OneUnited 5.25%APY

Here's another bank offering an ING-type account:

Link

The 4.50%APY rate is not introductory, and you can receive an ATM card with the account if you want one.

OneUnited Bank: Interest on savings is compounded and credited quarterly.
ING: Interest on your savings account is accrued daily, compounded monthly and credited to your available balance at the end of each month.
Don't know at what balance this would affect the effective rate, it is significantly higher than ING's current rate.

Off topic from the rate/offer, this is an interesting snippet from their site:
OneUnited Bank is fulfilling the hundred year old civil rights dream of garnering the spending power of our community and channeling it back into our community for economic development and wealth building. With your support by simply opening an FDIC insured account with great rates and becoming a Member of OneUnited Bank, we will continue to accomplish this dream everyday!

it's not the highest, unfortunately.

however, people interested in community investing might want to check this article out: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1365/is_11_33/ai_102453235
One United Bank is the nation's largest African-American owned banking institution, and it makes loans to businesses and people who can't get credit with regular banking institutions. I probably won't open an account with them, because I already have some CDs with Self-Help Credit Union, another community-development institution; Self-Help's money market rates aren't much, but their CD rates are quite competitive with the national average.

up to 5%

Goodbye, Emigrant-Direct!

how come this bank isn't in the "The Daughter of The Mother" thread? nice rate especially only with $10 min balance

Goldenlight said: wow!! 5% Does this bank offer ach deposit and withdraws/
Here is a link to a good blog post about the account and associated fees

I agree, getting money out of this bank is very slow. At least 7 days from the time you requested. Getting through to customer support can get hairy too, I recommend calling after 6PM EST.

LK238 said: Interest rate is good, but you have to be willing to put up with a couple of negatives. First, they are slow to complete fund transfers. I submitted a request to transfer money into my OneUnited account on 6/28 and it did not post until 7/5. Another was submitted on 7/1 and has not posted yet (7/6). The funds were not removed from my account for the first transfer until 7/5, so it is not the case they had the money but are not posting it - they just seem to be slow.

I think the 4th of july holiday probably added to the slowness of the transfers.
I initiated an ACH withdraw on 7/17 in the morning and it posted on my other bank's account on 7/20 so it looks like 3 business days

Yikes, I wouldn't consider going to one of the branches. They are in Compton on Crenshaw Blvd, and in Massachusetts in Roxbury. Is this a gangsta-owned bank or what?

"In the past two years, we have financed over $350 million in loans, including churches, affordable housing, office buildings and retail stores - most in low to moderate income communities such as South Central, Compton, Liberty City and Roxbury."

walletfart said: Yikes, I wouldn't consider going to one of the branches. They are in Compton on Crenshaw Blvd, and in Massachusetts in Roxbury. Is this a gangsta-owned bank or what? :-Well, as they say its the "First Black-Owned Internet Bank", guess they are located in areas that have traditionally been considered black even though there are many more Mexicans there than blacks these days. Crenshaw Blvd doesnt go through Compton; mostly Lomita, Torrance, Gardena, Los Angeles, and Beverly Hills

It's the min to open and min balance to earn APY. You don't have $10 to leave in the bank?

I don't know of a bank where the min to open was actually less than the min to avoid fees (i.e. min to open $100, min to avoid fees $1000).

LK238 said: walletfart said: Yikes, I wouldn't consider going to one of the branches. They are in Compton on Crenshaw Blvd, and in Massachusetts in Roxbury. Is this a gangsta-owned bank or what?

"In the past two years, we have financed over $350 million in loans, including churches, affordable housing, office buildings and retail stores - most in low to moderate income communities such as South Central, Compton, Liberty City and Roxbury."

According to the FDIC they have been FDIC insured since 1982. The primary regulator is the FDIC. They list eight branches and a main office at 133 Federal Street in Boston.

I know, I opened with them, it's just a little awkward seeing a bank that caters for the "ghetto" in a sense. But that's exactly what they're main mission statement is, so I guess it's good to be helping out.

Also, I read their earnings sheet and the # of loans overdue or charged off has decreased significantly in the last few years. The trend was to the better so I felt like they're doing a good job operating in those environments. Plus, FDIC insured of course.

AlwaysWrite said: For most people, it's probably irrelevant if they're just using it as an online-only bank.

Exactly, I don't think are any benefits and I don't find it humorous how people have to point out that an African American owned bank has branches in the "ghetto". Whtat exactly was this conversation trying to prove?

AlwaysWrite said: Not to put too fine a point on it, but Crenshaw Blvd. doesn't run particularly close to Beverly Hills. That realtor trying to sell you property in "Beverly Hills" with a Crenshaw address is lying. Crenshaw Blvd ends at Wilshire Blvd; guess thats actually Koreatown, past Beverly Hills and just past Hancock Park at that intersection.

Clocks said: I am still on the fence. I have GMAC and that is at 5.10%. Not sure it is worth opening a new account at this point. It seems like a nice deal though.

Can anyone that had recently opened an account with them talk about their experience. Is it fast and easy? I still have nightmares from the HSBC debacle.

I posted above a bit about opening. I just did the application and am waiting on funding to enter my account.

I chose this account because no hard pull, online verification, electronic funding, no fees and basically no minimums. I see this as very non-committal and one of the highest rates.

The online application is simple, they ask you for the standard info like SSN/drivers license #, they will then prompt you with some challenge questions from your credit report (e.g. which company is your mortgage with) with multiple-choice to verify you more.

After that, you can fund the account electronically. They will want to verify the account that you are funding from. To do this, you can either do instant verification (at least with my bank you could), but they wanted your online username/password to do this, and I didn't feel comfortable giving that to them. The slower way is that you can do deposit verification, which is what I did. It only took 1 day for my deposits to hit my account (applied on Sunday, deposits posted on Monday - hoping this is indicative of their ACH in general).

After you do deposit verification, you log back into the link, verify the deposits, and then that says your account is ready to be funded after application completion.

I'm waiting on the funding to be completed now, but if I remember, will post the results.

I don't see any downside to this from here, it's a big jump over ING, and it supposedly helps out low income areas.

I am still on the fence also.

Walletfart - please keep us up-to-date once you are fulling functional. I wonder how fast there transfers are, etc......thanks

I think I will hold off.

jpsmoney said: I'd watch out -

another person's experience

follow up

Yikes, that's a little scary, but also kind of overstated I think. A lot of the banks have similar stories (look in HSBC thread e.g.) of accounts taking a while to open and access.

I only did starting funding with $10 (the minimum) in case of any problems, so if I run into problems accessing the bank, it's not too much loss (except giving someone my personal info again). Also, she mentions 6 months inactivity fee, but that is not on their Truth in Disclosure, so I'm not sure if she has all the facts straight.

walletfart said: Generally, you (or maybe just I) don't associate wealth/banking/financing with low-income areas. So, it's a little awkward that a bank is specializing in those areas.

Keep in mind that WalMart became what it is today by putting stores where no one else would bother.

walletfart said: Funds Transfer is here! Registered On-Line Banking customers can now: Transfer money between your accounts at OneUnited Bank and your accounts at other financial institutions. Simply login to OneUnited OnLine, our free online banking service, and click on the “Transfer Money” button.

Am I missing something? I don't see anything new?

[edit]
Looks like they sent this email out too early. A follow-up email indicates that there are still 10 more days until this feature is available: https://www.oneunited.com/email/emailFundsTransfer/emailNewFundsTransfer.html