ING Direct Sale is Over - Now What?
Apr 17, 2006 - 10:03 AM by Ken Tumin
The interest from the Winter Save Up Sale should now have posted in your ING Direct account. So it should be safe to move your money without worrying about losing credit for the last month. ING Direct's plan was to get people to try out their CDs. They specifically increased their 9-month CD to 4.75% APY and have marketed it in an email as a promotional rate good through the end of the month. They also increased all of the 1-year and longer CDs to 5% APY on Friday.
One good thing about opening an ING CD is that it's very easy to open oline. Also, you won't lose any interest moving the money into another account. The downside is that you lock your money into a CD that is around 0.25% lower than other nationally available online CDs. With two more Fed rate hikes likely in the next 2 months, you may want to stick with a high yield savings account.
HSBC Direct still has the best no-minimum savings account rate of 4.80% APY. Although this is also a promo rate, HSBC has had a history of high rates for the last year that has closely followed the Fed funds rate (see chart). I think it's likely that the HSBC rate after the promo ends on April 30th will be at least 4.50% APY. I'm expecting it will remain the same at 4.80%.
One good thing about opening an ING CD is that it's very easy to open oline. Also, you won't lose any interest moving the money into another account. The downside is that you lock your money into a CD that is around 0.25% lower than other nationally available online CDs. With two more Fed rate hikes likely in the next 2 months, you may want to stick with a high yield savings account.
HSBC Direct still has the best no-minimum savings account rate of 4.80% APY. Although this is also a promo rate, HSBC has had a history of high rates for the last year that has closely followed the Fed funds rate (see chart). I think it's likely that the HSBC rate after the promo ends on April 30th will be at least 4.50% APY. I'm expecting it will remain the same at 4.80%.
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Mario (anonymous) - #1, Monday, April 17, 2006 - 10:23 AM
One thing to be careful about is to not move all the funds out of ING. This might prompt them to close your account and you'll forfeit the interest for the whole month. Perhaps they are ending the promotion at the middle of the month to take advantage of this very reason.
Steve (anonymous) - #2, Monday, April 17, 2006 - 12:16 PM
It appears that E*Trade's 4.75% APR is no longer a promo on their money market. If you go to the Money Market Page (click here) it looks like 4.75% is the going rate for all deposit amounts. Do you think that this is a mistake on their end?
Anonymous - #3, Monday, April 17, 2006 - 1:19 PM
State of Israel Savings 10 yr. Bond up to 5.7% - rate changes twice a month has been consistently increased .10 each time.
http://israelbonds.com/currentrates.html
Banking Guy (anonymous) - #4, Monday, April 17, 2006 - 1:37 PM
About ETrade, they're being sneaky by not clearly disclosing that the 4.75% is a 3-month intro rate.
If you go to the start of the money market application page (here), you'll see the following:
E*TRADE® Money Market Account
Get 4.75% APY for three full months.
(Must click to view details before proceeding)
The details page has the following:
After the 90-day introductory period customers will receive the current APY based on account balance. Current as of 4/17/2006, accounts with balances of $100,000 or more earn 3.70%; those with $50,000 to $99,999 earn 3.70%; those with $5,000 - $49,999 earn 2.80% and those with less than $5,000 earn 0.30%.
I don't like it when banks make things hard to find like this.
ben (anonymous) - #5, Monday, April 17, 2006 - 3:52 PM
Nice work, Banking Guy! Thanks for the research and chart...let's hope HSBC keeps the lead... Agree with you on ETrade being sneaky...
latex_salesman (anonymous) - #6, Monday, April 17, 2006 - 10:44 PM
Good thread - I have the exact same question !
Quo vadis HSBC... ??
latex_salesman (anonymous) - #7, Monday, April 17, 2006 - 10:45 PM
Now what... ??
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