Bank Choices

[Evenstar]

My family is looking to change banks at this point.  We're not in New Hampshire yet, but we'd ideally like to find a bank that we can continue to do business with once we arrive in New Hampshire.  What national bank chains have branches in New Hampshire (especially southern New Hampshire)?

[Dreepa]

Captial Bank
Bank of America
TD BANKNorth
Centrix


(off the top of my head)

I use a local NH bank.

[SethCohn]

Citizen's is very big here...
BankNorth has a lot of branches as well.
Both are big enough to have branches in your homestate...

http://www.nh.gov/banking/banking.html
has a complete list of NH Banks

[MengerFan]

I love Bank of America. They will let you open an account without a SSN.

I used them for six years while I had branches available to me. Always treated me great.

[porcupine kate]

Bank of America has changed it's policy on opening an account with out a SSN.  I tried earlier this year with no luck.  The patriot act requires a SSN for all accounts at banks now.  I think Credit unions fall under the same law.

[MengerFan]

That blows.

I do know that I opened an account in my daughter's lame at a local bank, and she has no identification whatsoever. They probably stamped the account with my information somehow, though.

[MaineShark]

I love Bank of America.

Bank of America is owned by the mafia.  If there is a 'most corrupt' title in banking, it would definitely go to BOA. I'm amazed you've had all good experiences, because I was with Fleet bank for 17 years, but within 3 months of BOA buying them out, I was so infuriated I took all my money out.

I dropped them while they were still Fleet.  The final straw was when a credit union opened in town, and the Fleet folks were telling everyone how they should stick with a proper bank, which had lending power to offer much better rates.  The credit union had better rates, and never once asked to see any ID after the account was opened - when the employees take the time to learn to recognize their customers' faces, that tells you something about the level of customer service.

I recall going in once for a loan to buy a vehicle.  I was $2k short of the funds I needed, and I needed the vehicle then.  So I asked the manager if they could give me a small loan, and I'd pay it back within two months.  My credit was not impressive at the time, simply due to having a very high debt/income ratio.  He said, "well, we normally don't do that, but you've had an account here since we opened this branch, and never missed a loan payment, so let me call the bank president."

Yeah, I can just imagine a branch manager calling the president of BOA to approve a $2k loan for a customer who was way over the debt/income guidelines.  They'd just tell you to take a hike...

Joe

[elf]

No bank. 
If you can't swap, barter, trade, work out an arrangement or pay fiat cash (FRNs) - learn to live without. 
It takes a while to beat the addiction to "gotta have it NOW", but well worth it.
The benefits?  No debt.  Nobody phoning you about late payments.  No angst
over that unholy grail - the credit score. 
Best of all:  nobody gets your personal info. 

[RD]

I use TD Banknorth as a brick-and-mortar interface to my online ING accounts.  TD Banknorth has a lot of locations in southern NH and has a good free basic checking account.  That gives you a decent hands-on interface to online-only banks like ING, where you'll earn a helluva lot more in interest, while still having access to all of the benefits of online banking, savings, investing, a debit card, free atm locations, 24 hour phone customer service, etc.