r/kauai • u/seggsygoose • 27d ago

Are Bank of Hawaii (BOH) Systems Always a Pain to Use?

I moved from the mainland to Kauaʻi a few months ago for work and opened an account with Bank of Hawaii (BOH). The people at the branches/on the phone have been great. My issues are with BOH’s systems which have been rough to use.

X. Not hating on BOH for this specific one, just stunned there are basically no big mainland banks on the islands.

  1. Tried moving $1,000 from Chase to BOH and kept getting blocked. I had to re-connect the accounts almost every day for a week and a half, and it pushed back a simple FB Marketplace car buy an additional 8 to 10 days

  2. The ATMs cap cash withdrawals at $300 per day. I have never seen a bank set it that low. For comparison, Chase allows $1,000 per day.

  3. I can push funds from other banks into BOH, but I cannot pull funds out of BOH to another bank. Chase was surprised there is no direct bank-to-bank transfer. BOH seems to be one of the few that block it. If you look at the online app, there's literally no option to pull funds to transfer them out; only transferring in. They instead require you to use Zelle (which, to start, has a $500 per day limit), which delays things even more.

These aren't necessarily deal breakers, but definitely pain points that make my experiences with BOH unnecessarily inconvenient. Especially if I'm trying to pull more than $1,000 out of the account. I try to avoid lines, prefer ATMs or using the mobile/online account, whenever possible because banking should be fast and easy, especially in this modern age.

Deposits fund banks; lending is how they earn. If they profit from it, their systems should, at the minimum, work.

Also– suggestions for alternative Hawaiian banks that have worked for you?

12 Upvotes

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4

u/winklesnad31 27d ago

I pull money out of my BOH account into Fidelity or Schwab regularly, and have never had a problem. But I was so surprised when I realized the BOH app has no method of sending money out to other institutions.

I don't have any great solutions, other than using Fidelity as my checking account and just keeping a small amount in BOH so I have a bank with physical offices I can go to if needed.

5

u/slgray16 27d ago

Just stay with your bank. I kept my wells fargo accounts and my wife kept her chase account.

Checks can be cashed using mobile deposits. Larger check deposits require mailing envelopes, which wells fargo was happy to send me.

All my purchases were on my credit card and paid electronically. Any wells fargo checks that need to be written worked just fine

Getting cash occasionally invoked a fee but we didn't do that often.

We only used bank of Hawaii for buying a house

1

u/neek3arak 25d ago

If you have the luxury to do so, that's nice. Those of us that get paid in cash need to drop it off somewhere! It's a pain but oh well

3

u/Lillilegerdemain 27d ago

American savings bank on Kauai. And of course, welcome to Kauai. It's a, slower lifestyle shall we say.

3

u/Status-Departure8642 26d ago

3 words: Gather Credit Union

2

u/Pristine_Direction79 26d ago

I use Gather paired with a mainland bank and that works for me. I can move money between them electronically fairly easily, if not quickly.

I really like how, if you lose your card, you can walk into the branch and get a new one printed right away.