Don’t want to bank on banks?
A few days ago, I posted about Mint.com, and I wanted to follow up with a few other online services that I've seen that may be useful. Most, if not all of these have been written up in a recent New York Times article, which has some useful information.
Now these aren't like mint.com in that they work as banks. Mint.com doesn't let you move any money - you can only see your accounts - but these services are online alternatives to your everyday checking and savings accounts. I'm not going to go into the deep details of each service, partially because I don't have first hand experience with each, and partially because Murphy's law states that any details will be changed as soon as I publish this, but here's a slightly annotated list.
SmartyPig: SmartyPig is meant to be a savings account replacement, offering relatively high interest rates (currently 2.15%) , as long as you keep a low balance. If you save more than $50 000 with them, your interest rate falls to 0.5%.
PerkStreet: PerkStreet offers you an alternative to your everyday checking account. They offer free checks and no-fee banking, and you can even get cash back on debit card purchases. Check out all the details though - and shop around. This may be one that looked good to me, but it also may not be the best one out there.
ING Direct: Perhaps the original online banking option, ING offers just about everything any other bank would, but with higher interest where you want and lower interest where you don't.
Bank Simple is an up-and-coming online bank option that seems to have the right philosophy - happy customers means loyal customers. They have a little info about how they'll work, as well as an interesting blog that may inspire a few future posting here. I'll let you know as soon as I see they're up and running.
That's it for me - do you have any other suggestions?
July 8th, 2010 - 11:49
I’m a huge fan of ING Direct. That said I’m already on the BankSimple mailing list and plan to be an early customer there.
July 8th, 2010 - 12:06
I’ve just signed up as well – it looks like they might be a really interesting option, especially claiming that they have “largest fee free nationwide ATM network” and will refund certain other ATM fees, and their promise of a check app, where you can take a picture of a check and send it in to be deposited into your account.