How to transfer money between banks with no fees?

[sethmachine]

Hi,

I'm trying to transfer a significant sum of money from my Bank of America account to a new account which has an interest rate orders of magnitudes higher.

BoA wants to charge me $3 to do the transfer.

Is there another way to do a transfer between accounts? I will likely be doing this more often in the future.

[lirpalynn]

I added my Ally account under bill pay with my regular bank. I'm not sure what the limit would be each transaction, but it should be free to "pay" the higher interest bank in regular installments until it is all transferred over. There's probably a quicker way to do it, but at least it is free. BoA can be such a pain in the butt.

[ua_guy]

If this isn't something you plan on doing often, just pay the $3.

There are some of us on here that vehemently dislike BoA and $3 is worth spending to never have to deal with them again.

[LizfromtheBronx]

Check to see if you can initiate the transfer from the new bank for free. I opened a checking account with M&T for a bonus and found out there was a fee to transfer to an external account, but their customer service rep was nice enough to let me know that if I initiated the transfer from the other account, it was free.

[SavingSteve]

Liz is right. If you initiate the transfer from the receiving bank there should be no fee.

[Drake3287]

Interesting, I just made a large transfer to a new bank from my BofA checking account and I'm not sure if I'll be hit with that. I'm sort of guessing I won't, I think different BofA accounts are free of various service charges depending on your account status or balance.

Although many people hate BofA, I've never paid any kind of fee or ever had a problem of any kind in 50 years.

[WhiskeyGirl]

Amazon Payments or Paypal might be an option.

[Leo]

I have Bank of America Checking, Ally Savings, Chase Checking.

Transfer from Chase to my other bank is free
Transfer from Bank of America to my other bank $3 fee
Transfer from Ally to my other bank is free

But wait...

Transfer to Chase from Bank of America is free
Transfer to Ally from Bank of America is free

How?

Use the receiving bank to transfer it (pull)

[ThinkingCapital]

Not every bank offers it, but try contacting the receiving bank and have them start the transfer. They will likely be willing to pay the fee for you so that you'll switch your banking to them.

[disneysteve]

I know this is an old post revived by a spammer but I actually know the answer to the question.

As others have said, have the receiving bank initiate the transfer and you'll avoid the fee.

My daughter has a BoA account and an Ally account. There is a fee to have BoA send money to Ally but no fee to have Ally take money from BoA. You just need to do it that way.

[ygrey]

Although it seems unfair, but you have to pay the bank for the services they provide. Just pay the $3 in one-go instead of making several transactions and paying something every other time.