It’s been almost 4 months since I began account transfers to Fidelity.
- I began on March 3 with a $500 deposit to open a joint cash management account. I also ordered and soon received a stack of free checks. (For the benefit of Gen Z and some Millenial readers, checks are little pieces of paper that grandparents use instead of cash).
- Next came the money market account transfer from an existing firm, which I call our disaster fund.
- I established an IRA account at Fidelity and began transfers of my IRA from the old firm.
- Then began monthly transfers of excess funds from our local bank’s checking account. That account pays about .04% interest, versus nearly 4% at Fidelity. This change alone will put about an extra $1k in our pocket each year. At today’s rates of course.
- Next was setting up and testing billpay at Fidelity. All worked smoothly except it insists on snail-mailing a check for my CITI Mastercard. Fidelity reps have been unable to explain this to me.
- I applied for and received a Fidelity VISA rewards card that pays 2% on all purchases. This card will replace the CITI Mastercard. I wonder if this was Fidelity’s plan by refusing to electronically pay the CITI card.
- Next came transferring my wife’s IRA. This had to be done in several steps due to the old firms policies.
- Last week for the first time I paid all the monthly bills via Fidelity Billpay.
- Yesterday I changed 5 autopaid bills to Fidelity from our local bank. That chore took most of a rainy Toledo afternoon.
- I need to make a stop at our local bank to downgrade our checking account to one that does not require a minimum monthly deposit in order to remain fee free.
- Our final chore is transferring the direct deposit of our Social Security benefits and IRA distributions. That will be a job for the next rainy afternoon.
We will still have 2 dinky pension checks deposited to our local bank for ATM withdrawals and other conveniences.
Breaking up really is hard to do, still, having things consolidated will make life easier for my wife and/or my kids after my human card is revoked.
One final thought. I count my money a couple times each year. In the past I had to visit 8 or more websites to pull the numbers together. Now I just click on Fidelity’s “Full View” button and everything magically appears. Easypeazy.
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That’s how I feel. I don’t use their credit cards or bank accounts, but all accounts are linked. I moved stock shares, a brokerage account to Fidelity. They were the 401k record keeper so I just rolled it into an IRA. Then I linked my bank accounts so I can move money around from one place and my net worth is always up to date.
2 & 4. If you live in a state with an income tax, be sure to use Fidelity’s “pure” Treasury MMF. FDLXX for example. It isn’t truly “pure” but is as close as Fidelity gets.
I’ve been doing all my financial business with Fidelity for over 25 years. Hope your experience has been as good as mine. I do keep a local credit union account for cash deposits but the Fidelity ATM with their debit card is great and free of fees. I have to put my Costco rebates somewhere!
What’s your cyber resilience if Fidelity experiences a major sustained outage?
Wise move to keep a separate bank account but I think I’d want a bit more macro diversification in the big stuff for redundancy scenarios.
Agreed. I do have a substantial IRA and brokerage account at another firm.
Great. Thought it was a bit weird with your experience that you’d go all in with a single platform.
I wonder if the inability to pay the CITI card electronically may be specific to that card. We have four different credit cards with three different providers paid electronically from our Fidelity account.
We have a gas card that’s paid from our checking account for which the bank sends them a check. However, our credit cards used to be paid from the same checking account and were all done electronically.
In practice it doesn’t really matter. The cards are all paid on time, and we don’t have to do anything to make it happen.
The issue with the CITI MasterCard is strange. We also have a Costco CITI VISA that works just fine with Billpay.
Citi Mastercard is issued by Citibank, the primary banking subsidiary of Citigroup. Bloomberg has an article on Citigroup that may explain the failure of Fidelity Billpay to connect with Citibank. Electronic funds transfer process between brokerage and bank uses Automated Clearing House (ACH) system. Citigroup’s legacy software and data systems were not fully automated and probably have verification or compatibility issues with Fidelity. It earned the industry punchline “Fat-finger” because of human errors like inadvertently crediting 1 account with $81 Trillion, paying one couple $100K twice on 1 CD, missent $6 billion. Citigroup is spending $9 Billion thus far to upgrade its IT.
Fidelity is not a bank, and thus cannot be used by any entity that requires a bank account (TreasuryDirect, Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, some pension service provider like State Street Corp, some mortgage or auto loan servicers).
I recommend having at least 2 different Visa cards, especially when traveling. I once had my only Visa card (Capital One) deactivated without warning when the issuer thought my report of address change did not come from me. They refused to accept ID proofs from photos, and demanded I mailed in the actual Social Security card! No Visa card means no car rental, hotel check in, or non-cash purchase. Fidelity Visa is issued and serviced by Elan Financial with a hidden fraud prevention protocol like all others. Even a call to report pending travel or big purchase might trigger fraud prevention card deactivation.
Fidelity clears all payments through a FDIC insured bank, UMB Bank. It is an acceptable vehicle for all deposits such as pension, payroll, or SS. I have a checkbook that I write checks from and scan checks in for deposit. 2 credit card is a good idea. Have had sudden disruption because of a fraud alert. The Fidelity card is my primary card and Costco Visa is secondary.
When I was doing long term travel I carried four credit cards and three ATM cards. The primary ATM card had no foreign transaction fees and waived ATM fees. One of the credit cards had a chip and PIN, when that became the European standard. They were not all in the same place, and I wore a money belt.
Fidelity ‘s Cash Management account can be set up as though it were a bank with routing and account numbers (it shows up as UMB Bank). So, all the things one might do with, say, Capital One, can be done with Fidelity’s stand-in for a bank account. For instance, insurance bill’s that don’t allow a payment by credit card without a fee, I pay by EFT from my Cash Management account. It all works very smoothly.
Yes, agreed, for me it’s two credit cards: one for use in-person and the other for online, with the bank debit card as a fallback if needed temporarily.
Interesting, thanks Quan. There were probably times when we traveled with 2 different CITI cards. Going forward we will not make that mistake again.
YW, and thanks for your posting. It prompted me to review the security of my cards. I probably need a Mastercard as a backup in case of Visa or debit network outage (Feb 2025 Fiserv outage, June 2025 Visa debit card outage). I avoid using debit cards because of their weak fraud protection, and they lack consumer protection features.
It’s not a bank, but I’ve yet to encounter anything I can’t do electronically into or out of a Fidelity account.
Completely agree with having at least two cards, for multiple reasons.
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Scott, Schmucker’s is alive and well! One of our great still standing family owned diners.
Yes, Fido does work at ATMs. I’m not sure what hoops we need to jump thru to get the fees refunded. My local bank is right down the street, so it’s just easy to use theirs, and never any fees if used there.
ATM Fees are refunded monthly in full.
Instead of using Bill Pay, you can set up Fidelity’s Cash Management account to allow auto direct debits of your Citi bill (actually, you give Citi the routing and account info to take their payment each month). I have that setup for my various cards, mortgages, and other monthly Bill’s. I use Bill Pay only for those with no electronic option. The fewer checks put in the mail the better, with all the check fraud these days. Also, ATM rebates are automatic, usually within a couple days; I don’t believe there’s a dollar limit on rebates.
Great work-around Chris. Thanks for that tip.
At Schwab they just refund the charges every month up to some limit I’ve never gotten close to. I use Full view to split the fees off of my withdrawals and then make sure the fees and refund balance.
Actually think it’s a good idea to keep a few months of cash at a local bank. It’s on my to do list.
That’s my thought as well, along with a bit in the house.