powerlifter

Look at M&T bank visa signature card Chip &Pin with no AF or FTF. Just ordered mine on Friday. The other cards have a FTF, and are chip & pin, but no AF.

tmiw

Let us know if it's actually chip and PIN at places like Walmart. My understanding according to their chip info page is that it may actually be chip and signature instead.

DougDons

The one that came with the account was not a chip of any kind, but if you call they will send you a Chip and Signature Visa debit card.

I have been very pleased with Schwab and I've made it my primary checking account and I use the brokerage account.

Also the ATM fee reimbursement and no forex fees are great (my reason for opening an account), but FYI the fees get reimbursed on a monthly basis, in bulk.

To the OP, I can't imagine they would close either of the accounts since there is no account minimum.

To anyone else thinking about opening an account, my only complaint is that the website and mobile app aren't as user friendly as other banks. They have all the functionality as other banks (mobile check deposit, bill pay, funds transfer, etc.), just not intuitive to use. I get the sense that they utilized the Brokerage account User Interface for the Checking account and added any checking specific features to it.

deniah

technically they are only offered for US residents.

foreign residents must switch their accounts form SchwabOne to SchwabGlobal...

runb4fun

is this still the best debit card to carry for foreign travel?

moondog

Yea

smitopher

What he said.

I've been very pleased with the service and value.

Duke787

Yes. They've also started rolling out chips on debit cards (just got mine last week) which adds further value.

tmiw

Heck, I think it has value even when traveling domestically. My regular bank is BofA and their ATMs aren't in all 50 states or even widespread in some (as I found out a few years ago when traveling through Ohio). I signed up for the Schwab card soon after that trip so that I'd have a backup for ATM use.

Duke787

Good point. I have the same situation with Chase - signed up for it while living in Chicago and then moved to DC and then back to RDU area and neither of those last two have a single Chase branch.

Schwab also has a $10k mobile check deposit limit from a single check even with little or no money in the account which is another nice feature (higher limit than Chase Mobile gives me).

They also have really favorable rates when you withdraw from foreign ATMs and I found that even in Thailand where the ATMs charge you both a withdrawal fee and then the extra conversion fee, I was reimbursed entirely for all fees.

Michilander

I have had the M&T C&P card for over a year now. The ONLY time it has ever asked for a PIN was when I used it in the train ticket machines in Brussels (only unattended POS that I have used it at, but I suspect it will ask for PIN at others). At all attended POS's and everywhere in the US it asks for a signature.

Javelin

Can confirm that Schwab still does a hard pull on account opening. They seem to prefer Equfax.

pinniped

Still not sure how this has enough incremental value over my regular credit union ATM card to make it worth opening a new account.

That has no ATM fees. It processes over the Visa network so the FX is ~1% above the interbank rate (as any Visa-network card would be). While my CU doesn't reimburse fixed ATM usage fees, I don't typically see those abroad to begin with. (That seems mostly to be a U.S. scourge.)

Am I missing something? Nothing against Schwab as a home for your investments and maybe even a place to have a cash account because you invest there, but it doesn't seem like a few foreign ATM transactions per year makes it worth opening an account just for that.

tmiw

I've found that Mexican ATMs have usage fees (and prompts about donating to charity/buying insurance that are easy to consent to if you don't read closely enough), so fees are definitely not just a US thing. For me my primary bank's debit card has a 3% FTF on top of whatever exchange rate Visa uses, so Schwab still has value there.

moondog

I would use them as my main account even if I never left the US.

-fast and smart customer service
-can pull money from any atm without worry about fees
-can increase ATM withdrawal limit to whatever your heart desires (if there is an upper bound, I'm not aware of it)
-they don't sit on inbound wires
-I don't think they have any physical branches, but my credit union only has two, so this isn't exactly a big win for the credit union