I can wire funds from my cash management or brokerage account for free, use the debit card for anything that takes debit payment rails, etc. I do keep a Chase account around for Zelle, but am looking to switch to Navy Federal Credit Union to eliminate Chase but retain Zelle until FedNow uptake improves. Wires to my Wise account land super fast for quick cross border money movement to EUR and AUD. Wise only charges $1-$2 for domestic US wires, so also convenient for funds that need immediate availability elsewhere.
(lots of detail that might be potentially unhelpful, but I hope it helps others, the plumbing is easy if you know the primitives; Chase is horrible, I do not recommend, Schwab, Vanguard, or Fidelity is the way)
Wire can easily get held up for unknown amounts of time with no recourse. A brokerage attached to a real bank is the only liquid solution for large amounts. Everything else is on an ACH timeframe, which is usually next day with push, but that's often not good enough when you actually need large amounts of money.
It has to do with KYC, in many cases, and being a brick and mortar bank doesn't help. There are heaps of horror stories involving Chase, WF, BOA, etc freezing money up.
A “real” bank is not necessary. The bank charter is for their benefit, not yours, and a brokerage offers everything one should need to satisfy their financial service needs (assuming no lending products besides margin).
Lots of reasons, joint accounts, name mismatch, weird names, fat finger by bank employee, missing odd info deemed necessary by the receiving bank, fraud/money laundering holds. One of my very normal wire transfers of not even a huge amount arrived next day for no reason, defeating its purpose, and neither Fidelity nor the receiving bank had any explanation, or really knew anything about it, without a formal trace. Fidelity after all is not a bank. They'd have to check with their own bank.
(lots of detail that might be potentially unhelpful, but I hope it helps others, the plumbing is easy if you know the primitives; Chase is horrible, I do not recommend, Schwab, Vanguard, or Fidelity is the way)