Discover has announced the elimination of fees from all of its deposit products – including checking, savings, money market and CD accounts. Discover will not have any fees for overdrafts, insufficient funds, excessive withdrawals, and stop-payment requests. They already offer accounts with no fees for monthly maintenance, checkbook orders or replacement debit cards.
I love these things banks do to simplify the accounts. There’s money savings there too, but to me the bigger thing is the simplicity of knowing I don’t have to think about researching whether this, that, or the other will result in a fee. There are some smaller fin-tech banks who offer these kind of completely-fee-free accounts, Discover will be the first major bank to do this too. Apple did a similar thing when they launched their credit card by eliminating fees entirely. I expect we’ll see more of this as competition does it job.
Discover offers a free online checking account with 1% back on debit purchases, and they also have a reasonably competitive savings rate of 2.10-2.15%, making it a pretty good option for a checking/savings combo.
Update: Note, there still are, presumably, fees for wire transfers. Also, not all ATMs are free, only those in network. Also, if you break a CD early, presumably that fee still applies. There may be some other fees which can come up as well.
This appears to be PR bit meant to distract banking customers from something else, or perhaps to clamor for market share amidst falling interest rates.
I’d like the know the real reason, but I doubt it’s to draw in hobbyists.
Does this apply for wire transfers too?
I assume there’s no ATM fee rebate – although this fee is not charged by them. Also what about wires?
Ahh, good point, I assume they still charge for wires, otherwise it would be too good to be true. Also, it looks like not all ATMs are free. So my title is not really accurate to say they eliminated all fees. Let me add a note.
Wait? No overdraft fees? Does that mean I can overdraft a million dollars (and invest it elsewhere) and they’ll happily let me leave by bank balance at -$1,000,000 indefinitely?
Please feel free to try this. We are all waiting for you to provide the first DP.
They can easily deny the transaction and not charge you a fee, which makes charging OD fees by other banks insane. Banks should just deny OD transactions unless they are willing to float the money for a long-time/good customer.
You don’t think they might reject your transaction/bounce your check like banks always did before overdraft was a thing?
This is such a stupid post showing zero understanding of how banking works.
How about overdraft $X for Y days? Characterize, in terms of X and Y, what would be allowed?
My first thought on seeing the title was “no penalty for withdrawing from a CD before maturity?” I guess that’s not considered a “fee.”
Good point, I’ll add a note.
If we open Discover checking account, what type of debit (ATM) card we get ? I never use debit card for purchases, but ATM card is very important for me. Can we withdraw money outside the USA. I travel a lot.
You can withdraw money from the global partnerships of discover.
https://www.discoverglobalnetwork.com/en-intl/partner-with-us/networks
It’s actually a big deal if they eliminate all those fees as well.
It’s a Discover (equivalent to VISA/MC) debit card with Diners Club International and pulse also listed.
This is Discover’s one sticking point as a checking account. You can only withdraw money in the US, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. No withdrawals allowed outside North America.
Thanks
This post is misleading and provides false information. I personally withdraw money with discover multiple times in China and never got rejected.
How can they offer no fee on excessive withdrawls? Does that mean we can withdraw as many times as we need from our savings account now instead of limited to 6?
I’m assuming they’ll convert the account to a checking account if you push that too far. That’s what Chase does I think
FWIW, when I exceeded 6 transactions on my Capital One 360 savings account a few months in a row, they closed my accounted and moved all the funds into the 360 Checking…
No. It just means there won’t be a fee. If you do it more than occasionally they will close the account.
what is occasionally though? 7 withdraw? 70?
Never liked Discover Bank, customer service is pretty awful a few years ago. But this is a great change and moves the industry in the right direction
I have had nothing but positive experiences with CSRs. And none of the fake “experiencing heavier than normal call volume” BS. Always get someone almost immediately and US based. Hopefully your experience is well in the past. Now if only Discover was more universally accepted…
Interesting, with no more free on excessive withdrawals, does that mean they block the 7th withdrawal attempt, it that you can use it like a checking account?
Good question–I know in the past with a CU, I got a warning on the 7th. Not sure how they would treat that.
I had the same thought initially, but it says on their site if you do this excessively your account will be closed or converted to a checking account.
Savings accounts are mandated by Regulation D. If you did this for 3 months consecutively, they’d be forced by the government to either convert it to another checking, and you wouldn’t earn interest anymore or shut it down.
This is very smart on their end. Plus, the mail out nice SUBs for checking deposits. I will take them up on the offer.