On a related note - it appears to me that credit unions are no longer what the conventional wisdom said they are either - a small community and customer-minded institution.
In practice - I frequently see them being bought up or transferring management and resembling the national chains in how they operate more and more. Not sure what the difference is to be honest.
Credit unions "legally" have to be owned by the customers, but this doesn't guarantee they'll be any good.
Many of them decided "going online" was too hard, and outsourced all that stuff to providers. It can take some research to find a good local credit union that actually works well, and sometimes you have to accept the way they do things vs how you want to do things.
Our local credit onion services AND holds 10 year mortgages, everything else they resell and service for awhile, but the servicing may get sold off, too. This can mean that even if you find a perfect bank to borrow from that changes shortly after you sign.
Or you can switch some stuff to the massive brokerage houses, which all have associated banks and pretty decent staff/cost/features.
On a related note - it appears to me that credit unions are no longer what the conventional wisdom said they are either - a small community and customer-minded institution.
In practice - I frequently see them being bought up or transferring management and resembling the national chains in how they operate more and more. Not sure what the difference is to be honest.