Author Topic: Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?  (Read 1864 times)

k-vette

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Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?
« on: July 31, 2019, 09:37:23 AM »
https://wwws.betterment.com/cw/l6mxzm

I did a search but didn't see anyone mentioning or talking about it.  Seems like what Robinhood wanted to do, a high yield checking and savings account.  Up to 2.69%.   Not too bad and I'm on the waiting list.

TheAnonOne

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Re: Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2019, 12:57:13 PM »
Personal Capital has a checking/savings account now too. It also pays in that mid 2% range.

thejordanburnett

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Re: Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?
« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2019, 07:18:14 AM »
I keep my cash there (in what has changed names several times recently and is now seen as Cash Reserve).

They're pushing people to get the Debit Card (just sent an email about it yesterday). It seems that every company wants to be a bank, nowadays. I'm sure the fees and referral fees behind the scenes are alluring. We've seen Apple pair up with Goldman.

nkt0

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Re: Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?
« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2019, 07:59:18 AM »
Yeah, Robinhood is (re)launching one too. Turns out everyone wants to hold on to our money for us!

shinn497

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Re: Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2019, 11:15:17 AM »
I am too

Aggie1999

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Re: Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2019, 11:23:54 AM »
Wasn't Betterment the one signing people up for the cash account automatically without their permission? I know Betterment makes it hard to transfer assets out also. Medallion signature, etc.

shinn497

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Re: Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?
« Reply #6 on: October 31, 2019, 08:29:35 AM »
Yes and no. It was giving people access to smart saver accounts unannounced. But understand that all of its "accounts" or goals, that are not its savings accounts or its checking account are not truly seperate accounts. They are all under the same brokerage and just slice the money in different ways. This is distinct from a checking account which is held at a seperate bank.

As for transferring out. There have been reports of that but the way I see it is you put money in to go with their strategy or not. . They work far better when you are all in with them for the long term.

thejordanburnett

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Re: Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?
« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2019, 05:12:57 AM »
As for transferring out. There have been reports of that but the way I see it is you put money in to go with their strategy or not. . They work far better when you are all in with them for the long term.

Yeah, I recently researched trying to transfer out my taxable portfolio, but after looking into it I really don't want to deal with all the different assets I now own after several TLH events. There are just a bunch of different ETFs after all of the TLH events that happened in 2018.

I've decided to just keep the taxable amount I have in Betterment, and started investing in VTI at Vanguard.

I actually wrote an article on how to set it up so that you don't avoid partial washes with Betterment's TLH+ by owning VTI at both of them:
https://thejordanburnett.com/owning-vti-at-both-vanguard-and-betterment/

Aggie1999

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Re: Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?
« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2019, 07:17:35 AM »
As for transferring out. There have been reports of that but the way I see it is you put money in to go with their strategy or not. . They work far better when you are all in with them for the long term.

Yeah, I recently researched trying to transfer out my taxable portfolio, but after looking into it I really don't want to deal with all the different assets I now own after several TLH events. There are just a bunch of different ETFs after all of the TLH events that happened in 2018.

I've decided to just keep the taxable amount I have in Betterment, and started investing in VTI at Vanguard.

I actually wrote an article on how to set it up so that you don't avoid partial washes with Betterment's TLH+ by owning VTI at both of them:
https://thejordanburnett.com/owning-vti-at-both-vanguard-and-betterment/

Couldn't you just tell Betterment you wanted to transfer the ETF's to Vanguard? Then you won't be paying that 0.25% fee to Betterment and there will not be any taxable events from selling the ETF's at Betterment.

thejordanburnett

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Re: Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?
« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2019, 07:30:10 AM »
As for transferring out. There have been reports of that but the way I see it is you put money in to go with their strategy or not. . They work far better when you are all in with them for the long term.

Yeah, I recently researched trying to transfer out my taxable portfolio, but after looking into it I really don't want to deal with all the different assets I now own after several TLH events. There are just a bunch of different ETFs after all of the TLH events that happened in 2018.

I've decided to just keep the taxable amount I have in Betterment, and started investing in VTI at Vanguard.

I actually wrote an article on how to set it up so that you don't avoid partial washes with Betterment's TLH+ by owning VTI at both of them:
https://thejordanburnett.com/owning-vti-at-both-vanguard-and-betterment/

Couldn't you just tell Betterment you wanted to transfer the ETF's to Vanguard? Then you won't be paying that 0.25% fee to Betterment and there will not be any taxable events from selling the ETF's at Betterment.

Yes, I could. But, I've heard from many others that this process is fairly lengthy (several weeks of not being invested) and that it takes a long time to get things straight on the Vanguard side (from a tax lot and cost basis perspective).

I also don't really have any desire to manually get back to owning only Vanguard funds. Currently, because of TLH+ at Betterment, I own more than the base funds (I own partial of both primary and secondary ETFs):

EMB and VWOB
MUB and TFI
VWO and IEMG
VBR and IWN
VTV and SCHV
VTI and SCHB

Those are Schwab, SPDR, and iShares ETFs as well.

That's a lot of clutter for my current one fund accounts at Vanguard (VTSAX in Roth/Traditional IRA and VTI in Taxable). Part of my problem was switching to being a Boglehead after already having a significant amount in Betterment, as well.

Also, Betterment doesn't permit partial transfers. There are a few taxable sub-accounts that I'd like to keep at Betterment (I have short term accounts for Personal Development, World Travel, Safety Net, etc.). Behind the scenes, these are actually only a single account at Betterment.

Thus, Betterment only allows a full transfer (I would have to transfer all assets to Vanguard and then rebuild those funds inside of Betterment).


nkt0

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Re: Anyone signed up for Betterment checking?
« Reply #10 on: November 06, 2019, 08:47:05 AM »
I transferred my Betterment account to Vanguard (both taxable and tIRA) and it wasn't too much of a pain. I just called Vanguard and they told me exactly what to do.