Wells Fargo has a great combination account called a PMA account. As long as you carry $25,000 in balances in your checking, brokerage, and credit card accounts with Wells Fargo, you qualify for PMA status. You merely need to call them up and "switch" to a PMA, though none of your account numbers will change.
With the PMA account you get:
- No service fees on your checking account, including foreign ATM fees (you still have to pay the other companies' ATM fees unless you follow my advice in this previous post).
- No charge for online bill pay, which I have found to be a HUGE time saver.
- Premium interest rates on your checking account (but still not as good as the online money market accounts mentioned in this previous post).
- 100 free stock or mutual fund trades per year.
- Free enrollement in the rewards program for Wells Fargo credit cards (offers 1% cash back and is a good backup to the cards suggested in this previous post).
As far as I have seen, this is one of the best all-in-one brokerage/checking setups you can find anywhere. If you are "paying" for checking and have a brokerage account with $25,000 in it you should definitely consider switching to the Wells Fargo PMA account today. If you find a better all-in-one account please let me know in the comments.
6 comments:
If you have a mortgage with Wells Fargo, it counts towards the relationship amount. As a result, I have a PMA account. I have found the service top notch.
only 10% of your mortgage counts toward the relationship but your full balance on savings/checking, credit cards, loans, personal line, HELOC, Auto loan and brokerage will count toward the package. you also get discounted rates on loans and you own private customer service line.
Yeah and if you don't have any 'activity' for a few months they will freeze your account. You would be surprised how many things you can do and still have it count as 'no activity'---transferring money to a broker for example doesn't count!!!!!!!
They are basically crooks.
Be wary of the checking fees. Initially seems like a good deal with brokerage free trades. Got nailed by some fees while shifting money around (went below the relationship limit for just a few days), and ended up being a hassle with a negative checking account (not my primary checking). Dealt with customer service and they have no grace period for this kind of thing.
10% of your mortgage balance counts towards the PMA $25k
I signed on the PMA account on the phone without knowing there is a $30 monthly fee if balance dropped below $25,000. Shortly after I opened the PMA account, I transferred my IRA account and leave only $210 in the account. I did not have online access so I did not check my acount. Within 7 months, I made one deposit about $50. After 7 months, I checked my online account, found out WF took $210($30 times 7). The fee is between of 15 to 50% of my total asset. Complained to WF without success. So beware of this monthly fee.
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