ING Direct's Latest Incentive Offer

ING Direct's Winter Save Up Sale may have attracted new customers and new deposits, but it didn't sit well with ING's loyal customers who had most of their money in the Orange Savings Account when the Winter Save Up Sale started. So they weren't eligible for the extra interest rate. When the Winter Save Up Sale ended, ING started to do more promotion of its Orange CDs along with making the CD rates more competitive. ING was hoping to keep the deposits that it had attracted with the Save Up Sale. At least these new CD rates allowed the loyal customers to benefit.

Now ING Direct is providing an extra benefit to CD customers. ING Direct has sent emails to customers with CDs that are close to maturity with a notice that they'll earn an extra 0.25% APY for renewing the CD. Below is a list of the standard APYs and Bonus APYs for the various certificate of deposit terms:

Term      Stnd APY  Bonus APY
6 month      5.00%     5.25%
9 month      5.10%     5.35%
12 month     5.25%     5.50%
18 month     5.25%     5.50%
24 month     5.30%     5.55%
30 month     5.25%     5.50%
36 month     5.25%     5.50%
48 month     5.25%     5.50%
60 month     5.25%     5.50%

This extra 0.25% helps, but these rates are still far from competitive. For example, VirtualBank is offering 5.55% APY on a 6-month CD with a $10K minimum deposit. GMAC Bank is now offering 5.50% APY with a minimum of only $500. ING does have the advantage of having no minimum deposit requirements. But a $500 minimum is not really that much. If you have only $300, you would only get an extra $1.35 in a 5.25% 6-month CD over keeping your money in ING's savings account assuming the savings account rate remains at 4.35% during the 6 months.

The other advantage ING Direct CDs have over other bank CDs is a very easy CD management system. You can open and close CDs in minutes completely online. You don't have to call or send signed forms.

Thanks to the commenter who mentioned this promotion in the finding deals post.