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Bank of America has been an over-all great experience over the last few years, but it is a program based in banking, and when there's money involved, there is always a fight between parties about who gets the cash. Newer programs like Keep the Change offer more incentives to banking with Bank of America, more than ever!

Bank of America offers free checking to most people:

If you are a student
If you receive direct deposit

But, Bank of America doesn't offer free checks- one mark against them.

This particular bank does offer 24-hour over-the-phone live assistance and services including but not limited to:

Account Balances
Account Transfers
Questions
Banking Centers
Detailed Account Withdraw information

Online they feature a secure site with multiple protections on your account.
The website is easy to use and navigate, and it's simple enough anyone can understand it. It's also endearing with the ability to personalize (to a degree) your page and greetings.

Website features include but are not limited to:

Account Balances
Account Transfers
Questions
Banking Center Locations
Payment options for their Credit Cards
Detailed and Itemized statements
Visuals of checks used
Reorder forms for checks
Personal Information Change (address, phone, etc)
Keep the Change Tracking

Luckily, one of the newest programs introduced by Bank of America, Keep the Change, allows the bank to encourage savings and loyalty. Keep the Change rounds up every debit transaction in a given day to the nearest dollar. At the end of each business day (Sunday transactions are recorded on Monday) the difference between the rounded number and money spent is added up and deposited into your linked savings account. Each year the bank will match the saved money up to $250, but the catch is that you cannot withdraw the Keep the Change money- it will not be matched.

On some accounts the bank will charge you a fee after a certain number of savings transactions, but when you have Keep the Change, the fee will never be applied because of the program. Even if you aren't too keen on the money matching, Keep the Change is worth avoiding the Savings transaction fees.

One downfall in the online system is a lag between the Available Balance and Current Balance.

The Available Balance reflects up to date changes including withdraws and deposits to the account, but the Current Balance may reflect either more of less than the available amount. This lag is difficult because the most recent debit or check transactions will not be on the itemization, and therefore throw the balance off until they clear in a day or two.

Sometimes the two separate balances are useful because you can see what you've recently spent, but sometimes the lag can cause problems for those who don't keep a very detailed check ledger.

Overdraft protection for checking is almost non-existent, though there is one grace per year given to most accounts that will remove the fee. Slowly the charges for overdraft have been increasing, but at the same time, the bank has recently offered a semblance of protection through a credit card.

This particular credit cart is connected to the savings and checking account. When there is an overdraft, the items after-charged are charged to the credit card so there are no returned checks. It definitely has its advantages.

The only two improvements BOA could make on its offered checking services would be another option for overdraft, as well as a discount system on checks and cashiers checks to members who have been with the bank for extended periods with high merit.

After looking at the offerings of the other local banks, I'd rate Bank of America four out of five, Wells Fargo two out of five, Washington Mutual three out of five, and WSECU three out of five.

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