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Credit Union Accounts & Services
What Can Credit Unions Do for You?
Credit unions offer a variety of financial products and services to help you manage, grow, and protect your money. While there are many options to receive and spend money, opening and maintaining accounts with a credit union will help with managing money and building wealth securely. Credit union checking or savings accounts are accessible and convenient. Plus, your individual accounts at federally insured credit unions are insured up to $250,000 by the U.S. federal government.
Most credit unions allow you to manage your personal finances online through your computer and mobile devices. Some financial institutions even offer reductions in fees if you do all your banking electronically. Electronic banking allows you to:
- Easily access account information
- Receive account alerts
- Access past statements
- Search transaction history
- Set up automatic savings plans
- Transfer money to your accounts and the accounts of others
- Set up and pay bills electronically and automatically
In addition to traditional checking and savings accounts, credit unions also provide loans to their members. These borrowing opportunities allow you to to purchase homes, vehicles and many other consumer needs as well as pay for school and start a business.
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Frequently Asked Questions
When opening a checking account, the credit union will ask whether you wish to join their overdraft program for one-time debit card and ATM transactions. If you agree, the credit union will cover the transaction and impose an overdraft fee, which is detailed in their fee schedule and the opt-in authorization form. To illustrate how this might affect you, consider this scenario: you decide to opt into the overdraft program, and you’re at your favorite coffee shop. Let's say you have an available balance of $1.40 in your checking account while the coffee costs $3.00. When the clerk processes your debit card, the $3.00 purchase exceeds your available balance. Because you opted in, you authorized the credit union to cover the coffee purchase and charge you an overdraft fee as a result. Some fees can reach as high as $40 per overdraft, making that cup of coffee cost you $43 in total.
To prevent overdraft and non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees, it's essential to monitor your account balance diligently. Consider enrolling in your credit union's low balance alerts; these notifications can inform you when your account is at risk of overdraft. Additionally, regularly reconcile your checkbook by keeping a record of your balance, transactions, and automatic payments. You might also think about using cash for your purchases, maintaining a buffer in your checking account, or connecting your checking account to another account or a line of credit offered by the credit union. Consult with your credit union representative for further guidance on how to set up these links.
Check your membership account agreement to make sure you understand when your credit union will impose these fees and how it defines an “actual” versus an “available” credit balance. In general, an actual balance includes any pending transactions that have not yet posted, while an available balance reflects the amount of money in your account that you can use without incurring an overdraft or nonsufficient funds fee. It's important to note that the actual balance does not account for paper checks you've written, automatic withdrawals from your account, or recurring debit card transactions, such as payments you've authorized for your car or home insurance. As a result, the actual balance may appear higher than the amount that is available to you without overdrawing your account.
Yes! If you can't review all the disclosures right away, it's important to prioritize those for the products you intend to use immediately. Before using a service or applying for a product, make sure to review other relevant disclosures. For example, when you open a savings account, it’s crucial to read the Truth in Savings disclosures, as they contain important information regarding any fees the credit union might charge, such as fees for dormant accounts, returned checks, insufficient funds, and fund deposit procedures. Additionally, these disclosures provide key details about using your debit and ATM cards, including any associated fees. The Electronic Fund Transfer Act also offers valuable information about how overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees may impact your account, as well as how the credit union calculates your actual and available balances for withdrawals. Furthermore, the disclosures will guide you on what to do if you notice an unauthorized transaction on your account and how to report it.
Consumers in the United States send billions of dollars to friends, family and businesses domestically and in other countries. There are two types of wire transfers domestic and remittance transfers also known as “international wires” or “international money transfers.” Domestic wire transfers move money from one account to another within the same country, while international transfers involve money moving from one country to another.
As with many products or services, there are fees, taxes, and other costs associated with conducting the transaction. Many states have consumer protection laws in place to help monitor and ensure proper disclosure of these costs. However, international money transfers have fallen largely outside the scope of federal consumer protection laws. In 2010, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act expanded the Electronic Funds Transfer Act to establish minimum federal consumer protections for remittances.