I first starting seeing Commerce Banks popping up about 3 or 4 years ago. At the time, I didn’t really know much about them, and wasn’t really looking to change my banking habits. But after the fiasco with Sovereign Bank, my wife needed to change banks, and Commerce was familiar and prevalent all around New Jersey. So, when we opened a joint account, Commerce is where we went.

[ • who are THEY? • ]
Commerce Bank (Commerce Bancorp, Inc.) was originally founded in 1973, but remained a small local bank for many years serving southern New Jersey. Only in the last few years have the exploded onto the scene, opening branches in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York and becoming one of the largest banks in the region.

Started by Vernon Hill, II, the bank has worked on a system of creating a "chain concept and features standardized facilities, standardized hours, standardized service and aggressive marketing" (from their website). Every branch is identical, so you can walk into any branch and know exactly where everything is. They have always focused on convenience banking, giving features and services that most other banks didn’t offer, such as expanded weekend hours. In our region, they were the first (and until the arrival of Citizen’s Bank, only) bank to have service hours on Sundays.

In 1996, they started offering insurance through Commerce Insurance Services, Inc., now the 28th largest insurance company in the country with annual premium balances of more than $800 million.

[ • where are THEY? • ]
The majority of their 300 locations are in South Jersey and Philadelphia, although they are rapidly expanding into northern New Jersey, New York, Delaware and Maryland. In our area, you can barely turn around without seeing one (there are literally 5 branches within 5 miles of us). And they are expanding further, opening branches in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. area in 2005, and in Boston starting in 2007.

[ • banking ACCOUNTS • ]
Commerce offers all of the major banking services - savings and checking accounts, retirement accounts, home equity lines and loans, mortgages, etc. They also offer brokerage and insurance services, although we haven’t used any of these, so I can’t really speak to them. We currently have 3 accounts with Commerce - checking, home equity loan and business checking.

» Checking Commerce offers several checking account options: free checking (with a $100 minimum monthly balance, except in Delaware and New York, where it is totally free); interest checking with a $1,000 minimum monthly balance that pays about 0.15% APY; 50 Plus Club offers seniors FREE Interest Checking with a $100 minimum balance, plus, 50 Plus Club checks, ATM/Visa Check Card, Money Orders, Notary Service and Individual Travelers Checks all for free. Consumer Checking has no minimum balance and a $3 monthly fee.

Our account has been a breeze – we got our free first order of checks, and started using the account almost immediately. Our checks are processed quickly and our statements are always on time and accurate. We have an free ATM card that has given us few problems (I had a magnetic strip failure on one, but I know how finicky those can be – and they fixed it right away).

We haven’t really had much of a problem with the account from the CHECKING side of things other than when we re-ordered our checks, however, they do charge a bundle for them (more than $20), so consider ordering from another service.

» Home Equity Line When rates were really low, we took a home equity line out on our house to pay some bills. The process was simple – we went in, answered some questions, had our credit checked, verified some information with our mortgage lender, and we were home free. The whole process – from the time we walked in to the time we had the money – took less than 1 week. We had approval the day after they received the credit report, and we just had wait for the paperwork. Our rate was very competitive and was made more so by the fact that we agreed to have the payment taken directly out of our checking account each month (a quarter-point savings).

They hit our account the same time every month, allowing a day or two for weekends, and we have had no problems with this account at all. From set-up to current has been a breeze.

» Business Checking My wife opened up a second account for her business based on our experiences with our personal checking account. Again, she has had no problems with her account – they are always prompt with payments and actually go the extra mile when depositing her checks. Normally checks have to wait a day before being posted to the account, but they usually will deposit them as a cash deposit, giving us immediate access. Great!

She also got free checks, a free check card (which is much nicer than the normal one), and would offer merchant credit card handling, if she needed it.

» ATM/Check Cards As I said, we’ve had our share of ATM cards, but never had any problem short of normal wear and tear. Commerce doesn’t charge a fee for ATM card usage anywhere, and since we have so many Wawa’s around us (local versions of a 7-11) that don’t charge any fees, we can usually get money without any surcharges at all. Plus, with the number of branches, we can usually find a Commerce ATM within easy reach.

We’ve never had a purchase problem with the cards at a merchant, and only one case where it wouldn’t be accepted online. But other than that, it has worked just like any Visa card should.

[ • Customer Service • ]
Commerce prides itself on its convenience (their tag line is “America’s Most Convenient Bank”. I have to say that that is mostly true. They offer some of the best weekday hours of any bank (most branches are lobby hours until 5, with Thursdays and Fridays until 8, and drive-thru hours until 8). Plus, they offer great weekend hours, such as the Saturday hours of 8:30 – 3 (lobby)/8:30 – 6 (drive-thru) and Sunday hours of 11-4. Citizen’s Banks also have weekend hours but I’m not sure what they are.

The people in both the lobby, the offices and the drive-thru are almost always super-friendly. They even keep dog treats for our dog, Dakota, when my wife goes to make a deposit in the drive-thru. They recognize him and we get the biscuit before we get our money/receipt (he LOVES Commerce Bank). When you go into the bank, you always see smiling, helpful faces to serve you.

That being said, they have made mistakes quite a few times. We’ve had misposted payments, missing checks, late payments (from their online service), and strange fees. Luckily, every time there is a mistake – including when it’s our fault – they are willing to fix it for us.

Phone support is usually helpful as well. We’ve had several problems with our account online, and a few with weird payments, and as a rule they’ve bent over backwards to help us solve them. Duplicate payment accidentally? Taken care of. Late direct deposit from work? Remove any fees that might have occurred. Didn’t get our bank statement? Well, they’ll have one to us tomorrow.

Lastly, Commerce offers a small piece of service that I find quite refreshing. You probably have a coin jar, just like most people. You throw pennies and other coins into it and eventually either run out of room, or decide to cash it in for a rainy day. At my other bank, that meant rolling it up, writing my name and account number on each roll and then presenting it to the teller. Commerce has them beat – every branch has a coin counter in it so that you can thrown your change in, get it counted and present the receipt to the teller for cash. It’s geared toward kids (the loud animation can be a bit embarrassing) but it beats rolling my own coins. And best of all, unlike supermarket coin counters, it’s FREE.

[ • online BANKING • ]
If Commerce has one area where it lags, it is their online banking interface. Working with internet design, it might be just me being to hard on them, but my wife seems to agree. Their site isn’t all that attractive, but in the end I’d rather have functional than attractive. But they lack that, as well. The login is a two-part process: login enter, then password enter on the second page. I can’t remember the last major site I’ve seen that does that.

Once you are in, functionality is fairly normal – you can see your balance, review recent transactions, transfer money. One nice feature is the ability to see scans of your checks, in case you can’t remember who you wrote it to. You can also download your statements into Quicken or Microsoft Money.

They also offer a bill-paying service, and this is where we have run into most of our problems with Commerce. At the time, we were using CheckFree to pay most of our bills, at a cost. Commerce offered a free alternative, which was a bonus. However, they don’t offer as many merchants as CheckFree, so we still had to split our bill-paying. But the real problem is that it is inconsistent in paying the bills on time. When you pay a bill for the first time, you expect it to be paid electronically; however, because of the relationships between certain merchants and the Commerce Bill-Pay Service, not all payments are made electronically; in fact some of them are paid via snail mail because Commerce mails a check for you to the address of the company. Unfortunately, they don’t MAIL the check until the date you put in as the ‘due date’ and you won’t know this, until you find out your payment is late and they tell you it isn’t electronically payable.

We had several bills late because of this limitation, and it was the one time our customer service experience was sub-par. The representative was not only not very helpful, but was someone condescending and saying “Well, now you know”. Needless to say, I made another call and got everything straightened out. Every time we have had a problem with payments, Commerce has gone above and beyond to remove the fees and make things right. The fact that they make it right is commendable, but I would still like to not have to go through the aggravation.

[ • final THOUGHTS • ]
Overall, Commerce is a great bank to work with. The services they offer are comparable or better than those of all of the other banks around here. The hours are fantastic, offering those customers who can’t get out during the day a LOT of time to do whatever they need to do at their own convenience. Customer service is great overall, especially when fixing the more than occasional error. The only downside is their online banking, but compared to everything else, I’d have to say that’s minor. I’ve enjoyed our relationship with Commerce, and expect to keep banking with them for a long while in the future.

[ • more INFORMATION • ]
http://www.commerceonline.com/
1-888-751-9000

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Part of the Around Epinions in 23+ Reviews auto-writeoff.

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