The other day, after noting that Chase bank had charged me $12 service charge for not having maintained the minimum balance I decided to google the phrase used in the subject line in this thread. Of course, If I had a monthly pension deposited in this account I could avoid this fee as well. But alas, I don´t.
I came across an article on Investopedia that had the following financial institutions listed as their top ten:
Capital One
Charles Schwab Bank
Citibank
HSBC
Alliant Credit Union
First Republic Bank
Ally Bank
Connexus Credit Union
Navy Federal Credit Union
Fidelity Investments
The Capital One was at the top of the list and had the following description associated with it:
Expats can use the Capital One 360 interest-bearing checking solution offered by Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF) without paying maintenance, foreign transaction or ATM fees. Account owners can set up direct deposits and link 360 checking to investment accounts at Capital One to manage their portfolios online.
I tried to open an account online at capitalone360.com this past weekend. It was necessary to establish a vpn to the U.S.A to get through the screens, but at the end of the process it said due to security concerns I would need to call to finish the process. So today I called and finished the process of opening the account. My mailing address in the U.S. is a private mail box with U.S. Global Mail. . They had no problem with that. They do not allow p.o. boxes, however.
While clearly I can avoid the maintenance fee with this account, I will be curious to see what, if any, fee I will be charge for using the ATM. I currently am dinged $5 with Chase bank each time I use the ATM.