I moved my money to a small local bank , Middleburg Bank, in July 2010. The people there are very nice, but I have never seen any public notice or advertising of Middleburg Bank investing in the people or business in Northern Virginia where I live and work. No doubt they are loaning my money out but the interest they pay me for using my money is minuscule. I am moving my money to Aspiration, not only for a better return on my money but because they partner with making loans to small business and entrepreneurs across America. Check out the below, including the articles and reviews in Money, NerdWallet, and The Huffington Post and consider Aspiration for yourself.
How progressive is your bank? If you feel stuck putting your money in big banks or Wall Street investment funds, you should know about an alternative option which supports progressive causes: Aspiration.
Aspiration is a financial firm with a conscience. You can bank with Aspiration and their portfolio of investment funds while knowing that your money is doing good—and isn’t funding Wall Street or Donald Trump.
Below this email you can read more information from Aspiration about their products. If you are considering moving your money, please take the time to check them out.
Paid for by Aspiration.
You’ve probably seen the photo. Less than two weeks into his presidency, Donald Trump sat at his desk in the Oval Office and signed an executive order slashing away at Obama era protections that forced investment firms to act in the best interest of their clients. The former president of Goldman Sachs – now Trump’s chief economic advisor – smiled in the background.
A few days later, the Dakota and Keystone pipelines – funded by customer deposits at Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase and other Big Banks – got the green light.
Big Banks have more power in Washington than perhaps ever before. The federal government won’t be working to stop them from taking advantage of consumers.
But there’s an even more powerful force that can: You.
When you pull your deposits from Big Banks and switch to Aspiration, the financial firm with a conscience, you send a message – and you end up with more money in your pocket.
The Huffington Post wrote that Aspiration is “channeling Elizabeth Warren to change the face of banking.” And why Ozy declared that “if you feel the Bern,” Aspiration is a financial company “you may actually like.” And Money Magazine named Aspiration’s #NODAPL Checking Account the “Best Checking Account in America.”
Open an Aspiration account today. Here’s what you get:
- No ATM fees ever, anywhere in the world. And no monthly fees. (The average fees at Bank of America are $497 a year).
- A checking account interest rate that is up to 100 times higher than that offered by Big Banks like Wells Fargo.
- Sustainable, fossil fuel-free, firearm-free investment options with high performance.
- Customers choose the fee they think Aspiration deserves – even if it is zero.
- And Aspiration donates 10% of every dollar it makes to charitable micro-loans for low-income Americans.
Here’s why it matters:
- Big Banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America charge you outrageous fees and use them for lobbying and campaign contributions in order to push through anti-consumer legislation.
- Aspiration lets you choose your own fee and gives to micro-loans for struggling Americans.
- Wall Street and index funds put your investments in big oil companies and companies that mistreat their workers.
- Aspiration’s Redwood Fund is 100% fossil fuel free and invests in companies with great environmental, employee, and diversity track records. That’s why the Sierra Club has partnered with Aspiration to help more Americans divest from big oil and invest in companies that are doing what’s right.
Change your bank. Change your world. Because the truth is, they both could use some change right about now.
Checking (tie): Aspiration Summit
This post was updated on Oct. 27, 2015, to reflect additional information about the account.
WHY IT’S A WINNER
Aspiration Summit, an FDIC-insured checking account offered by a registered investment adviser, offers high interest rates and excellent ATM terms. (You don’t need an Aspiration investment account to get access.) The account reimburses unlimited third-party ATM fees worldwide and earns you 1% interest if you have $2,500, or 0.25% if you have less.
Note that Aspiration is not a traditional bank: It is a California startup that markets its social consciousness, pledging to give 10% of revenue to charity. And some of the year-old operation’s practices are a departure for the banking world. (More on that below.)
Caveats
Prospective customers cannot sign up for an account immediately: After submitting your email address, you’ll able to enroll within seven to 14 days, says Aspiration CEO Andrei Cherny. While it charges no maintenance fees, the account has a pay-what-you-want fee structure, and will periodically ask you to make donations of up to $6 per month (you can choose to pay $0).
Aspiration does not currently offer a joint checking account, making BofI the better choice for couples who blend their money. The account also has a standard foreign-transaction fee of 1.1%.
Account Terms
Maintenance fee: $0
ATM fee: $0, with unlimited worldwide reimbursements
Interest on $5,000: 1%
ATM fee: $0, with unlimited worldwide reimbursements
Interest on $5,000: 1%
You can trust that we maintain strict editorial integrity in our writing and assessments; however, we receive compensation when you click on links to products from our partners and get approved. Here's how we make money.
But Aspiration is an investment firm, so it doesn’t have any branches or offer savings accounts or certificates of deposit.
The bottom line
- The Aspiration Summit Account is one of the best checking options on the market.
- Aspiration’s overdraft policies aren’t nearly as consumer friendly.
| Our Ratings | |
|---|---|
| Checking account |  |
| Savings account | N/A |
| Certificates of deposit | N/A |
| Customer experience |  |
| Overdraft fees |  |
| Overall | |
Read on for more details about Aspiration’s checking account, customer experience and overdraft fees.
Checking account
5.0 / 5.0
The Summit Account comes with great rates, low fees and exceptional ATM access. Deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
|
Customer experience
3.5 / 5.0
Aspiration users can contact the firm via phone, email, chat, Twitter or a robust help center. Its website is easy to use, but it doesn’t have the saving or budgeting tools that online banks typically offer.
Aspiration recently released its iOS mobile app, as well as the Android version. Both are highly rated, and let you deposit checks with your smartphone. With Aspiration, you can’t open multiple accounts or a joint checking account, though the firm expects to offer both in the “near future.”
Overdraft fees
2.5 / 5.0
Aspiration charges $25 per overdraft, and there’s no limit to the number of these fees you can incur in one day. If your account is in the red for five consecutive days, you’ll be charged a daily $5 extended overdraft fee. Given that Aspiration lacks savings accounts, you can’t sign up for an overdraft protection transfer service.
Exceptional checking account, but shortcomings elsewhere
Aspiration’s checking account is better than most, but the firm is lacking in other categories. If you’re looking to keep all of your accounts under the same roof or simply want a more well-rounded banking experience, consider online banks such as Ally, Capital One 360 and Discover. All three have good checking and savings accounts along with add-on services that can help you handle your finances.
Tony Armstrong is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: tony@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @tonystrongarm.
Verified Jan. 19, 2017.
RATINGS METHODOLOGY
NerdWallet’s overall rating is a weighted average of each category: checking, savings, CDs, customer experience and overdraft fees. Factors we consider, depending on the category, include rates and fees, ATM and branch access, account features and limits, user-facing tech and customer service. Several Nerds contribute to each financial institution’s ratings to ensure consistency and accuracy.
What the ratings mean:
— Among the very best
— Very good; only minor caveats for most customers
— Good; issues that might make a difference to some customers
— Fair; make sure strengths and weaknesses are a good match for you
— Poor; proceed with great caution
(or below) — Best to avoid
— Among the very best — Very good; only minor caveats for most customers — Good; issues that might make a difference to some customers — Fair; make sure strengths and weaknesses are a good match for you — Poor; proceed with great caution (or below) — Best to avoidHow This Startup Is Channeling Elizabeth Warren To Change The Face Of Banking
You only pay if you’re happy with the services.
JACQUELYN MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Andrei Cherny knows how ugly the financial industry can be.
He’s a former financial fraud prosecutor and an expert in financial regulations who spent three years fighting against home mortgage fraud, credit card fraud and corporate crime.
As the editor of the journal Democracy, Cherny published a piece in 2007 from a then little-known law professor named Elizabeth Warren. In it, she proposed a consumer safety commission for financial products.
Warren’s novel idea would become today’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and its author would be elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, largely on the basis of her campaign to rein in and regulate the financial industry of the late 2000s.
Cherny worked alongside Warren on her crusade to protect consumers, and went on to advise President Barack Obama on how to do the same. Now, he’s using this experience to introduce the U.S. to a new kind of banking.
Cherny co-founded Aspiration in late 2014 as an investment advisory company whose investors paid the firm only what they thought they should pay. Traditionally, investment advisers have charged fees of 1 to 2 percent annually, based on how much money the investor gives them to manage. In the financial industry, Aspiration’s model is unique.
“Despite a lot of people on Wall Street who thought we were crazy, the pay-what-you-want model has worked very well so far,” Cherny told The Huffington Post. “The vast majority of customers are very fair-minded, and the number of people who end up paying zero is very small.”
COURTESY OF ANDREI CHERNY
Cherny views Aspiration’s innovative pay-what-you-want strategy as a direct challenge to the high fees and well-catalogued abuses of the investment advisory industry. The company is rolling out a new checking account, the Aspiration Summit Account, built on the same principles and the same motto — “Do Well. Do Good.” — as its investment funds.
“There’s no reason people should be satisfied with zero-interest checking accounts and huge fees that have no purpose but to build banks’ profits,” he said. “This new checking account is based on the idea that people deserve a lot more than they’re getting from the big banks.”
The Summit checking account, which was developed in partnership with Boston-based Radius Bank, offers an annual interest rate of up to 1 percent — nearly unheard of in modern retail banking — and doesn’t charge ATM fees anywhere in the world. The only money the company makes on individual accounts is what its customers choose to give it, which can be anywhere from zero to $6 a month. It calls this money “tips,” and 10 percent of all the tips Aspiration collects are donated to a U.S. microloan program.
But it’s not just traditional banks’ high and often hidden fees that offend Cherny’s sense of fairness. He also takes issues with how those institutions are spending consumers’ hard-earned money.
“When you look at how these banks spend their billions in profits, they’re using money from their customers to pay for lobbyists in Washington who fight for policies that run contrary to their customers’ best interests,” Cherny, who has also been a HuffPost blogger since 2007, said.
For evidence of this, look no further than the epic battle big banks and their allies in Congress have been waging for years against the CFPB, as well as other provisions of the landmark Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
As the CFPB seeks to implement rules making mortgage loans more transparent and easier for consumers to understand, bank lobbying groups like the American Bankers Association have fought tooth and nail to weaken and delay them. Same goes for new rules intended to protect consumers from illegal overdraft fees — the big banks have long lobbied against those, too.
Many of the worst abuses by the financial industry occurred in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, and now, even years later, Cherny says many Americans still don’t trust their banks. This mistrust of Wall Street and the broader financial industry, he says, is preventing middle-class people from investing their money.
“We saw an opportunity to make a business here that’s mission- and purpose-driven,” he said.
Cherny says encouraging middle-class Americans to invest their money also serves a bigger purpose: helping to narrow the yawning wealth gap in the United States. In 2013, the average CEO made 331 times as much as the average worker, according to the AFL-CIO.
“By keeping all their money in conventional checking accounts, middle-class Americans are missing out on all the wealth-building strategies that the richest 1 percent have been using for decades,” Cherny said.
The company doesn’t plan to open brick-and-mortar bank branches or seek capital investments from major Wall Street firms that might pressure the young company to squeeze more profits from its customers.
“We want to prove to Wall Street there’s a different way to do things,” Cherny said.
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