Choosing a bank in PGH (Pittsburgh, Liberty: environment, skyscraper, jobs)

[bhare]

Hello all,

My fiance' and I will be moving to Pittsburgh in August, but we are visiting this weekend. I would like to choose a bank while we are in town. We are looking for a joint checking and possibly savings account. A free checking account would be great and I will be attending Pitt so I could get a student account.
Is anyone aware of a rating of the banks in the area or does anyone have a favorite bank and a reason for loving them? I was going to look on Saturday to see who has extended hours, and also look in our neighborhood (Friendship) to see what is in the area.
Thanks for any advice you might have.

[Hopes]

One word of warning, Citizen's bank is not considered a local bank. Any local check you deposit into a Citizen's bank account will take a few days to clear. Alternately, any check you write to someone from your Citizen's account will take days to clear when they deposit your check into their local account. So even though the Citizen's branches that are conveniently located in the Giant Eagle grocery stores have great extended hours, you might want to seriously think about the fact that you won't be banking with a local bank if you bank at Citizens.

PNC has free checking and student accounts. Dollar bank does also. I'm sure National City has the same but check into it. Almost all of the banks have branches somewhere that are open with extended hours on the evenings and weekends. For instance, PNC has one on McKnight Road and Dollar Bank has one in Waterworks---both with extended hours compared to their other branches in the North Hills. Someone who lives in the East End will have to give you the low down on which banks have branches in the city with extended hours because I'm not as familiar with that area of town as far as banking is concerned.

[Elder18]

There is a Fifth-Third bank on Forbes just past Murray Ave. (where I'm going to be living).

I know they are open on Saturday but I'm not sure about extended hours. They have free checking too.

It would also be a benefit if you have one near your house (and I'm pretty sure you might) because you could easily re-deposit your money there without the worry of taking it to Pittsburgh.

[mach]

I think I would support PNC. Didn't they help fund in a big way that ballfield?

[stevo6]

PNC has so far served us well. Our branch is even open on Sunday.

[NewBurg]

PNC would be my choice because of how invested they are in the region. They're creating a new skyscraper and many more jobs. They just built a little 1.5 acre greenspace downtown for public use. They often build in an environmentally green way, and they have offered low-rate financing and other moneys for all of the development in East Liberty.
I also live in Friendship, and PNC is convenient, with banks in Bloomfield, Shadyside, and along Penn in the Friendship/Garfield corridor.

[Mugatu]

I also vote for PNC. I use their free checking account, with free online banking, and have been quite satsfied with it. Not to mention there is a PNC branch on just about any corner, or a PNC ATM in many stores. Also, I live in South Hills and their branch at the South Hills Village is open Sat until 3pm and SUNDAY as well. Very convenient.

[barneyg]

I'm a foreign student attending CMU and I use PNC as well. Back when we opened our account (joint checking with my wife) we got the student plan, even though my wife is not a student. The plan included one free incoming wire transfer per month, which is nice. Not sure if this is still in effect as we haven't used the option (our home bank in Canada would still charge prohibitive fees for outgoing wire transfers). PNC really is everywhere around here.