ING Direct Checking

Have you ever thought about using a Roth IRA as an emergency fund? These are some of the pros and cons of creating a Roth Emergency Fund…

After the promotion last month, ING Direct is running another fun promotion to get us to use our Debit cards. All you have to do is use your ING Debit Card to make five purchases (of at least $10 each) during the month of December and you will be automatically entered to win $5000! On January 15th five winners will be selected and have $5000 deposited into their ING checking accounts.

ING wants to pay you to use your Debit card … If you have an Electric Orange Checking with ING Direct you are eligible to receive $20 from them. All you have to do is use your debit card 5 times during November (purchases more than $10 each) and they will add $20 to your account on December 15th. You can read more about it here.

I signed up with ING about 4 years ago and have had a great experience with them. They have been a model business that has worked very hard to satisfy and meet the changing needs of their customers. These are just a few of the ways they have helped me.

It doesn’t happen too often to me, but since I use my ING sub-accounts for budgeting I occasionally make more than six withdrawals per month. When this happens they send me a kind, but firm email informing me that if I make that mistake again they may be forced to close my account. So here is how I get around it…

Banking with ING seems to be the way to go. They are the least prone to identity theft of any of the big banks. It is no surprise to me that ING Direct has the lowest incidences of identity theft on the list. If you bank with ING, you will know that they have so many security measures that it can ALMOST be annoying.

This is my comparison of Virtual Bank and ING Direct… I decided to open a Virtual Bank savings account. They gave me $20 for opening it, so I figured I don’t have much to lose. To me ING Direct has clearly been the best online savings account in terms of features, interface, and overall user experience, but I am trying to keep an eye out for other up and coming great online banks, so I decided to check out Virtual Bank.

Kiplinger’s just came out with their best list of 2007. In it they cover a wide range of services and products they have ranked. Here are a few that stood out to me…

I just opened up a Citibank Ultimate savings account, currently with an APY of 4.65%. They give you $50 to open the account. There are no minimum balance restrictions.

Would you rather have 0.5% or 4.5% interest on your savings account? If that doesn’t mean anything to you – would you rather I handed you $5 or $45? That’s what the difference is between online banks’ rates and regular banks.