Life in Beta

I love my local branch of PNC Bank. They’re always so helpful. Today was no exception.

(Note: this isn’t a paid endorsement. No one at PNC is paying me or giving me anything. This is purely my opinion – I was so pleased I had to share!)

I stopped in earlier today to discuss some options with my accounts. The bank representative helping me today introduced me to the PNC Virtual Wallet, a program directed at Generation-Y. This program has been around for a few years, but it was entirely new to me (I’ve been living in Tennessee –a non-PNC state– for the last 3 years). I think it’s an absolutely brilliant setup.

Here, watch the video; it explains the system much better than I can:

So, you have three accounts: Spend (a free checking account), Reserve (an interest-bearing checking account), and Growth (a high-yield savings account).  All these accounts are connected and you’re able to transfer money among the accounts as much as you want (with the exception of Growth/savings, which has a maximum of 6 outbound transfers per month). All of the accounts have a $0 minimum balance. There’s built-in overdraft protection (if you spend too much of your Spend account, it pulls from Reserve without charging you any fees).

Even better, you get tools to analyze your spending and track your bill payments. It’s much like Quicken, Microsoft Money, or Mint … but without the added expense of buying third-party software, or the hassle of having to connect your accounts into a third-party website.

The only downside to the program is that you can only write three checks per month (any additional checks cost $0.50 each). PNC Virtual Wallet is squarely aimed at the generation that’s married to their debit cards and online banking. (Which, I think, is a lot of us these days.) Normally I only write one check per month for my storage unit rental, so it’s perfect for my purposes.

Did I mention PNC Virtual Wallet also has an impressive iPhone app?

The tech behind this program is really … well … cool. It’s nice to see an “old-school” bank stepping up like this. Kudos, PNC.