Geauga Savings Bank Immediate Access Tiered Savings Account 5.40% APY

These guys just popped to the top of the interest rate thread. Anyone know anything about them?

http://www.geaugasavings.com/GETCURRENTRATES.htm

Immediate Access Tiered Savings Account
Tier 1 $25,000-$99,000.00 5.40 APY
Tier 2 $99,000.01-up 2.00 APY
Minimum balance required to avoid fees: $25,000.00
Transaction limits:

Unlimited access for over-the-counter transactions. There is a maximum of 6 pre-authorized debits per month. Transactions in excess will incur an $8.00 per item charge.

There is no early closeout penalty.

I noticed in their fine print that interest is paid annualy. That would keep me from opening an account.

There's a discussion of this bank on BankDeals Blogspot in the July Archive (scroll down to July 27th) with information BankingGuy got from a CSR.

hiphiphooray said: x43b said: Good call. I think most people hesitate to move $25,000+ to relatively unknown banks for reasons like this. Especially when the MBNA has a rate .1% less and has been a rate leader for a long time.

Can you provide more information about this MBNA account?

This is a whole thread talking about it here. If you go through the proper sign up link you only need $15,000 to get 5.33% as opposed to $25,000 to get 5.4%.

Plus MBNA has been competitive in the past for a lot longer than this bank and pays interest off a lot more often than once a year. It may not be competitive in the future but I think it is too early to see where rates go post BoA merger.

hiphiphooray said: Are you talking about the link from chemistry.org? If so, it's mentioned but there's no link given, and when I go to that web site I don't see one. The other two links from that thread have 50K minimums to get the 5.33% ...

Sorry about that. The discussion is on the link I gave you. The $15,000 link is in the "daughter of all savings accounts apy blah, blah" sticky at the top of the forum. Click on that and scroll down to MBNA and the chemistry.org link should be easy to find.

sfchris said: markshiffer said: I noticed in their fine print that interest is paid annualy. That would keep me from opening an account.

Well, they are FDIC insured, and deferring interest can be great if you are subject to AMT in the current tax year!!!

Isn't Dec. 31st still the current tax year?

sfchris said: x43b said: sfchris said: markshiffer said: I noticed in their fine print that interest is paid annualy. That would keep me from opening an account.

Well, they are FDIC insured, and deferring interest can be great if you are subject to AMT in the current tax year!!!

Isn't Dec. 31st still the current tax year?

You are too quick and got me before I edited my post:

Well, I was going to say that deferring the interest might be a good tax strategy if you want to push income to 2007, but they pay on Dec 31!

Do they hold on to your interest until Dec 31 even if you closed the account long before then? That would be bad!

Yep, according to the Bank Deals blogspot guy they do hold any interest earned on closed accounts and distribute it on Dec. 31st. Not to beat this account into the ground, but I don't see the point when there are easy to obtain 5.4% CDs with much lower minimums and 5.5% 6 month CDs. Also if you are willing to do some legwork, you can easily get 6% CDs.

I suppose you could open this account and close it after a few months. But why let them withhold your interest for a few months when you could get the same result with a CD?

sfchris said: Well, the whole MM vs CD thing applies to all the accounts in that list.

I think we should remove this bank from the list because of their shady fine print

Not really true at all. I have an ED account and I keep money in their that I might need in the next few months. If I need it I use it and the whole process is under 5 minutes. Later if I have more money I transfer money in and it takes another 5 minutes.

If I needed money at this account I would have to close the account which probably take at least two or three times as long. I would not have interest I have earned given to me. Then many months later I would receive a check for interest I had earned. I could not use that interest in the mean time. If I wanted to deposit money again I would have to open a brand new account and that would probably take an hour or more.

Doesn't really sound like the same thing at all.

x43b said: I have an ED account and I keep money in their that I might need in the next few months. If I need it I use it and the whole process is under 5 minutes. Later if I have more money I transfer money in and it takes another 5 minutes.

What are you doing that takes you 5 minutes? Are you using dial-up or something?

x43b said: hiphiphooray said: x43b said: I have an ED account and I keep money in their that I might need in the next few months. If I need it I use it and the whole process is under 5 minutes. Later if I have more money I transfer money in and it takes another 5 minutes.

What are you doing that takes you 5 minutes? Are you using dial-up or something?

Well done troll, well done. I can't wait for you to go back through all the threads and mod me -2 now like you do everyone else.

What are you talking about? It was a serious question!

this bank is a joke!!! Avoid!!