The Fed is expected to raise rates several more times, 25 bps for another few meetings although it could be spaced out depending on things like employment report tomorrow. If we assume the Jan meeting will take the Fed rate to 2.50% with another 25 bps move in early March to 2.75%, ING Direct and Capital One could be raising rates in the next two months. So I believe Emigrant Direct is making a wise move by advertising a 3% APR now to get the signups. If you put the FDIC insured limit of $100,000 in today and assume the spread stays at 65 bps for 1 month, then you make an extra $50. In month 2 though, I believe ING and CapOne may have moved their rates higher, and Emigrant may not move above 3% (but you never know). If we assume say 20 bps from 2.35% to 2.55%, then the spread drops to 45 bps in month 2 and you make an extra $38. If in month 3,4, or 5, the rates become very similar, then your total extra earnings could be $100-150 on $100,000 deposit. If these assumptions are correct, then the signup bonus/cost of customer acquisition is $100-150 max, a pretty good deal for Emigrant considering Citi is giving $200 for checking account signup.

Interest rates are unpredictable, so these assumptions could be very wrong, but this is my conclusion. I'm still considering opening an Emigrant Direct account since it is a free $100-150.

fotomaniak said:

May be they just want more people to open the savings account.
YOu can see the same situation at presidential. Their 1-yr CD - 1.98%, 2-yr CD - 2.84%... checking account 2.75%
These rates did not change much in the last year.

that just seems silly... why offer the product at all then? i guess if they are lucky they get some crazies to actually sign up for them and then the bank just turns around and puts the money right into their own savings acount and laughs all the way to... themselves...

seems a lot of folks are really concerned about these hard pulls rofl... really unless you have more than 3 or 4 hard pulls in the last 6 months, a single hard pull will have negligible affect on your credit rating

legitimacy of the stability of the rate and the online bank itself way outranks any concern over a single hard pull...

perne said:one thing that strikes me odd... their CD rates are pretty good for CD's at this point (match ING's anyway), but their 6 month and 1 year cd's are LOWER than their simple savings account.. so it would make zero sense to ever get into one of the 6 month or 1 year CD's... this tells me one of two things... either the savings rate will be short term and will decline soon, or their CD rate should increase in the short term... because it makes no sense to offer completely inferior products to their standard savings account..

afterall the benefit of a CD is the slightly higher interest rate at the cost of locking in your money... but why offer a CD that locks your money in AND pays less interest than a completely liquid savings account? you'd have to be off your rocker to actually sign up for a 6month or 1 year cd from these guys rather than just dumping the money into their savings account....

As you said, CDs have a guaranteed rate. Savings accounts don't.
Also, CDs are available in branches. CDs do not require a checking account to pull money from (may be funded by other means). CDs may be linked to other accounts at Emigrant Savings Bank. Emigrant Direct as a separate Bank...

DeGlass said:Thank you for your interest in opening a new account.

Unfortunately, we cannot process your application at this time.
If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact Customer Service at 1-800-836-1997, Monday-Friday, 8:00am-8:00pm EST.



Got the same twice yesterday and once today. I tried to vary the data but still failed. Called today and they said that:
1) They are ironing out server issues
2) It looked like I failed because of server issues
3) 3 failed attempts result in lock out (based on SSN?) for 72 hours

Not too long to get to a person but the person took a long time to look up data (server getting hammered?).

I guess have to wait another 3 days.

edit:
fatcool said:presidential checking account seems to be more attractive compared to this.

How is a lower rate "more attractive"? Find a free checking account with good features and park your money at a higher rate.

EugeneV said:rjax said:Yodlee doesn't have it listed yet either. I e-mailed Yodlee about it, so hopefully it'll be added.

Sorry for OT, but have they added anything after you asked? I have requested to add 20-30 sites (banks, credit cards, airline ff programs, etc) over the past 3 years through HSBC's Yodlee-based EasyView, Citi's MyCiti and Yodlee directly. NOT A SINGLE ONE HAS BEEN ADDED.

This is the first time I've asked. Well, at least now I know not to get my hopes up. Maybe if one could get a paying customer to ask Yodlee? BofA is now using the new OnCenter format instead of the original, better Yodlee... You'd think BofA would have a little more influence.

I called an 800# I gor from a different page. The receiptionist knew about the 3% rate and put me on hold for a rep.

I gave up after 2 minutes on hold.

But, it seems legit.

My concern is ...IS THIS A BAIT AND SWITCH ?

Are they going to lure in a few billion and then lower the rate to 1.5-2% and hope a chunk of folks remain ?

I mean, 3% is above market and its a loss leader.

budster said:Emigrant Savings Bank may be legit. But is Emigrant-Direct.com really? Seems strange the domain name was only created a couple weeks ago and that the registrant is Flying Point Media.


Registrant:
Flying Point Media, Inc.
494 Eighth Avenue
Suite 400
New York, New York 10001
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: EMIGRANT-DIRECT.COM
Created on: 22-Dec-04
Expires on: 22-Dec-05
Last Updated on: 22-Dec-04

Administrative Contact:
Pearlstein, Alan info@flyingpt.com
Flying Point Media, Inc.
494 Eighth Avenue
Suite 400
New York, New York 10001
United States
2126294960
Technical Contact:
Pearlstein, Alan info@flyingpt.com
Flying Point Media, Inc.
494 Eighth Avenue
Suite 400
New York, New York 10001
United States
2126294960

Domain servers in listed order:
NS.RACKSPACE.COM
NS2.RACKSPACE.COM

Thanks for the research.

Here's my reasoning, as alluded to above. When you go through the application process starting from emigrant-direct.com , you are eventually required to acknowledge the disclosures. The links to the disclosures (that mention emgirant direct and the american dream account by name) go straight to the emigrant.com website. If emigrant-direct.com is not legit, they have some friends in mighty high places that could put these on the clearly legit bank's website. I think is very very unlikely and shows emigrant-direct to be legit.

Also note, emigrantdirect.com redirects to emigrant-direct.com.

And again, emigrant direct is advertising on the nytimes, yahoo, and google. It's not unreasonable that emigrant would want the company doing the web design to do the registration.


budster said:Emigrant Savings Bank may be legit. But is Emigrant-Direct.com really? Seems strange the domain name was only created a couple weeks ago and that the registrant is Flying Point Media.


Registrant:
Flying Point Media, Inc.
494 Eighth Avenue
Suite 400
New York, New York 10001
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: EMIGRANT-DIRECT.COM
Created on: 22-Dec-04
Expires on: 22-Dec-05
Last Updated on: 22-Dec-04

Administrative Contact:
Pearlstein, Alan info@flyingpt.com
Flying Point Media, Inc.
494 Eighth Avenue
Suite 400
New York, New York 10001
United States
2126294960
Technical Contact:
Pearlstein, Alan info@flyingpt.com
Flying Point Media, Inc.
494 Eighth Avenue
Suite 400
New York, New York 10001
United States
2126294960

Domain servers in listed order:
NS.RACKSPACE.COM
NS2.RACKSPACE.COM

tzzoooma said:a reply directly from ING:

If you have found another bank that offers a better APY, then perhaps that is
the right decision for you. Whatever bank offers the best rate for you is
what you should go for. We understand. We will not charge you any fee's to
close your account. But keep us in mind, cause our rates may rise in the
future.

We do appreciate your previous business with ING Direct. You dont have to
close your OSA. You can keep a minimum balance in the account and return at
some point in the future.

Thank You for your interest in ING Direct,

Dave

thats exactly what i intend to do... I opened emigrant with a measly 200... after the 30 day initial deposit holding period i will transfer my entire ING over to Emigrant (assuming the rate is still up there).. Ill leverage whichever one has the best rate at the time leaving a measly 100-200 in whichever has the worste rate... with both being a no minimum, no fee account thats fdic insured, there is really little risk i can see doing this (except the legitimacy of the bank itself, but a quick phone call to the bank should sort that out). Thats the biggest plus to both ING and this Emigrant bank as I see it... no minimums, no fees... it really allows you to leverage whichever one is best at the time, as opposed to the 5k min, or 10k min or even 25k min banks that offer slightly higher rates. also assuming i dont have more than 100k im worried about... of course if i had 300k that i absolutely had to have in fdic insured accounts, i'd go with 3 different banks all offering higher rates... but carrying only 25-30k flucuating as low as 5k and at times as low as 1400 and as high as 70k, i dont have to worry about my 100k limit and it is to my advantage to leverage the highest rate at the time.

hiddendragon999 said:The Fed is expected to raise rates several more times, 25 bps for another few meetings although it could be spaced out depending on things like employment report tomorrow. If we assume the Jan meeting will take the Fed rate to 2.50% with another 25 bps move in early March to 2.75%, ING Direct and Capital One could be raising rates in the next two months. So I believe Emigrant Direct is making a wise move by advertising a 3% APR now to get the signups. If you put the FDIC insured limit of $100,000 in today and assume the spread stays at 65 bps for 1 month, then you make an extra $50. In month 2 though, I believe ING and CapOne may have moved their rates higher, and Emigrant may not move above 3% (but you never know). If we assume say 20 bps from 2.35% to 2.55%, then the spread drops to 45 bps in month 2 and you make an extra $38. If in month 3,4, or 5, the rates become very similar, then your total extra earnings could be $100-150 on $100,000 deposit. If these assumptions are correct, then the signup bonus/cost of customer acquisition is $100-150 max, a pretty good deal for Emigrant considering Citi is giving $200 for checking account signup.

Interest rates are unpredictable, so these assumptions could be very wrong, but this is my conclusion. I'm still considering opening an Emigrant Direct account since it is a free $100-150.
Can you explain how one can make free $100-150 by opening this account?