I thought I would make a separate thread on this, as I’ve been using Fidelity CMA for the last few months and I’ve been thoroughly impressed.
It is a great ACH hub, in fact better than Alliant IME, so long as you do not initiate any ACH pulls from your Fidelity account. ACH pushes from Fidelity post same-day in the target accounts I use (Alliant, CIBC, and One Finance). Pushes from One Finance in the morning are posting same day in Fidelity which is great because my direct deposits are being passed through One for their 3% APY account. When I say that they post, I mean that the cash shows up as “available to withdraw”, not just available for trade.
Just don’t ever initiate an ACH pull from Fidelity. My experience has been it takes 4 business days to clear these transactions. The cash is available to trade shortly after the pull, but you cannot actually withdraw or transfer this money (via ACH, Bill Pay, or otherwise) until the 4 business day waiting period has elapsed.
The Bill Payer seems to be run by Checkfree, and it’s been very reliable for me. I have not tried to detect the cutoff for next-day payments, but their system asks you when you want the payment delivered, and it deducts the money on the date it is supposed to arrive. All of my billers are electronic and they offer next-business day delivery. There is no Sunday evening delivery as there is with Alliant, so payments on Monday will reach the biller on Tuesday. A couple billers receive payments faster than they do with Alliant, for instance our local water district is set up with ACH with both Alliant and Fidelity’s bill payer, but Fidelity payments post 2 business days faster than Alliant’s.
They offer unlimited fee-free ATMs worldwide and free checks, if you want them. Interestingly they include ATM reimbursements in your YTD gains on the account, although those are not treated as taxable.
All in all, I am very happy with this account, particularly with ACH speed and the perks. It is a great workhorse checking account.