Update: As part of the $100 promotion that Northpointe are currently running with us, Bill has agreed to answer some more questions. So ask away below and we’ll try to get you some answers early next week! If you haven’t already, I’d recommend signing up for the $100 promotion as it’s stupidly easy to get the bonus and the account also earns an APY up to 5%.
When we did a review of the Northpointe 5% rewards checking account, they received a positive response from our readers and asked about advertising options. As always we said that all of our ads run through adsense, but we’d be happy to give them additional exposure for a Doctor of Credit readers only special. We bounce a few ideas around and then Bill Clancy (bio below) said that he’d be happy to answer reader questions, I asked on Twitter and got a positive response and here we are.
If you have a question that you’d like answered by a seasoned banker, ask it in the comments section below. We’ll choose a mixture of the questions that we find most interesting and some of the most popular questions (if you like the sound of somebody else’s question, just reply below their comment) to ask bill. Please keep the questions respectful.
Bill Clancy’s Bio
- Bio: Banker with 15+ years of experience working for community banks and credit unions. Areas of expertise include rewards checking, consumer lending and digital banking (online banking, mobile banking).
- Current Position: Vice President, Deposit Banking at Northpointe Bank
- Twitter: @billclancy
This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. We’re not being financially compensated by Bill or Northpointe bank for this series, we thought it would be interesting and they agreed. They have also indicated they would be interesting in offering a Doctor of Credit special at some stage, so if you have any ideas on what you’d like to see then let me know in the comments as well.
Hey Bill, first off I would like to thank you for participating directly with your consumer base, it goes a long way in this day and age.
My question is one of plausibility, I would like to offer a recommendation for your online portal. Because of the nature of the ultimate account, and the requirements necessary to achieve 5% interest, I think it would be very helpful to provide a “interest rate status” page. While the website tells you whether you are earning 0.05% or 5%, it does not provide details on how many of the 15 swipes have been completed, and how much of the $500 minimum has been spent. This would be incredibly helpful for most customers that don’t have the information as to how a purchase was actually charged to the account.
The question: do you see this happening at some point in the future?
Thanks again for your time!
Stephen
Hey DoC, do you know if this Q&A with Bill is still happening?
Either way is fine, just curious. 🙂 Thanks!
Hi Matt,
A bit late to respond but yes, it’s still on the way. The focus the last 30-45 days was on the new promotional accounts and getting bonuses paid. That’s just slowing down now so this latest round of replies should be completed soon.
Best,
Bill Clancy, Northpointe Bank
No worries Mr. Clancy, there is no rush at all! Thanks for volunteering so much of your time to us here at DoC, we all really appreciate it! I’ve been enjoying my experience so far with Northpointe Bank, and I’m looking forward to building a long-term relationship with you guys! Thanks!!!
-Matt
I have the responses now, will be posting them in the next couple of days.
what dod I do if chase kicked me out of there bank bec of every month I was to close to the spending limit how do I get back in
Hey Bill, thanks for volunteering your time to do this series! I have a more general question for you.
Since you’re partnered with Doctor of Credit (and thank you for that, by the way!), I’m sure you’re aware that some people (including myself) visit sites like these, in order to find ways to make a little “free money” on the side off of these bank/CC sign-up bonuses.
My question is, do financial institutions know that people like me exist, and do they care? My fear is that these generous sign-up bonuses and rewards will slowly start dying out over time, due to people like me “gaming the system” and causing a loss for the FIs. In your opinion, do you think there’s a chance this would happen? Otherwise, how do FIs make money on these sorts of bonuses and rewards accounts?
Thanks again for your time! And P.S. I signed up for a Northpointe account after seeing the link here, but I *PROMISE* that I’m keeping it open and using it as a real checking account. Banks like yours need all the support they can get, in my opinion.
I tried to sign up for your checking account without success. The design of the site was quite bad. I found multiple blank screens, just asking me to “continue” for no reason. Once passing the identity verification checks, I couldn’t return to the biographical data section to fix a typo in my address. I tried to “save my application”, but it did not recognize my account when I tried to re-login. Finally, I gave up. You should have saved the 100 USD bonuses and spent the money on fixing your website. Regards.
Suppose someone has an online checking account with no fees, and their only interaction with the account is to make a few ACH transfers and bill payments per month. Roughly speaking, what does their average balance need to be for the bank to make a profit from the account?
Why do some banks (including Northpointe) charge a $3 fee for an ACH push to an external account? I was surprised to see that Northpointe charges a fee for this because in general only the larger banks charge fees for ACH transfers.
Indeed, and the medium size banks usually offer a certain number or dollar amount free per month.
Do they really charge a fee for ACH pushes? I just applied for the account today, and I didn’t see that listed in the fee schedule.
If that’s true, that would be a problem for me. If I knew that ahead of time, I probably wouldn’t have applied for this. I’m actually trying to use this as my main checking account, not trying to churn it.
Ironically, the way to avoid the fee is to use another FI for my primary account, and just make a one-time push/pull each month into this account and nothing else, which is the exact opposite of what they would want.
It probably isn’t in the fee schedule because the external transfer page is part of their bill pay, which uses checkfreeweb. In other words, to do a transfer to another account it redirects you to checkfreeweb. Their site uses Fiserv and it does not have a whole lot of functionality unfortunately.
This is what the transfer page within bill pay looks like: http://i.imgur.com/VyqrL1r.jpg
Oh wow. That’s disappointing. You were exactly right though. Thanks for sharing that link, Ryan!
I’d like to be a Northpointe customer with the intention of depositing money orders associated with points/miles accumulation, and then bill paying credit cards in my name. Is there a monthly fee, deposit hold time, and an average account balance that would make such a relationship work for both parties?
People often comment that Fidelity took a loss on their 2% Amex. Does this mean Citi is operating at a loss with their Doublecash MasterCard with transactor accounts?
If NorthPointe offered a credit card, what’s the maximum cash back they’d offer with an Amex/Visa/MC?
Is the 5% rate temporary? If so, when will it decrease? Or is its longevity dependent on the stock market in any way? Thank you.