We stumbled over this for some time and decided to use an acquaintances address in SD rather than a closer friend or relatives address outside SD. It likely doesn't matter but to be on the safe side this is what we did. Our concern was an address outside SD could lead the state the address is in to claim us and change taxes, never good. The backup address is just to fill in blanks on their form, make sure the mailing address is for your PMB.

In changing addresses on our finances only one institution would not accept a PMB address. That was for our Capitol One credit cards. All the others (including Vanguard, US Bank, Umpqua Bank, Discover, and Visa) had no problem.

We opened US Bank checking and savings accounts. They seem to have a good number of branches around the country. We kept our local bank's (Umpqua Bank) checking account but changed the address at the bank and on our checks to SD.

UPDATE:

Well kinda. For estate planning we formed a revokable trust. For the trust we opened a US Bank savings account in the Trust's name in South Dakota. US Bank in Oregon took our PMB as a change of address without question. However, to open a US Bank account in South Dakota they would not. Funniest thing though, they would not accept "514 Americas Way #9463" but used "514 Americas Way" as our street address. Go figure?

We likewise opened a Vangurad account in the Trust's name. Vanguard took our PMB for change of address but would not take it for a new account. We had to give them our "fake" address which is now our address for all accounts with Vanguard. Irritating but not worth agruing with a big company, also not effective to argue.

So this outgrowth of the Patriot Act is a real problem. Have a back up sticks and bricks address ready when you make changes.

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