First Republic Bank

Best bank branch in the City--if it gets closed, I will bank elsewhere !!
Sep 6th, 2023

The bank teller went on line to physically look for my house address. Seriously freaky!!! Besides that why would I trust a bank that claimed Bankruptcy?!?!? They are now part of JP Morgan. Rejection is God's protection!
Aug 11th, 2023

Banks are dead, always get bailed out at the cost of our purchasing power.
Apr 27th, 2023

Ryan rocks and made my appointment seamless. He's quick, experienced and it was nice to have a human banker - rare these days.
Nov 4th, 2022

I almost never need to go into a bank branch, but if I do First Republic's service is courteous.   However, my "personal banker" is located in Wyoming, while I'm in Los Angeles, and couldn't pick me out of a line up of two, so not sure why I even have one assigned.  However, the courteous front line staff (who are what other banks call "tellers") at the branches can be just as daft as any other front line staff.  I recently asked why a Zelle payment was going to take 3 days to process, and was told some go standard and some instantaneous.  When I asked why this one is standard and not instantaneous, I was told it probably exceeded my limit.  Once it was established it clearly hadn't (by a lot), I was told no one knows why a transfer is marked standard or instantaneous, it just is.  When I probed, it was clear that's all the person would keep saying because that all her script had taught her to say: A) Say it's over the customer's limit; B) When that's found to be not true, say it's a mystery and no one could possibly know how a Zelle transaction is assigned its priority.  It was a frustratingly circular conversation.  Not surprising that the First Republic employees don't understand how Zelle works, the bank's user interface on its website is so far behind other financial institutions.  If your employer's tech is early 2000's, your understanding of tech is going to be similarly delayed.  Recently, I inquired about wealth management services.  I had a meeting with someone, and then never heard back from him again.  Although I followed up numerous times.  After e-mailing all the bosses, I did hear back from the team's leader, but not to offer services, just to apologize for being rude.  I did have a meeting with another team, but decided their plan wasn't really much different from the plan I already had in place, and I didn't charge me tens of thousands of dollars a year to implement my plan.  I stuck with fee-free me.  In the end, I've come to the conclusion there is absolutely nothing special about First Republic's branch, back office, or wealth management operations to differentiate it from any other bank.  Nothing.  The tellers and other employees at rival banks are also courteous.   All non-First Republic wealth management teams I spoke to were much more responsive than their First Republic counterparts.  Like all banks, First Republic's primary objective is to make money off you.  They might have their tellers sitting at desks so you feel more engaged with the bank, but in the end, it's just another bank charging fees and providing mediocre (at best) back office operations for those fees.  First Republic's fees can be steep, that's how they pay for their tellers sitting at desks in fancy offices.  It's not a gift, it's what you're willing to pay for with the fees they charge.  It's a trade off, and not really one I want to make any longer.  I'll close my large account with the bank, and keep my smaller one with a large enough balance to avoid their pesky fees.
Mar 20th, 2022