There are 4 reasonable banks for having a banking account as a GATECH student (these are the only banks that have ATMs = Automated Teller Machines at Gatech): SouthTrust, Nations Bank, Wachovia and Lockheed Georgia Employees Federal Credit Union LGEFCU (all ATMs are located in the student center, the ATM's of the first three banks on the lowest level, the LGEFCU ATM in front of their office, middle floor).

Generally you can open in such a bank both checking and saving accounts. The checking account is the every day account from which you usually withdraw money and do your transactions with. The savings account on the other hand is to deposit some money that you do not necessarily need in the near future, which is why you get more interest for this account.

SouthTrust
I don't know much about SunTrust, but as far I know despite the ATM in the Student Center there is no SunTrust branch close to Gatech.

Nationsbank
Also Nationsbank is not my first choice, I had an account there, but they have bad conditions for students (I had to have ALWAYS at least $1500 on the checking account, otherwise I would have to pay for the account). Well, Nationsbank has the tallest building in Atlanta and good international connections, and probably branches all over the U.S. if you are interested in that.

Wachovia
Wachovia is the most popular choice: They have a bank very close to the campus, accross Tech Parkway, and have a lot of branches in Atlanta and (at least) Southeast U.S. The checking account is free, on the savings account you get some interest, and they issue a banking card (instead of a credit card) which is similar to a Eurocard, you can go shopping with it and they bill directly your account. Caution: Meanwhile they charge you at Wachovia if you use counter duties more than twice a month or.

Lockheed GA Employees Federal Credit Union LGEFCU
I personally prefer LGEFCU. They have a small office in the student center - it is a little bit hidden on the middle floor opposite to the phones, their ATM is also located there. They are only open Mon, Wed, Fri but that is good enough for me. Their conditions are much better than Wachovia's conditions. Much less charges, especially not for counter duties, and you get interest on your checking account and much more interest than Wachovia on your savings account (both accounts are free of course). The disadvantage of this bank is that they don't have a lot of ATMs and branches. Of course you can get also money from any non-LGEFCU ATM, but that costs $1.50 (at any ATM you can use any banking card for some charge that depends on your bank, usually it is around $2). If you consider staying in the U.S. I definitely recommend to put the $5 Minimum on an LGEFCU account, since with this you become life long member (does not cost anything) and have access to their very good offers for insurances and credit cards, and you are not able to become member if you are not GATECH student and don't work for Lockheed affiliated companies.

A propos credit cards:

Getting a credit card in the U.S. is most of the time only possible if you get a SSN (social security number) and you get it only if you get a student job (in example research assistant or teaching assistant). However, the no immediate need for a credit card since most banks offer debit cards that cooperate with VISA. Therefore, you can pay everywhere where they accept VISA with this card. The only differences between this debit card and the credit card is that the money is withdrawn directly from the bank account (no later payment) and they your credit history is not being built up by that card.

Most of the credit cards are free of charges, some even give you a small percentage of your charges back in CASH (Discover Card up to 1%). The main difference between credit cards is in their interest rate for late payment. The most popular credit card types are (in this order): Visa, Master Card (=Euro Card), Discover, American Express. Having a U.S. credit card (in comparison to using your home country credit card) is an advantage since you then don't have to pay 1% provision for use in foreign countries at AN EXTREMELY BAD EXCHANGE RATE.

A good source for finding credit card tips is here (not long ago this site was not commercial and very good, now you have to check it out by yourself).

For the German students: Choosing a German Bank: I am here since a long time and I compared a lot of German banks. The best for students seems to me to be the student account of the 1822direkt (Frankfurter Sparkasse). They give good interest on your Girokonto, issue a FREE credit card and (I could not believe it) send your banking statements to the U.S., also for free. They have internet access and have a free call-back service that so far for me also worked for the U.S. Recommending each other to 1822 brings nice presents, i.e. $CASH$ 

In case you want to transfer money from your home bank account then there are several options such as wire transfer, traveller's checks (not Thomas Cook since the local bank do not accept those), credit card withdrawal, and Postbank SparCard. However, since for each bank the costs for each of these methods to get money from abroad varies, no clear recommendation can be made.

last updated: 06/27/02 , WSF Admin