Emigrant Direct - giving them a try
I’ve been a faithful customer of ING Direct for quite a while now, more than three years, I think. The bank is consistently ranked among the highest-paying interest rates in Wall Street Journal finance section (the ratings are actually done by Bankrate), and currently pays 2.60% interest on the money in the savings account. This is not a whole lot, and you can earn much more if you invest into a proper stock account or buy mutual funds, but if you want immediate access to the money and want to lower the possibility of risk, ING Direct worked fine for me. (By the way, shoot me an e-mail in case you want to open an account, and get $25 from them, you have to be referred by a current customer.)
Emigrant Direct started its Internet campaign just recently, as I see the banners scattered on lots of financial Web sites. They are offering a pretty competitive rate of 3.00% API, which I think is the best that you can get as far as savings account in the United States. They’re an old New York bank, and just recently they decided to expand onto the Internet. I started the account opening process figuring I’d diversify my savings, since their 3.00% is better than ING Direct’s 2.60% interest.
Things I don’t like so far is the time it takes. I’ve started the account opening process more than a week ago, filled in the form on the Web site and specified a valid checking account with my local bank. You have to have a checking account, since their primary means of transfer include getting the money to and from checking account electronically. They deposited two small amounts into my checking account about 3 days later, and I had to verify the exact deposit amount on their Web site. After verification I got a thank you note and an e-mail message saying I should wait for the letter in the mail. It’s about 4 business days past my online verification, and I am still waiting.
Another area to pay attention to is the 30-day freeze on the money uploaded to Emigrant Direct. ING generally waits for a week on uploaded funds, and then they become available for downloading back to the local checking account. But I guess so far so good, and even though the sign-up process takes a bit long, they don’t have minimums or hidden fees, so I will just wait till the letter arrives and I am officially good with Emigrant Direct.