Safe Deposit Boxes anyone?

[swoolley]

Safe Deposit boxes are one of the traditional banks services I would love to see at the local financial centers.  I understand the overhead, facility, and security are clearly not generally thought of as profitable services, however, it is one that I truly would love to see offerred.

[CyberCowboy]

Physical safe deposit would be great. Also an online digital safe storage for financial records, bitcoin, digital copies of important documents would also be very valuable to clients.

[cmwagner]

When I worked at Washington Mutual Bank, we were trained to call them "Safe Boxes" without the word deposit because deposits at a bank are FDIC insured and these were a non-insured product.  (How can the bank provide insurance on the content of a safe when it doesn't know what that content is?)  If BECU does consider offering this product---which I would love to see happen---then I recommend following the same naming convention to avoid confusion with deposits federally insured by NCUA. 

As for the idea of offering safe boxes, yes, please do.  I am proud to be bank-free, but I'm going to need a safe box by the end of the year, and I dread the thought of having to go to a bank.

[Shi]

When I left BofA and went solely credit union, I closed out my safety deposit box, and now I don't have a 'safe' place for those items. I would love to see BECU offer this service.

[mikeym]

I was just going to post something about this. I've got a safe deposit box at Bank of America, and they've started charging me monthly fees now, the turkeys. I've been putting off looking around for another safe deposit box at another bank, because they'll want me to sign up for a checking account and leave a big balance in it, otherwise the high fees. I'd welcome a credit union alternative. Some sort of sharing arrangement with local banks would be fine with me, I don't know how friendly they are to BECU though. Thanks for asking about this.

[JohnS]

Thank you for starting this conversation @swoolley. While we understand that Safe Deposit Boxes are a useful item for some, they require a large safe, which in many cases, is the size of one of our physical locations.  In an effort to make it easy and convenient to access us, we have invested resources into our digital offerings and continue to expand our Neighborhood Financial Center footprint.  

In our research, we have found that actually only 20% of available safety deposit boxes are being utilized. Based on this steady decline and in an effort to broaden our investments in digital and branch networks, offering Safe Deposit Boxes is not in cards for us.  

[sote33]

The only reason I have an association with BofA is that I need a safe deposit box.  I would much rather eliminate them and go with BECU

[PolarBear]

Agreed. Even if they only had them available at one branch location, I wouldn't need to access the box frequently, so having to drive to Everett or whatever wouldn't be prohibitive. It's just good to have off-site secure storage. I would pay significantly more for this service.

[Kyrielle]

I would also use this service and be able to drop another financial institution.  And I, too, would be willing to have just one site available, since it's not something needed very often.  BUT it is needed.  Could members be polled for interest and for what separate fees they would be willing to support the service? 

[sote33]

I would be able to drop my other financial institution if I had access to a safe deposit.  I would love to have just BECU as my financial institution.