Online Banks

[Shizelbs]

Anyone clients with any of the online banks like ingdirect.com or emigrant.com? They seem to offer some pretty good annual interest rates on savings accounts. I see them basically as essentially very short term CDs. Anyways, just wondering if anyone has anything at all to say about them.

[Burnzy]

Yeah, I have three accounts w/INGDirect. It's hard to beat their interest rates. So far, so good...

:)

[Shizelbs]

Any complaints at all? Their rates are really outstanding, I really think it would be wise to move some of my savings to them.

Is ING really, truly fee free?

[Polkitup2]

Capital One - 4% for savings. It is so easy, you link your main checking account to it to move mony back and forth and you manage it all online. The only drawback for the savings account is that it takes a few days to move money so if you really need cash quick it could be a problem.

[anonymouse]

Unless a few extra bucks mean a lot, I find that consolidation with a single online firm has its advantages. The risk with the interest chasing game is that the paperwork with all these statements starts to eat away in other ways - like at tax time when you have another statement to report.

[Shizelbs]

Just an update.

I signed up with emigrantdirect.com. Its been very simple and just what I had hoped for. Easy to set up the account. You just have to answer the questions typical of setting up a bank account. You tie the checking account of one of your banks to the Emigrant account. You can schedule transfers, both one time and recurring. It takes about 1.5 to 2 business days before the transfer is made into the online account. From then, you can't touch the money for another week. Its gaining interest, but you can't move it back again for a full week. The interest accrued is deposited at the end of the month. So, that means its compounded monthly right? Anyways. Also you can download reports for Microsoft Money or Quicken. Oh, and the one time I called their CS, they were great.

So now you know.

[BaggedLancer]

I went with ING and couldn't be happier. Despite the small delay it takes to move money around it doesn't really matter to me since it's "savings" anyway.

Now if only a bank would pay 4.5% a month on my money, and not 4.5% a year.

[Demiurge]

I like to put a face and a handshake with that kind of banking. Can't beat the rates, but I want to be able to go somewhere when I have an issue. That's worth the smaller interest rates in a general savings account.

I'm not that way with everything, since I'm insured through Progressive personally, but even there I have a local rep that I can meet with at any time.

[wodom1]

I have an ING direct account, but transferred all of my money over to my newly opened emigrantdirect.com account last week. Emigrant's rate is something like 5.05%, I think, compared to ING's 4.5%.

[Demiurge]

Have any of you checked out the Money Market 'Savings' (technically checking) accounts at your local banks? They tend to pay a much higher interest rate, especially with a $10,000 daily balance.

[jdhdiggs]

Demi, Demi, Demi, How many people here do you think maintain a $10K balance and don't have an appropriate saving mechanism? Remember, our "savings" rate is negative... ;)

Great advice though...

[unc2701]

Yeah, i do that with Wachovia, but the "High performance Money Market" hasn't been too high performance the last few months. Maybe 3%?

...Versus the 5.4% in the CD, but I will say that it's nice to be able to just bump over some cash into the money market account at any time. I'll probably roll a big chunk of it into the CD once we get some more stacked up there.

[Demiurge]

Demi, Demi, Demi, How many people here do you think maintain a $10K balance and don't have an appropriate saving mechanism? Remember, our "savings" rate is negative... ;)

Great advice though...

:p Good point! :p