If You're Looking For High Interest Rates, Check Out Emigrant Direct
Written: Apr 24 '06 (Updated Jun 06 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Consistently offering some of the highest interest rates available.
Cons: Web site could be improved.
The Bottom Line: Emigrant provides some of the best interest rates around, actually higher than most I have seen. They're worth checking out.
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| hddan's Full Review: Emigrant Savings Bank |
If you're looking for a bank with some of the highest interest rates available, Emigrant Savings Bank may be just what you're looking for. Emigrant Savings Bank is a bank that has been in business for quite a long time having been established in 1850. The originally started out servicing the New York area, but can now be found on the internet at emigrant-direct.com.
I've been a user of online banks for more than three years now, and was attracted to Emigrant Direct mainly because it was offering a higher interest rate than my current online bank. Emigrant Direct is currently offering an interest rate of 4.5% on what they call the American Dream Savings Account, as well as a 5% interest rate on CDs. The CDs they offer here vary from 9 months to 10 years in length and require a minimum $1000 deposit. The savings accounts have no fees and no minimum balances and you may open as many as you choose. Your accounts here are also FDIC insured to the maximum amounts allowed by law.
To open an account at Emigrant Direct, all you need is a checking account. You start by filling out an application, and they also require you to fund the account with an amount of money. To fund your accounts with Emigrant you can have them automatically withdraw money from your checking account, or send them a check. When I started, I chose to have them automatically withdraw just $1 from my checking account, as it would the faster than sending them a check. To also help verify your information, Emigrant Direct also will deposits 2 small sums of money into your checking account (usually just a few cents). Once you have received these two small deposits, you must then log back in and Emigrant's web site and verify the amounts that you received into your checking account. After you've completed these steps they then send you a letter in the mail with a new user ID and password. They do this last step, mainly as an extra security measure for your protection. After this is done, you are ready to start saving with them and get their great interest rates! It took a little over a week for me to get the letter from them to complete the whole process.
Seeing is that Emigrant Direct doesn't actually have a bank building near you, (unless you're in the New York area) you have to transfer your money to them either online or via check. Online is obviously much faster, and they make it easy for you to transfer your money from your checking account to them. It usually takes about a couple of business days for your money to be transferred. (They say it may take up to 4 days) One thing to be aware of is that your money is not available for you to transfer out of emigrant direct back to your checking account for a minimum of five business days. This seems to be policy for most online banks. I found transferring money to be easy, and had no problems at all whatsoever.
I have noticed that Emigrant Direct is constantly changing their interest rates, and lately they have been going up. Interest on all your savings accounts is compounded daily, and interest is paid out at the end of each month . The interest you have earned will be noted in your online statements or the paper statements that you receive at the end of the month.
I also noticed that Emigrant Direct offers you the opportunity for direct deposit into your saving accounts with them. This could be a handy option, should you decide to use it.
About the only thing that I didn't like with Emigrant Direct was the web site itself. It just seemed hard for me to navigate for whatever reason. Maybe that is due to the fact that I have been banking with another online bank, and was more used to their web site.
Emigrant Direct also offers you the option to link up to 2 checking accounts for you to transfer money to the accounts that you have with them.
Even though I personally didn't like their web site, Emigrant Savings Bank continues to offer some of the highest interest rates in the country. The interest rates offered are always changing. Check out emigrant-direct.com for the latest rates. Why not sign up and start saving today?
For my reviews of other online banks:
ING Direct
HSBC Bank
Thanks for reading my Emigrant Direct review,
hddan
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
hddan
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Member: Dan
Location: Frozen Tundra, Wisconsin
Reviews written: 94
Trusted by: 51 members
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