A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the recent rate increase at Ally Bank which brought the yield of Ally Bank Online Savings Account from 0.89% to 0.95% APY. In that post, I also mentioned that these days, accounts with 1% APY or higher are hard to come by in this low-rate environment that we have been living in since 2008 and it could become even more difficult to find high yield savings products after the QE3 decision from the Fed last week. However from what I noticed, things seem to move in the opposite direction with a few other online banks increased the rates of their savings accounts in addition to Ally Bank. Since the benchmark short-term rate has been at the current level for more than four years, the moves at multiple banks can only be explained by competition and that’s a good news for savers.

If you are shopping for a savings account with better yields than the banks you are currently using, here a few options for your to consider, some even have rates of 1% or higher.

CIT Bank Savings Account 1.0% APY

I only came to know this bank recently, but the rates it offers are pretty attractive, especially if you maintain a high balance. For example, if you are able to keep at least $25,000 or more in your account on a daily basis, then you can enjoy 1.0% APY of the CIT High Yield Savings Account and a bunch of other benefits including free incoming and outgoing wire transfers, no account closure fee, no mail check fee, and no monthly account maintenance fee. If, on the other hand, you can’t come up with the high balance required for the Preferred Rate, you will settle at a lower rate of 0.90%, which is still quite competitive, but not as good as what you can get from other banks that I will show you later.

CIT Bank Savings Account requires only $100 minimum to open an account and there’s no account maintenance fee. For the regular savings account (balance below $25,000), the outgoing wire transfer fee is not waived, but other benefits remain the same as the High Yield Savings Account. CIT Bank’s ABA routing number is 124084834

Barclay Online Savings Account 1.0% APY

Again this is a new bank to me and again it has a very good rate. The current rate of Barclay Online Savings Account is 1.0% APY. Even the rate seems lower than what is offered at CIT Bank, the rate applies to all deposit at Barclay, regardless the account balance. So, if you don’t have $25,000 in your account to go for the Preferred Rate at CIT, you will be better off by opening a Barclay Online Savings Account that requires no minimum balance to earn the 1.0% APY and has no other hidden fees (monthly fee or annual fee). There’s no minimum to open an account and, from the website, account opening process seems to be quite straightforward.

Barclay Online Banking routing/ABA number is 031101321. Barclay allows you to make remote deposits with your smartphone, so that’s  a plus.

EverBank Money Market Account 1.25% Bonus APY

Well, technically, this is different from the above two because EverBank Money Market Account 1.25% APY is a bonus rate that’s good for the first 6 months (EverBank used to offer only 3 months for the bonus rate, so this is an improvement). The bonus rate only applies to account balance up to $50,000 and for balance below $50,000 the first APY is 1.01%, which is slightly higher than what you could get from Barclay. The EverBank Money Market Account requires a minimum of $1,500 to open an account and avoid monthly fee of $8.95.

In addition to the Money Market Account, EverBank also has an interest checking account that offers the same 6-month 1.25% APY. EverBank’s ABA/Routing number is 063000225.

Sallie Mae Bank Money Market Account 1.05% APY

Finally, the Sallie Mae Money Market Account. As I mentioned in the Ally Bank article early, the reason I left Sallie Mae and went back to Ally Bank is the rate at Sallie Mae was lower. However, if I had a Sallie Mae Money Market Account instead of Savings Account, I could have stayed because right now Sallie Mae Money Market Account has a 1.05% APY and that’s enough for me to keep banking with them. The Money Market Account at Sallie Mae doesn’t have minimum balance requirement and it charges no monthly fee either. Plus, you also have the ability to write check and use your smartphone to deposit checks remotely. You can see my previous post about Sallie Mae Savings Account for account opening process and other information. Sallie Mae Bank’s routing/ABA Number is 124385119.

Looking at these four accounts, they are all solid choices if you are looking for a good return for your hard-earned money. At the current rates, the best deal appeals to be the Sallie Mae Money Market Account, which has the highest yield among the banks mentioned here with no minimum deposit requirement and no monthly fee.

Which is your current bank? Are you considering switching?

Original Post on www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com

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• Citi Dividend Select Platinum Card $100 Bonus
• Citibank Checking Account $300 Gift Card Promotion

In case you are shopping for a checking account, Citibank is currently running a promotion for Citibank Checking Account that comes with a promotional bonus up to $100. The promotion runs for a full year, from now to February 28, 2013. During the promotion period, if you open a Citibank checking account, you could receive up to $100 cash bonus. To qualify for the bonus, you will need to meet these conditions:

• Open a new Citibank Regular Checking account in The Citigold or Citibank Account Package by 02/28/2013;
• Within 45 days after account opening fund the account with $1,000;
• Also within 45 days of account opening, complete one direct deposit AND make one qualifying bill payment for two consecutive months.

Qualifying bill payments are those using Citibank Online, Citi Mobile or CitiPhone Banking to pay a bill. Since two different Citibank checking account products are being offered for this promotion, you could receive different promotion bonuses, depending on which account you choose to open. If you select the new Regular Citibank Checking account in the Citigold Account Package, you will get the $100 cash bonus. If instead you choose the Regular Citibank Checking account in the Citibank Account Package, then you will be eligible for $50 cash bonus.

As I mentioned early in the post about free checking, big banks are increasingly shifting from free checking accounts to fee based checking accounts these days after regulatory changes in the last couple of years. For those fee based checking accounts, in order to get a waiver of the monthly account fee, account holders are required to maintain a certainly level of deposit in the account and, at the same time, establish direct deposit and/or make online bill payments. And Citibank is no exception in this regard, even more so after Citibank has increased the required minimum account balance for Citibank Checking Account to avoid monthly fee in December 2011. For this particular promotion, even though there’s no minimum balance requirement to get the promotional bonus, you do have to maintain a certain level of balance in the checking accounts in order to avoid monthly service fee. For the Citigold Account Package, monthly fee ($30) is waived if a combined average monthly balance of $50,000 in deposits and retirement accounts is maintained. The minimum account balance requirement for the Citibank Account Package to avoid monthly fee of $20 is $15,000 in linked accounts.

As you can see from above, the biggest issue here is maintaining the required balance for the account to avoid monthly fee, and the balance requirements are rather high. If you can come up with the fund ($15,000 for Citibank Account Package and $50,000 for Citigold Package), then the free money is available. The cash reward will be directly deposited into your checking account within 90 days from the end of the month in which you satisfy all requirements. If you are interested, you have plenty of time to open a Citibank checking account and get the bonus.

BTW, there’s another promotion from Citi that lets you earn nice ThankYou Points. The Citi ThankYou Preferred Card will give new cardholders 15,000 ThankYou Points as bonus after spending $1,000 in purchases within 3 months of account opening.

I have a more detailed discussion about the Citi ThankYou Preferred Card early. Basically, you get 1 ThankYou Point for every dollar spent on purchases, plus anniversary bonus every year, and the card has no annual fee. Check out the post for more info.

Original Post on www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com

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I didn’t write anything about Ally Bank for some time because I haven’t actively used the bank for about two year. But in March this year, I returned to Ally and have stayed since as a happy customer.

I left Ally for Sallie Mae in 2010 shortly after Sallie Mae Savings Account was launched because the latter gave me better return for my savings at that time. But I kept my Ally Bank open with only a small amount of money in it. Over the years, I have used quite a few new banks and my experience tells me that when a new savings product was first launched by a bank, it always offered a superior rate than its peers to attract new money. But gradually, the original rate was reduced until it reached the same level as its competitors, or even lower, and most of the time never recovered. The process usually didn’t last long. I remember exactly the same thing happened to ING Direct, Dollar Savings Direct, FNBO Direct, Ally Bank, and Sallie Mae Bank (the last three were named by Kiplinger as the Best Savings Account at different times). I have accounts with all of them, and have gone through the cycles so I know there’s no reason to be “loyal” to a bank and stick with it if the bank only wanted to give me a teaser rate. For me, I stayed with these banks for about a year before looking for another place for my money, either a new bank (it’s hard to find a new bank with good rate these days) or an old bank that I have an account with.

However, things are a little different at Ally. Basically, I was lured back to the bank by the rate of its online savings account, the same reason I left the bank two years ago. When I went back to Ally in March, the rate was 0.84% APY, better than what I got from Sallie Mae, which at that time had a rate at 0.75 APY. In a low rate environment, the difference is quite significant. In addition to moving the money I had at Sallie Mae to Ally, I also set up automatic bi-weekly transfter from my checking account to Ally as well. And Ally didn’t stop there. Late last week, I received another email about the rate change, going from 0.89% to 0.95% APY. Looking at my options, I don’t see any other has a rate close to 1% (Well, EverBank does have a 6-month bonus rate of 1.25% APY), so I am happy I made the switch early that allows me to enjoy this new yield.

While I like what I get from Ally now, I don’t know how long this good rate will last. One thing I have complained about Ally Bank in the past is that they seem to adjust rates, not just savings account rate, but also CD rates, much more frequently than others do, and sometimes quite widely. Seriously, I don’t understand why they do that because, in my mind, savings account rates should be relatively stable so I know what I get. I didn’t get that kind of stability at Ally. With that being said, however, Ally is still a better choice when looking at what other banks currently offer. Below is the complete list of rates of all Ally Bank products. You can compare them with your own bank or other banks and draw your own conclusion whether you get a better deal from Ally or not.

Ally Bank Rates Effective -
Duration	Rate
3 Month High Yield CD
6 Month High Yield CD
9 Month High Yield CD
12 Month High Yield CD
18 Month High Yield CD
2 Year High Yield CD
3 Year High Yield CD
4 Year High Yield CD
5 Year High Yield CD
11 Month No Penalty CD
Online Savings Account
Money Market Account

Oh, there’s one more change I would like to see at Ally that has nothing to do with rates. Ally Bank has a mobile app, but it doesn’t do much other than letting me check account balance and make transfers between Ally accounts. To deposit checks remotely using my phone, which I have done a lot lately, I have to use either ING Direct or Sallie Mae, or even Bank of America app first, then make the transfer to Ally. Not very convenient. When Ally Bank updates its smart phone app later this year, I hope e-check deposit and inter-bank transfer will be included, so I can use the app more often.

Photo credit: Darton Group

Original Post on www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com

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When I wrote about the promotional offer from USAA brokerage last week, I also mentioned in the post a few other products from USAA, one of them being the no-fee checking account, which is the favorite of many USAA customers. So what exactly makes it special?

We have discussed quite a few times in the past that today, checking accounts offered by many big banks are not as free as they used to be five years ago. Particularly, new laws enacted in the past few years aiming at reining in bad practices at financial institutions have squeezed their bottom lines. In a response to these new regulations, banks, especially those big ones, have turned their attentions to fees that are deemed as legal to make up the lost revenue. One easy victime is free checking accounts, which have become so popular since it was first introduced in early 1990s that everybody seems taking for granted. Not any more. Nowadays, if you have a checking account at one of the big banks, it’s likely that there are many strings attached to it if you want to avoid paying a monthly fee. For example, you would likely be required to maintain a minimum account balance, such as $1,500, everyday through out the month. You probably also would have to establish a direct deposit into the account or use the bank’s debit card to make a number of purchases each month. If you fail to meet these requirements, then you will be subject to a monthly surcharge that could be as high as $12 if you bank with BofA or Chase.

At USAA, however, the checking account really comes free. You won’t be accessed a monthly service charge for having a low account balance because there’s no balance requirement for the USAA checking account. It doesn’t matter what your balance level is, daily or monthly, the account is absolutely free. And if you like to pay your purchases with cash, USAA checking account will be an even better choice for you because “USAA Bank refunds up to $15 in other banks’ ATM usage fees each month and does not charge a fee for the first 10 ATM withdrawals. Subsequent transactions will be charged $2.00 each.” I would say that 10 fee-free withdrawals per month, i.e., an average of one ATM withdrawal every three days, is pretty good, even though it’s not the same as unlimited (I wonder whether my bank has unlimited ATM withdrawals or not).

Even if there may not be as many USAA Bank branch offices in your areas as other big banks, depositing a check into your USAA checking account isn’t a problem at all. In fact, you have plenty of options to add fund to your account. USAA Bank offers Deposit@Mobile which allows you to use your iPhone, iPad or Android Phone to make remote deposit, Deposit@Home that lets you deposit using a scanner and computer (note that Deposit@Home requires additional eligibility requirements, such as a USSS credit card), and Easy Deposit at more than 1,900 UPS Stores nationwide. If you choose to mail your checks for deposit, USAA will provide you with postage-paid envelopes.

The last but not least feature I like is that, as a USAA Bank customer, you will get checks for free as well. Every bank gives their new customers the first book of checks for free and when that runs out, you can either order more from the bank or through a third party, but they won’t be free. Even though I don’t write as many checks as I used since I now pay most bills online, it’s still good to have them for free.

Of course, there are many other features that comes with the USAA checking account, such as free online banking and free bill pay, but the most significant ones are listed above. If you are interested, you can find out more about the account on their website and whehter you are there, don’t forget to check out the 12670+ reviews and see what others have to say about their products and services.

Original Post on www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com

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• Free 401(K) Fee Analyzer
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• Citibank Checking Account $300 Gift Card Promotion

For a third year in a row, ING Direct is running a 4-day (June 30th and July 3rd) promotion for its popular products to celebrate the coming Independence Day holiday. What are being offered in the latest promotion are ING Direct Electric Orange Checking Account, Orange Savings Account, Orange Mortgage, and ShareBuilder Investment Account.

• Earn $152 bonus for Electric Orange Checking Account: Open an Electric Orange  Account, one of the best interest checking accounts, between June 30th and July 3rd and make a total of 5 purchases (either signature or PIN-based) using your Electric Orange Card or Person2Person Payments (or any combination of the two) within 45 days, and a $76 bonus will be automatically deposited into your account by August 22nd. Also earn another $76 bonus for switching – Set up Direct Deposit and have two Direct Deposits of at least $250 post to your Electric Orange by August 31st, and your other $76 bonus for setting up Direct Deposit will be automatically deposited by September 10, 2012
• $76 referral bonus: Refer a friend during the promotion period and earn a $76 bonus for the first 2 friends who successfully open an Orange Savings Account with a minimum deposit of $250 using the link in the referral email during the month of July. The more you refer, the more you earn (the referral bonus is usually $10 for you and your friend still gets a $25 bonus). If you don’t have an account, you can always get $25 when using any of these ING Direct referral links.
• $17.76 Kids Savings Account bonus: Open a Kids Savings Account between June 30th – July 3rd and receive a $17.76 bonus into your new account. Only available when you open a new account with at least one new Customer (either you or the kiddo must be a new Customer to ING DIRECT and yes, the kiddo must be under 18 years old). $17.76 bonus starts earning interest upon account opening, and is available for withdrawal after 30 days. No minimum deposit amount required the KSA account (review).
• $27.76 MONEY account opening bonus: Open MONEY between June 30th – July 3rd and make 1 Card transaction (signature, PIN-based or with PayPass) using your MONEY Card within 30 days. Keep in mind, the teen gets the Card. Your $27.76 bonus will be automatically deposited into your account on day 35. There’s no minimum deposit amount required
• ShareBuilder Brokerage Account $76 bonus: Open an ShareBuilder Account with at least $3,500 and get a $76 bonus within 4 – 6 weeks after the deposit is made. Initial deposit must be made before August 31, 2012 to receive the bonus. Despite, there are other better discount brokers out there.
• $76 bonus for IRA Account: Open a Savings IRA with at least $1,000 and get $76 automatically credited in your account on July 12th.

You can find more about this promotion at ingdirect.com/independence.

Original Post on www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com

Special Promotional Offers

• Free 401(K) Fee Analyzer
• Scottrade 3 Commission Free Trades
• Citi Dividend Select Platinum Card $100 Bonus
• Citibank Checking Account $300 Gift Card Promotion