Thru This Link or AAA link.
I observe they've been raising APYs pretty fast. They might be better than the Bankunited deal because they are large nantional bank. You can initialize pull/push ACH transfer from other institutions to MBNA account once the account is setup, but the initial depost has to be made by check or wire transfer. Right now they only have phone access, but they said they will have web access with BOA in Sept.

balances of 50K or more

Yes, up to 3 checks per statement cycle. Also, the rate follows the Money Fund Report average which can be found here. Essentially MBNA follows their rate and then for balances above $10,000 adds .25%, and for $50,000 or more adds .50%. Also, MBNA updates their rates on mondays. The rate listed on my link is what MBNA will show next monday so their highest rate will actually be 5.02%. Last week the MFR went up .04%, and the week before I believe it went up .04%. The MFR is a compilation of many different money market funds rates so if money market fund rates go up at many institutions then the average will go up as will MBNA. The big question is will Bank of America still offer this account once they integrate MBNA which will happen somewhere around September or October of this year. No one knows the answer but since I bank with Bank of America I opened up the account.

Also, just to note the account only comes with 20 checks and you can purchase checks for $5 I'm guessing for 20 checks although the check offers in the newspaper are much cheaper. Also, MBNA does not pull a credit inquiry to apply for the account which is nice. Also, you can get the same rates through the Motley Fool or Defenders of Wildlife. The links for those 2 offers can be found in the mother of all savings/money markets thread which is often at the top of the finance forum.

bluechalk said:Its curious that the accounts sponsored by some organizations have better deals. If you go through chemistry.org or AOPA, you only need a $15,000 balance to get the highest tier interest rate (instead of $50,000).

And if you go through the NEA, the high tier still starts at $50,000, but the middle tier goes down to $500 instead of $10,000.

The web page for each of these accounts (and the ones for Motley Fool, AAA and the Defenders of Wildlife) say that they are for members of that organization, but it doesn't look like MBNA actually verifies membership.

Links for all of these are in the the Daughter of The Mother thread at the top of the Finance forum.

Thanks for the info. I was about to sign up through AAA. Is there any reason not to sign up through chemistry.org?

There are no ACH transfers, is that true?

MBNA currently does not offer online banking access for their CD's or money market accounts. Therefore, there is no ACH capabilities on the MBNA side. However, if your other bank where you have a checking account, savings account, etc. offers ACH pulls or pushes then you can utilize that to deposit or withdraw funds from your MBNA account up to 6 per statement cycle. Also, the account comes with checks as well.

As a bit of a rant, I don't understand why MBNA doesn't have online banking capabilities for these accounts since their credit card online website is quite well designed and they even offer billpay from their credit card website. So it makes no sense why they didn't spend a little extra time and money to offer online banking. However, that will change once the accounts are fully integrated with Bank of America which acquired all of MBNA (credits card, deposits, loans, etc)which should occur sometime late in 2006 (Sept. or Oct. is what I've heard).

Forsi said:Well, I'm a little teed off. I have had a MBNA money market for probably well over 10 years. I have always had friendly and excellent customer service over the phone. And quite frankly never had a problem with MBNA. Until I came here to FatWallet the other day and found out MBNA was paying 5% on their money market accounts. 5%!!! What? I was making 4.1% on my money market with MBNA and I have over 200k with them! So I read some forum posts and went to Motley Fool and gave MBNA a call. They switched my account over to the Motley Fool rate of 5.04% with no problem. But the problem is, with as much dough as I leave laying around in there, untouched for years, only making a deposit once a year or so, they could of least given me the preferred rate. I asked them if they would research it and give me the difference in the rate for all these years I've been losing out. Of course the answer is "no". I feel used. These Motley Fool rates were never printed under Bank Rate Monitor's chart in the newspaper and that's what I had been going by all these years. It really tees me off that someone who has just openned a new account, and maybe has one tenth of what I got is going to get a substantially better (25% better) rate than me.

Bah, I'm teed off at you. "200k" "untouched for years"

You can do much better with a CD ladder. 5.61% at world savings 7 month CD.

When does MBNA payout their interest (i.e. monthly? quarterly?), does MBNA pro-rate interest if closed in the middle of the cycle, and what's the minimum "stay open" time for new accounts (i.e. when can I close a new account without incurring fees)?
I tried to find the info on their website but couldn't find anything except a new account forms.

thanks.

bluechalk said:

$5 official check fee, presumably needed to close account.



Or because it has check writing capabilities you write a check to yourself (or link to it on GMAC and pull from GMAC) to drain the account to $0.00. This has worked on many other accounts I have had. They wanted some official notorized letter but as soon as the the account went to zero and I called to say I wanted the account closed, they had no problem shutting it down.

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