Mon 2 Oct 2006
After briefly reviewing interest bearing accounts lately, I have to say b’bye to ING Direct shortly… Here are the other rates out there that I found more appealing (all rates are APY):
- HSBC Direct – 5.05% (not to be confused with plain old HSBC which doesn’t have such high rates.)
- Schwab – 4.82% (the default money market account for brokerage accounts.)
- OANDA – 4.825%
- Virtual Bank – 4.6%
- ING Direct – 4.4%
ING’s rate of 4.4% is certainly nothing to sneeze at… In fact, compared to normal retail banks, it is still pretty good. Wachovia can offer up to 3.55% in a money market account, but you have to deposit ridiculous amounts of money to get that rate — us mere mortals would earn between 0.25% and 2.48%. And ING is certainly not the fly-by-night operation that you can typically find sporting the highest rates on Bankrate.com… but then again, HSBC is a much bigger financial institution with a market cap in excess of $210 billion.
Even though ING used to lead the pack in high yielding money market/savings accounts, it’s now a lagger in this high interest paying competition. I plan to keep my account open in case they decide to lead again, but the majority of my savings will go elsewhere…