Which Online High-Yield Money Market & High-Interest Savings Account is Best?

jpsfranks,

You can change your HSBC login username. I know this for a fact because I changed mine.

Steve,

I used to have an Amex one account, the problem is that it costs $35/year and transferring money to and from the account took me 3-4 business days. It is a cool concept, but poorly executed in my opinion.

Don’t use E*Trade. I have had an account with them for awhile and recently their customer service has been horrible and they refuse to do simple things like give you certain reports on your account activity. Also they charge you $5 for some printed reports.

I think you are all off. Use GMAC Demand Notes. All you need to own is one share of GM and a balance over $1k. The current rate is 5.75%

http://www.demandnotes.com/main.htm

Try it out. Its much better!

I have Amtrust, ING, and Citi direct. I use all 3 just to push around for best rate and i love all of them. They are all linked together so i can move money and the good thing is there is a real Citi bank in my town so i can make deposits easily too and just move it.
Great customer service for all 3, even though i haven’t had to deal with them much.

I have had an ING Direct account for about 2 years. Great product. You kind of forget about the account too so you’re less likely to take the money and spend it.

I had thought I’d posted a response. Oh well. Sorry if this is a double-post.

I have high-yield FDIC insured savings accounts with HSBC Direct and Emigrant Direct.

Emigrant Direct has a straightforward website, which allows you to see how much interest you’ve earned so far that month (which is compounded daily but not added to the account until the end of the month), what pending transfers are up, and is my favorite financial services website I’ve used so far, for those and other reasons. The interest rate isn’t the top, but it’s high up in the lists. Since I don’t really have a lot of money to throw around I also appreciate that having a savings account with this bank allows me to open CD accounts for 6 months or longer with $1,000 or more, all at the same APY.
Transfers out appear in the other account’s listing the day that the transfer was scheduled for. They have to be scheduled at least 2 business days in advance, though, I think. Transfers in do not become “available” funds immediately (just like how transfers out make the funds that are to be transfered unavailable, though presumably still interest-bearing, a few days before the transfer out), but they are used in the total amount in the account as soon as the date of the transfer, unlike the HSBC policy of not including the money until several days after the date of the transfer. I haven’t done the math to make sure that the interest is actually calculated on the unavailable money, so I might be wrong on that, though it’s certainly what the account page makes it look like. I highly recommend Emigrant Direct.

HSBC takes a long time for transfers to clear compared to Emigrant. The reason I have an account with them is that I like having an ATM card for it, since it is my emergency account. The problem is that there are no HSBC ATMs in my area, so I’d most likely have to forfeit some of my savings in the form of fees if I were to ever use it. Logging in is sort of confusing to do, and requires use of the mouse to enter in a second password-type thing, which I find obnoxious. I have casually been looking for a differen savings account with ATM access, even if they also don’t have any ATMs local to me, since their website is such a pain to use and the transfers take so long to clear. I would not recommend HSBC Direct unless you need the ATM access and your location is different than mine or your willingness to pay ATM fees is better than mine.

I’ve casually looked at the Citibank account since there are a lot of 7-Elevens with Citibank ATMS in my area, but the difference in interest rates and my belief that there might be an early-closing fee with HSBC have prevented me from doing too deep an investigation.

I’ve been using ING for two years now with zero problems. I’m very pleased with the amount of security they have implemented. One thing mentioned about another OLB: there is a limit of 6 transactions per statement cycle. This was the case when I signed up; don’t know if this still the case.

I’m surprised there are so many mentions of PayPal. With PayPal’s history of abyssmal customer service, transaction mistakes, customer-hostile policies and ‘guilty until proven innocent (and good luck trying…)’ SOP, I wouldn’t invest money in them even if I owned the company. I refuse to give PayPal my checking account info to become ‘verified’, and will only transact with them using a credit card in order to have buyer protection. paypalsucks.com, paypalwarning.com, aboutpaypal.org tell some of the stories. I have a friend who experienced PayPal issues where they attempted to transfer money out of his account without warning, and not at his request. The transfer failed. PayPal hit him with a fee, then froze his account. The bank hit him with a fee. PayPal refused to admit to any facet of the problem or refund any of the fees. It was an ugly mess and in the end he dropped PayPal, leaving a small amount of money in his account that they refused to unfreeze.

Perhaps PayPal’s savings are a different ‘division’, but I would avoid putting any funds at risk with them.

We’ve been very satisfied ING customers for several years. Last week I did an inbound transfer Thurs nite that went through on Friday, hoping to see this promptness continue.

It’s good to see the variety of alternatives today. We declined the EO offer because the terms seemed overly unbalanced with regard to things like errors and disputes. I’d echo Pat’s sentiments @82 above about exposure to mortgage lenders.

I’d be particularly interested to know if any accounts offer ATM deposit, as I have for some years wanted to be able to deposit checks to remote banks, and going to my local bank branch and then doing an online transfer seems more complicated than it should need to be, particularly if the check needs to clear before funds are available at my local bank.

I use HSBC for my savings. The website looks like it is from the 90s but all the functions are there. The security login is irritating, but at least they try. Quick transfers in and out, you can setup automatic transfers easily. Not the best interface, but it works and I am satisfied.

I would not recommend E-Trade for banking. When it comes to transfering money into the account, They hold your money for what seems like weeks! Guarenteed at least one week. They are notorious for puting funds on HOLD for at least 8 Business days ( for me at least ). The money wires into the Etrade within 3 days, but you have no access to the funds for quite sometime afterwards. Transfering money out seems to be ok.

I just came over here from Digg.com, sweet blog, I personally love ING Direct because of their integrated online checking account.

As both an ING and HSBC direct customer, I have been happy with both. I got the HSBC account after holding the ING account for a year because I live in NY and wanted the ATM access. The website is not user friendly and takes FOREVER to transfer. I just got the ING card, and i am seriously loving it.

Unless you have a large amount (10k plus) in one of these accounts, 50 basis points is not going to make an appreciable difference in your takings.

I have been using an Emigrant Direct account for the past 6 months. I’m very happy with it.

What I really like about it is that I was able to make 3 different accounts under one user id (I believe you can make up to 5). That way I have one account for my insurance savings, one for my travel savings, and one for my emergency savings.

Another great feature which other people have already mentioned is the automatic transfers. So every two weeks (payday), all three accounts get an “allowance” that goes directly into them. No fuss. And the coolest part is that you can put limits on these transfers (i.e., stop the transfer at this date, or stop the transfer when it reaches this amount).

I have yet to take money out of the account and put it back into my bank account, but I heard it takes a few days. No problem for me since I can use my credit card til it transfers over. One thing I wish Emigrant would do is have the actual names of my accounts on the site instead of the last 4 digits of the account, but oh well. Emigrant’s great.

I’ve held an INGDirect accounts for 2+ years and never had a problem. I love being able to log in and get tax info during tax season, and not having to wait around for a 1099.

I’m a new HSBCDirect customer and so far so good. I wanted it primarily for access to its international network, as I enjoy traveling overseas a lot and the ATM card will come in handy. Setting up an account took 24 hours, and I haven’t noticed a major lag time between transfers yet but I’ve only done 2.

I don’t mind the more complicated log-in feature as this means they’re paying attention to security.

Wow! 135 comments thats nice but how come no one mentioned iGoBanking.com, currently its 5.30% APY with no minimum, no fees. Currently am with ING but this one seems tempting. BTW its savings account.

I have a fairly large-sized cash balance with Etrade (used to be with Brownco). After reading this I thought I’d try opening a savings account with them. This is what I keep getting:

“An error has occurred while processing your application. Please try again or print out an application. Otherwise, please return to the E*TRADE Bank home page.”

Obviously they aren’t interested in making this expedient, and why would they when they’ve been paying me less than 1% on cash balances. I think I’ll continue to put my cash in the short term bond ETF (NYSE; SHY) or Treasury Bills until Vanguard introduces their short term bond ETF in the near future.

I’m thinking about moving to online checking. I already have an online savings account. If I move my checking to an online provider, how would I cash in an occasional paper savings bond? Is it safe to mail paper bonds? Can paper bonds be converted to the relatively new electronic bonds?

Can you believe it? I actually went through all of 142 comments on this post!!!

I am a University student right now, but I wanted to start out saving some money right away, so that I have a decent footing once I graduate.

I learned a lot reading through the post and the comments. From what I’ve read so far, I think the best option for me would be HSBC or ING. I am a little more inclined towards ING right now. Even though the ING rates (in Canada) are not at the top, but I am looking for stability and ease of use right now.

So thanks to everyone!

I have HSBC and has been working great for me. Sure their website isn’t the best of the best, as J.D. said, it’s a mess. But it’s a mess because they are working on it to be better for the consumer.

I would also like to mention that HSBC does in fact have an automatic savings plan. If you choose “Bank to Bank Transfers”, you can select a “Recurring Transfer” to be withdrawn from an external bank account/or even another HSBC account, at no charge to you. I currently have an automatic plan set up to deposit $100 every month and building a nice piece of change from monthly interest.

I would love to have another high interest savings account that pays more than 5.05%APY, but it seems that the other higher ones want a set minimum. May be good for some, but I use my savings for an emergency fund and free cash stash if I sell my investments. HSBC’s $1 minimum works great for me and recommend it.

One nice thing about ING is the fact that you can refer a friend and earn $10 for every person who opens an account with a min. of $250. The friend will also earn an instant $25 to their own account. 4.5% may seem to be a lower interest rate than the others, however an instant $10 or $25 here and there yeilds a higher overall rate.

I still love ING Direct.. Their customer service department answers the phone on the first ring and transfers are incredibly easy. Email me at jew98 (at) hampshire.edu if you’d like a referral code to take advantage of the $25 bonus.