It's been a year since I opened my account with Chase in PH, so I thought I should finally do a review here on yelp!
Long story short: After tons of banks, research, etc. I've been a SUPER happy CHASE Business Banking customer for a year!
A year ago my CPA told me it was time for my business to "grow up", so I incorporated into an S-Corp. Part of the process entailed searching for a bank to manage my new business accounts... not something I was at all excited about.
I had been with a fully online bank for the previous 10 years which was fine for personal stuff, but I knew I'd need a local branch for business banking. Plus, my online bank's interface and support had dropped over the years.
Well, I'm incredibly anal about research. I went to every person, network, etc. for recommendations: Facebook, my CPA, fellow business owners in my niche, etc. I was surprised by how many people liked the banks they were with and then how many people also didn't like those same banks. Basically out of the 30 recommendations I received, they were basically not much help. :(
I decided I wanted a relatively large bank that had a presence across the US and had a robust online system. I had learned to do most of my transactions online and didn't want to go backwards in time with a small bank. This narrowed things down to a handful of banks in the area: Wells Fargo, BofA, Citi, CHASE, and usBank.
I already had experience with usBank and CITI, so they were pretty much dropped from the list. I ended up researching and visiting BofA, CHASE & Wells Fargo and talking to (or trying to talk to) their business bank specialists. At CHASE I was instantly introduced and helped by Haythem Fahima. At first I thought "Oh great, another young guy who's not going to know much about what he's supporting." Boy was I wrong!
Haythem walked me through all of the options and benefits of business banking with Chase and then he patiently answered every one of my billion questions (seriously, I had a TON of questions in a Word doc!)
I had made up my mind to sign up with Chase for my business banking and dropped into the branch. Bummer, it was Hathem's day off... but the good news: I was helped by two other guys from other groups and they did an excellent job of setting everything up!
The next day I got an email and then phone call from Haythem apologizing that he wasn't in the office and checking to make sure everything went smoothly and to see if I had questions or needed help. Well, of course I had more questions, and he answered every one of them. Well, actually, there were two questions that he needed to check on, which he did, and emailed me the answers that day!
So, here are the reasons I'm doing my business banking with Chase AND have also moved over all my personal accounts over to Chase:
1) Hathem is a ROCK STAR! I've never had a situation where he didn't take care of my questions or issues.
2) Their tech is AMAZING! Their online site is almost perfect, and I'm pretty particular about online user interface design. The ability to deposit with my iPhone is fantastic! Slipping my checks into the direct deposit machine (the ones over the iPhone deposit amount) is pretty great (only problem, one of the checks I get monthly can't be scanned by the ATM... that's a bummer).
3) All but 1 of the credit cards we had under our names were provided by Chase. After a little work by Hathem, all our credit cards were showing up online. One interface for business, personal, credit cards, etc. BAM!
I definitely recommend CHASE to anybody looking to open a business account. While a very large part of my amazing experience with Chase has been through Haythem's amazing support, there are a lot of other great aspects to Chase that will keep with with them for a very long time! read more