Banks
From WhyNotWiki
I have recently started on-line savings accounts (HSBC and Emigrant) and I have found them to be easy, useful and more rewarding than traditional savings accounts. I am looking into on-line checking right now. I appreciate your comments about ING Direct. I am curious as to what your initial thoughts are regarding Schwab’s free checking, interest yielding account, advertised at schwab.com.
ING sounds great, so I just want to throw out another, very similar option which DOES include paper checks: EverBank (http://www.everbank.com). This is the bank I do checking with and it’s all free, free, free.
It pays interest on checking also, from 3-5% depending on your balance, and right now is doing 6% for your first three months.
It too offers an overdraft line of credit. Mine’s $250, this may vary.
It doesn’t have an ATM network, but you can use any ATM and they will reimburse you the transaction fee (Up to $6/month). So that’s generally 3 cash withdrawals free per month which may not work for some, but I rarely pull out cash so it’s fine for me. Of course you can always just get cash back on debit purchases to avoid this.
So far I’ve been really satisfied with them. Again, just an alternative for those who want checks.
The only drawback is that you need $1500 to open, but I just pulled this out of my savings account and have let it sit in this account during the 6% period. Note that it does NOT require you to KEEP a minimum balance though.
I had a NetBank account for 8 years and they have just been purchased by ING Direct. I did open an ING EO account since they offered $25 for opening up one, but I have some problems with their policies:
1. No pre-paid envelopes to mail in deposits. 2. No checks, though I use them infrequently. 3. They won’t take money orders or rebate checks as deposits. 4. Require a “local” account that is linked.
Instead, I have opened a checking account at Charles Schwab Bank and have, so far, been inpressed. Not only do they pay higher interest, they have free checks (carbon or regular), pre-paid envelopes and their bill pay system is identical to NetBank, so it was an easy transition. And they will take rebate checks, which I have about 20-30 per year. Mike @ 8:33 am December 8th, 2007
