A No Frills Savings Experience with ING Direct
Written: Jul 29 '03 (Updated Jul 16 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Higher yields on savings than brick-and-mortar banks, good customer service, easy setup.
Cons: No ATMs, limited account and funds choices.
The Bottom Line: ING Direct isn't a full-service bank but it's nice to have as a slightly higher-yield option for an emergency savings account.
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| mrs-j's Full Review: ING Direct |
Introduction
18 months ago when a rash of layoffs hit my company, I looked around at the empty offices abutting mine and thought, "I need to have a safety net!" I checked my credit union savings account and noticed a disastrously small amount of money was in it.
I wanted to set up a savings plan. My husband, a financial analyst, did some research on ING Direct and found that they have one of the highest savings interest rates available. He opened an account and I opened an account a few short days later.
About ING Direct
ING Direct is a subsidiary of ING, a large worldwide bank that originated in 1991. ING Direct is their direct banking unit. "Direct banking" meaning no storefronts, no ATMs and no lollipops for all the cute kids in your car from the drive-thru tellers. In fact, no drive-thrus or tellers at all!
As a direct bank, ING Direct can save on overhead, but they're still FDIC Insured and carry all the legitimacy of a brick and mortar bank. What ING Direct does offer is higher-than-average interest rates, automatic transfers and the ability to build a little safety net online without the hassle of having to go to a bank for deposits or withdrawals. It's all done online.
Service Offerings
ING Direct offers three types of accounts: Savings, Home Loans and Investments.
Savings
There are two types of savings accounts offered, an Orange Savings Account (the most standard account opened and currently offering a 1.8% APY) and CDs. The CDs are offered with no fees, no minimums and range from 1 (2.10% APY) - 5 years (3.60% APY).
Home Loans
ING Direct also offers mortgages (ARM mortgages only) and home equity lines of credit.
Investment Accounts
Their final offering, and their most recently-added one, is their investment accounts. They offer six mutual funds for their customers, providing a rather small range of banking options.
My Experience
I signed up with ING Direct a year ago and received a $25 bonus for opening my savings account. I provided information to link my traditional checking account with my ING Direct account and authenticated the linking of the accounts by verifying two small deposits that ING made to my linked account.
Within a few days of verifying my linked account, I set up a weekly account transfer from my traditional checking account to my ING Direct savings account. As I sold investments or came into extra money on any sort of a regular basis, I made sure to transfer it over to my ING Direct savings account.
Transferring money is easy but there is a 5 day hold period on recently deposited funds. There is also a limit of six withdrawals from the account a month. When transferring money back into your checking or other linked accounts, it can take up to three business days for the transfer to be completed.
After implementing the auto-transfers, I was soon well on my way to padding up my "safety net". After a year of auto-transfers and conscientiously saving my excess money, I have enough to tide me over for quite awhile should the layoff bug strike again. Of course, since those layoffs I've been promoted and now am inundanted with such an insane amount of work that I feel secure in my job - or even that a break from it would be a relief, but still, it's just nice to know the savings are there if I need them.
Customer Service
The few times I have called customer service with questions, I have found them to be polite. The voice menu isn't excessively painful and the customer service reps are helpful.
Ease of Use/Online Security
Using ING Direct means no paper statements in my mail. Anytime I want to know what the status is of my account, I can simply go online. Accessing my account online is easy and the interface is intuitive. I can check several months back on the history of my account and all of the deposits I've made to it since its inception with just a few clicks.
ING Direct's website is quite secure. Anytime I want to access my account I have to enter in my account number, my PIN code and a random selection of other numbers associated with my account (Digits of my SSN or zip code, for example) to get in. The website uses 128-bit SSL encryption to encrypt the data once you've logged in.
Summary
Overall, savings accounts aren't the best place to hold your money right now. With the stock market poised to go higher and interest rates at an all time low, an ING Direct savings account isn't the best investment vehicle going.
However, it's always nice to have liquid, accessible funds in case of an emergency. And it's nice to have an online bank where I can access them and transfer them, at any time of the day or night.
[Note: The comments section below is nothing but spammed advertisements trying to get other people to sign up at ING direct using the spammer as a referral. I don't endorse or appreciate any of these ads in connection with my review. I've requested that Epinions remove them several times with no luck. Be forewarned, just in case you decide to review ING Direct yourself.]
Recommended:
Yes
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mrs-j
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