The Sun's Financial Diary

I am IGoBanking Savings Account customer. Though the bank is no longer my everyday bank as it used to be, I still access my account there quite often. Somehow I still missed their big rate increase of the IGoChecking Checking Account that I mentioned before (I use only their Savings account, not Checking account). If [...]

I have never used a credit union before, therefore, I never paid any attention to how money is insured in a credit union. I just assume that there some some kind of measures to protect credit union customers again losses if a CU fails, like the way my deposits at banks are protected by the [...]

I have added a few more banks to the interest rates table the other day when I updated the list. There are three of them that I think worth mentioning because they all offer very attractive rates: 3.50% APY or more with very low minimum deposit requirement. None of them is big, well-known name. I [...]

Just received a note from WTDirect regarding their rate change. The bank has lowered its WTDirect Savings Account rate to 3.06% APY from the previous rate of 3.31%. Actually, I though 3.31% APY was a pretty decent rate, with the only drawback that it requires $10,000 minimum deposit which is pretty high (FYI, Capital One [...]

Expect to pay more when you ship a package next year, even though the gas price has come down sharply in recent months. USPS announced today that it will increase shipping costs or Express Mail, Priority Mail, Parcel Select, Parcel Return Service and some international shipping products starting January 18, 2009. On average, shipping costs [...]

I thought I closed my Virtual Bank account more than a year ago (that is, I can no longer log in). But apparently my account seems to be still alive, except that there’s no money in it. Anyway, I successfully logged into my account at Virtual Bank tonight and saw their Refer a Friend program [...]

Dutch financial service giant ING, which operates ING Direct in the U.S., posted its first ever quarterly loss since the establishment of the company 17 years ago. In the third quarter, ING said it lost 478 million euros or $602 million, after the company took 1.5 billion euros in pretax write-downs on equities and debt [...]

Dollar Savings Direct is a division of Emigrant Bank, which also owns Emigrant Direct. The account currently has a 3.05% yield with a $1,000 minimum deposit requirement. I have been mulling the idea of getting another savings account with a better return for several months because I am not very happy with the rates from [...]