UWCU

University of Wisconsin Credit Union for the uninitiated.

When I joined Facebook, I used to think I will only be a fan of something that is really worth it. And one day I noticed, my bank of 9 years was on Facebook. I immediately became a fan.

Here is a bank that is a Credit Union. It is meant for UW students and employees. But for me it is a lot more than that. My first independent bank account in the US, it has seen all my financial ups and downs. And it is a great bank simply for the features it offers. So much so, than even after I moved from Madison to Milwaukee and then to California, I continued to use this bank. Living very close to a Wells Fargo in Sunnyvale, I used to get my salary credited to UWCU because I used to find banking with a bank some thousands of miles away much easier and more worth my time than one which was less than a mile away.

Even today I use this bank. Recently they started (or maybe only recently I got to know of it) this facility called MoneyLink which allows free electronic funds transfer between banks (like NEFT in Indian banks). I confess, in all the banks I have dealt with in the US, no one offered this free transfer convenience like Indian banks did. I may be wrong, maybe other banks also do, but I haven't had accounts with them. I used to have much respect for Indian banks in that sense.

But now my good old Madison bank also lets me do it. Recently we had a friend transfer funds to us and it was so easy that it was hard to believe that this was an American bank I was dealing with.

And the web interface of this bank needs to be seen to be believed! So much information all in one screen without clutter. It is simply amazing. I have seen American Express, Wells Fargo, US Bank, ICICI, HDFC and a myriad other banks' web interfaces and none comes even close to UWCU's extremely user-friendly interface.

And customer support is easy, prompt and very helpful, again without the need to make calls, all through their web portal.

So I thought I'd give them a kudos in my blog!

Good work folks!