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credit unions & membership requirements
Dec. 1st, 2015 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brainwaneI recently started looking at credit unions that are interested in serving small businesses, and although a lot of them have pretty exclusive membership requirements, I found out about two that have interesting prerequisites you might find doable. (I only looked up stuff for US residents, sorry.)
There's an ethical argument for joining credit unions but there are also the general financial arguments -- there are often better rates and lower fees for various banking products, including credit cards and mortgages. Thought it was worth mentioning here.
- If you join the Financial Fitness Association (USD $8 per year), that gives you eligibility to join several credit unions, including First Tech Federal Credit Union. First Tech consistently gets a lot of recommendations on Ask MetaFilter, e.g., "interest-bearing checking accounts with no minimum balance, 2-factor authentication, online banking and bill-pay" and "friendly to foreigners" and "best bank in the world" and "their staff is great, caring, competent, and actually funny, and they're never too busy". I am particularly thinking about First Tech because they are open to serving businesses.
- The UNFCU or United Nations Federal Credit Union has various cool features, such as toll-free international numbers, customer service via Skype calls, customer service via secure email or web chat, and ApplePay. One way to get membership eligibility is to become a member of UNA-USA, a nonprofit supporting the goals of the United Nations. That's USD$25 per year for an introductory membership or if you're on a fixed income, and if you're a student 25 years old or younger you can join UNA-USA for free. (The normal rate is USD$40 per year.) I am probably not going to join UNFCU right now because they aren't interested in serving businesses.
There's an ethical argument for joining credit unions but there are also the general financial arguments -- there are often better rates and lower fees for various banking products, including credit cards and mortgages. Thought it was worth mentioning here.
