No-Minimum Money Market Account at 4.25%
Nov 18, 2005 - 3:12 PM by Ken Tumin
Western Financial Bank is the first bank to offer 4.25% APY in a no-minimum money market accout. Its Online Money Market Plus is guaranteed through the year. The maximum deposit allowed is $100K.
This money market account originally required $5K to open. Sometime this year it was changed to only $1.
WFB offers a partial ACH transfer system. You can set up links to accounts at other banks to deposit money into this money market account. However, according to this Fatwallet thread, you can't initiate ACH transfers out. To tranfer out online requires ACH initiation from another bank like USAA. I guess they only want to make it easy for you to add money...
As is typical with money market accounts, it offers ATM access and check writing privileges. However, there are no refunds of surcharges from ATMs of other banks. Also, according to that Fatwallet thread, an order of 30 checks cost $7.50, and online bill payment is $4.95/mo.
WFB has just recently been in the top-money-market-account club. Before October 30th, its MMA rate was only 3.55%. It moved up to 3.75% on October 30th and to 4.00% on November 11th.
WFB is based in Irvine, California. It's rated 4/5 stars (sound) from Bankrate.com.
This money market account originally required $5K to open. Sometime this year it was changed to only $1.
WFB offers a partial ACH transfer system. You can set up links to accounts at other banks to deposit money into this money market account. However, according to this Fatwallet thread, you can't initiate ACH transfers out. To tranfer out online requires ACH initiation from another bank like USAA. I guess they only want to make it easy for you to add money...
As is typical with money market accounts, it offers ATM access and check writing privileges. However, there are no refunds of surcharges from ATMs of other banks. Also, according to that Fatwallet thread, an order of 30 checks cost $7.50, and online bill payment is $4.95/mo.
WFB has just recently been in the top-money-market-account club. Before October 30th, its MMA rate was only 3.55%. It moved up to 3.75% on October 30th and to 4.00% on November 11th.
WFB is based in Irvine, California. It's rated 4/5 stars (sound) from Bankrate.com.
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scrimper (anonymous) - #1, Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 10:08 AM
I recently opened an account at Western Financial Bank. It took some doing, but the extra security was worth it to me.
The bad news is, Wachovia bank purchased WFB on 3/1/06. As I read it nothing much will change until early 2007. looking at Wachovias website and checking their rates, all I can say is they are tightwads and there is a good possibility I may have to move my money out of WFB at that time or sooner if they change the rates.
It will be easy to do, as the MMA at WFB comes with a checkbook.
I really liked Western, great rate, local bank for me and nice folks to deal with on the phone. Oh well :(
Banking Guy (anonymous) - #2, Sunday, March 5, 2006 - 1:06 PM
Thanks for the info on WFB. It'll be interesting to see how their online MMA rates will change. I wonder if we'll see another rate bump.
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