Second Chance Banks, Alternative Banking, Alternative Banking Accounts

By Lianne Gaines

With the economic downturn raging, plenty of individuals have found themselves in either short-term or long-term monetary trouble. Unfortunately, these troubles can haunt you across many aspects of your life. Too many individuals do not realize that there are ways to navigate around these financial problems. Be it bad checks, credit debt, or lack of health care, there are resources that will get around, or at least alleviate whatever is stopping you from achieving a better financial outlook. This article will focus on second chance banking.

Writing bad checks will land you on the ChexSystems and/or TeleChex database. Being in either one of these systems will make it exceedingly hard to get a checking or savings bank account from the majority financial institutions. These systems are used by banks to determine whether a would-be customer is too much of a hazard. If a person has a past checking account that was closed with a negative balance, or has overdue debt, their name will be reported to ChexSystems or TeleChex. Most banks will not offer checking or savings account to persons whose names are on one of these lists. Any one that has ever tried to navigate contemporary society without a credit card or checking account can attest to the trouble in performing even everyday financial tasks, such as cashing a payroll check.

Getting a checking and saving account is necessary if you would like to budget and save your money. Keeping it in the proverbial mattress is a guaranteed recipe for check-to-check living. Nonetheless, there are now viable banking options for those people that have found themselves unable to get a bank account from one of the traditional banking institutions.

There are banks that either do not use ChexSystems and the like, or make allowances for people that have been reported. Some only initially provide savings accounts, while others give all of the traditional services you would expect. These banks do vary by state and the services they offer. Most provide checking accounts, savings accounts, direct deposit, paper checks, and a debit card.

Internet only banks are analogous to branch banks except that nearly all have no nearby physical location. While they do have account and routing numbers and provide the same services as traditional banks, you will do all of your banking online. Although some may balk at this notion, as long as the bank has a physical address and is FDIC insured, then your money is safe. Many online banks ignore the traditional banking fees since the way they operate accounts for a small overhead. Yet, many do require you to maintain small monthly balances.

Pre-paid debit cards, once funded, provide you with a debit card that either has a specified limit, or only allows you to spend as much money as you have added to the card. You are able to use these cards as debit and credit cards, which will allow you to make purchases over the Internet or anywhere debit cards are accepted. Plenty of pre-paid care services also offer direct deposit and bill pay services.

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