updated the UFB rate (that was fast, rate increased twice in February), and put the accounts in descending order of their APY.

Added both GMAC and Virtual Bank. It would be helpful if anybody has kept of GMAC's rates, as I could only find relatively recent rates...

SweetCash said:Added both GMAC and Virtual Bank. It would be helpful if anybody has kept of GMAC's rates, as I could only find relatively recent rates...

Thanks a ton SweetCash !

I found a few more data points for GMAC:

date APY
02/10/05: 2.50%
04/20/05: 3.05%
05/10/05: 3.10%
07/30/05: 3.25%
08/15/05: 3.45%
11/11/05: 3.75%
11/12/05: 4.00%

Anakin Skywalker

hameshatumkochaha said:Good post.
How about noting who is guarenteeing the rate till the year end or other period? I see that HSBC's noted, but I guess emigrant guarentees the rate won't drop till year end. Is that the reason that they are not giving 4.8% w/ Fed supposed to reduce short term rates sometime?

Emigrant's rates for 2005 were all guaranteed till end of 2005; as of Jan 1 2006 it gives no guarantees whatsoever.

HSBC's 4.8% APY is guaranteed till April 30 2006, but even if they weren't we would have considered it the highest rate savings account. Savings or MMA accounts are not CD's, normally their rates are not guaranteed and can change at any time.

Anakin Skywalker

jquintjr said:What's the difference between an ACH transfer, and a wire transfer? Aren't they both electronic?
They're both electronic, but they go through different systems. Wire transfer is an older system that requires more manual processing and is internationally supported, while ACH is a newer, all-electronic system that is US-only.

Nearly every account at every institution can handle wire transfers, usually for a fee. Most bank accounts can handle ACH activity initiated elsewhere, usually for free. A handful of accounts let you initiate ACH transfers (also usually for free).

Thanks for all your work, sweetcash

if you read this thread, there was a lot of controversy on this Citi e-Savings account. It was somewhat experimental for a while in 2005, people were reporting different interest rates than they should have been, then it just dissapeared for several months, and now Citibank revived it. The point of this thread is to show how the interest rate evolved over time, so that we can *hopefully* try to predict how these banks react to changes like hikes in the fed rate. Since there is little available data about the Citi e-Savings account (3.00% and 3.25% reported in June/July 2005, then this jump to 4.50%), I am inclined not to include it for now.

HigherEd said:howie888 said:Does anyone already own a HSBC Direct account?

I was reading through the Terms and Conditions for online Accounts and I noticed that

there are these Miscellaneous Bank Service Fees *subject to change without notice*.

The 2 that caught my eye were:

1.) Funds Transfer-In, per incoming transfer $15/each
2.) Funds Transfer-Out, per outgoing transfer $30/each.


From my interpretation, each time we transfer money into the account, there is a $15/dollar fee, and each time we transfer money out, there is a $30/dollar fee.

This completely lowers the APR even though they are stating 4.8% at this time.

I'm not aware of EmigrantDirect or ING having these "Miscellaneous Bank Server Fees*.

Please let me know if there are, that would be a big factor on which account I decide to go with.

Thanks all!

I have an HSBC account and it's ironically linked to ING and Emigrant- I just do an online transfer to where I need the money and its FREE of charge- the only time I can think of that they can ding you is when you pull money directly out of the account at an unauthorized ATM or transfer in/out to another bank (i.e. wire transfer not in your authorized list).

hope that makes sense- i've had it for around 6 months, transfered both in and out online and not been charged yet.

Ed

I imagine that these fees are most likely for wire transfer fees. Totally different creature than electronic transfer.

Thanks for your post. I was trying to decide whether to recommend ED or HSBC to a friend who does not want to change savings account to chase the best interest rates. I wanted to figure out who has a history of usually offering the best interest rates. Although HSBC is tops at this moment, it seems that ED has a better track record of offering the highest interest rate. Does anybody disagree that HSBC's reign is only a flash in the pan compared to ED?

mapen said:Thanks for your post. I was trying to decide whether to recommend ED or HSBC to a friend who does not want to change savings account to chase the best interest rates. I wanted to figure out who has a history of usually offering the best interest rates. Although HSBC is tops at this moment, it seems that ED has a better track record of offering the highest interest rate. Does anybody disagree that HSBC's reign is only a flash in the pan compared to ED?
As far as I can see HSBC followed pretty closely the fed rate, while ED was not very consistent: sometimes jumps ahead of the fed rate, but then it lags behind for long periods of time. In the end it may amount to the same thing, I didn't try to see which one has a better average.

Updated ING and GMAC rate.