But when Natl. City saw all those glorious West Coast "profits" being made, it decided it had to be a player in the FL mortgage marketplace, even a late player, and it suffered the consequences. They ended up not bad off enough to require direct FDIC takeover, but enough to require a "shotgun wedding" whereby PNC got (as I recall) a $6 billion guaranteed Federal loan to acquire Natl. City. for about $7 billion. But I guess that's enough wandering down memory lane.

Where I live, PNC has since closed about 40% of it's branches that Natl. City fervently built pre-2008, and opened no new ones. I've kept local "brick-and-mortar" accounts with 2 "big-banks" - PNC (regional) and Chase (a megabank) - just in case I needed services that are sometimes hard to find locally like medallion guarantees, etc. I must say PNC was very helpful in doing this back in 2013-2014. But since I haven't needed those services in a while I'll probably rethink that soon and cut it to 1, probably Chase. Both the Chase and the PNC branch managers have within the past year admitted to me that their legal depts. have told them they can no longer offer the breadth of services they used to, even for long-time customers. So perhaps I should soon put the $5K that PNC requires to remain in my account to provide these services, to better use!

Also, PNC is one of those banks that bases its "new account", "promotional", etc. rates based upon it's geographic location footprint. So somehow, the rates that DA.com shows for PNC are always better than the rates that the local branch says they can actually give me! So I long ago stopped using PNC for any actual deposit-account investments.

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