THE BEST

of

2025

Banking Awards

Methodology

When choosing our FinanceBuzz Banking Awards winners, we considered quantitative factors like our star ratings as well as qualitative inputs based on discussions within our editorial team. We've aimed to identify the best accounts for specific purposes or types of people. While some winners may be partners, this did not influence who we chose to win awards.

How we chose the winners

We started with a list of over 100 top banking products that we'd collected data on and scored. Then, for each category we identified minimum criteria to be included in our evaluation group. For example, when looking for the best checking account for international travel, we only looked at accounts with no foreign transaction fees.

Then within that narrowed group, we determined the most important ranking factors in order to compare the accounts head to head. Those ranking factors tie directly to the award category and vary for each award. Some of the factors we looked at were quantitative like monthly fees or minimum balance requirements, while others were qualitative like customer opinions and features that weren’t essential but improved the overall experience. In the end, each account received a category-specific score that was used to determine the award winner.