Here’s our review of one of the best high interest savings accounts around.
These days, a savings account is still considered “high yielding” even when it returns but a mere few percentage points. It’s all relative after all: when you can make an actual positive return without any risk, it’s still much more appealing than seeing the red in your brokerage statements. So while you await a better opportunity to utilize your savings, it’s a good idea to scout around for ideal places to park this money.
I want to put the spotlight on the ING Direct Orange Savings Account and ING Direct Electric Orange Savings and Checking Account today, given that they’re some of the most popular online savings and checking accounts around, and a clear favorite among many financial bloggers. These particular savings accounts are highly regarded, and I can see why! Here are just some of the positives about these bank offerings:
Review Of ING Direct’s Online Bank Account Features
Some basic features of ING Direct, its Orange Savings Account and Electric Orange Savings / Checking Account:
- ING Direct is a pioneer in the online banking industry. The bank has been around a while (since 2000) with an established reputation.
- Everyone I know has an ING Direct account (well, almost everyone) and can only say good things about it. Although ING’s bank accounts may not have won the awards that other online savings accounts have (such as Ally Bank or FNBO Direct), they remain as top choices for many in the financial community (for reasons I describe below).
- The returns are good, but not exceptional. The Orange Savings Account (at .90% APY) beats the average returns for money market and bank savings accounts, while the Electric Orange Savings/Checking Account yields up to 1.10%. Their yields are fairly competitive and can compare to other online savings accounts offered by a lot of other banks.
- There are no minimums for opening these accounts, which makes them accessible to everyone.
- All transfers between your ING Direct accounts and other accounts are free, easy and straightforward. Transfers can be made online, through a phone service or customer representative, and takes around 2 to 3 business days to happen.
- The savings account easily links to any checking account you designate. You can electronically link up to 3 non-ING Direct personal checking accounts to your Orange Savings Account (of course, ING Direct accounts are automatically interlinked). I’ve also heard that some people have successfully linked their external savings accounts to their Orange account, but this is something you’ll need to verify (I can’t vouch for it).
- Banking with ING Direct is safe! Your funds with them are guaranteed since your deposits are FDIC insured up to $250,000 per account owner.
Ready to sign up for an ING Direct account? Then here’s where to check out the Orange Savings Account and the Electric Orange Checking Account.
What’s Great About The ING Direct Orange Savings Account?
It goes without saying that ING Direct supports standard bank features such as monthly electronic statements, direct deposits, automatic deposits, transfers and such. So what makes them stand out? Let’s review the Orange Savings account for the moment.
- The Orange Savings Account has absolutely NO fees! You won’t need to pay anything for account maintenance. You won’t be charged any fees at all: not for inactivity, not for anything else. This is something you can’t say for many other bank products out there.
- They’ve got a nice and simple interface. The site is straightforward, clean, easy to use and to navigate. You’re presented with the current APY (interest rate), your current balance, transaction history and the total interest you’ve earned during the month. You’re able to keep tabs on the interest income you’re accruing on a real time basis.
- You can create subaccounts. This is one of those unique features that ING Direct has, that most other banks (including the large, well-known bank I used to work for) don’t have. And suffice it to say, lots of ING customers simply love this feature: you’re able to create new subaccounts under your Orange Savings Account, which is designated as your primary account. These subaccounts are all tied to the primary under the same customer ID number and have the benefit of allowing you to “bucket” your money into different categories. It’s pretty cool that you can designate the subaccounts for different purposes and goals in order to help you better plan how your money is saved and used.
- You can rename your accounts with their own labels (e.g. nicknames). Along with the subaccount creation feature, you can relabel all your accounts under ING Direct with custom nicknames that can help describe your accounts better. For instance, you can create subaccounts called “Emergency Fund” or “Holiday Travel” or “New Refrigerator” if you so wish. Again, this facilitates your saving efforts when you see your money broken down into well-named convenient savings buckets.
- Create an ING Direct CD ladder easily! My late grandmother was very big on CD ladders. She enjoyed distributing her money across different CDs with various maturation dates and yields. When you spread your money among several CDs with staggered dates of maturity, your money is not locked in on earning a particular interest rate. By laddering, you can gain liquidity and have a more stable source of income through CDs. My grandmother would have appreciated this account feature. You can easily use your Orange Savings Account (or other account) to purchase a CD or CD ladder via a specially designed page that takes in your CD allocations.
- Spread the news about ING Direct and you’ll earn extra income. As an existing customer, you can actually earn extra income through ING Direct’s referral system. ING Direct gives you free money if you get others to sign up with them. Under their referral bonus plan, you’ll earn $10 for each customer you refer. Each new customer who signs up then receives a bonus of $25 to start off his or her account! As the referrer, you can earn up to a maximum of $500 (at $10 per new customer, that’s $250 for 25 customers referred to the Orange Savings Account, and $250 for 25 customers referred to the ING Direct Electric Orange Checking Account).
- You can download transactions into your favorite financial application. This may be standard fare for many banks, but it’s good to know you have the convenience of downloading your ING data into desktop Quicken, free Quicken Online or Microsoft Money.
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You have access to a wide array of financial products and services from ING Direct, such as:
- a savings/checking account (Electric Orange)
- a savings account (Orange Savings Account)
- an investment account for stocks and mutual funds (ShareBuilder)
- certificates of deposits (Orange CDs)
- business accounts (Business Savings Account, Business CDs, Sharebuilder 401k)
- home mortgage loans (Orange Mortgage, Easy Orange)
Potential Issues
Is there anything that you need to be wary of about ING Direct?
- Do not expect the same level of customer support as you’d get at a traditional bank. By their very nature, online banks won’t have the same kind of customer service set up as that offered by brick and mortar banks. If you’re a customer who will require a lot of assistance, an online bank environment may not be a fit for you.
- ING Direct’s web site(s) can be slow. Although the interfaces for the ING Direct Orange Savings and Electric Orange Checking accounts work pretty well, the Sharebuilder site has been consistently pretty sluggish for me. I look forward to seeing improvements to the sites’ performance.
Given all the awesome features of these ING Direct accounts, I can see why so many people are sold on it. If ING Direct looks good to you, then here’s where to check out the Orange Savings Account and the Electric Orange Checking Account.
Copyright © 2009 The Digerati Life. All Rights Reserved.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
ING’s rate went down to 1.85% today.
And I have successfully linked savings accounts.
Thanks Andy!
Yes, it seems that a few banks have just dropped their rates today yet again. I’ll make the appropriate adjustments. Hopefully all this rate dropping will do something soon for our ailing economy, and our small bank returns will be worth the sacrifice.
Also, thanks for confirming the matter of externally linking savings accounts to Orange Savings.
Actually the Customer Service is beyond excellent, and coming from an ex-teller that is saying something I think. As to the website being slow, I have only experienced slowness due to my connection and not theirs.
Other pros are that it plays well with personal finance applications, both online and on your home computer; and it’s automatic transfer and bill pay features are flawless.
Thanks PK, I appreciate the input!
ING Direct has a lot of fans (even among my own circle), and glad to know that there are companies that inspire this kind of praise.
I have mentioned my slow connectivity issues about Sharebuilder a few times here, and I find it strange, since I don’t have this issue with any other site. I have a very solid connection from where I am, so I can only presume that it must be an isolated situation to do with connecting to the ING Direct Sharebuilder site. And this hasn’t been a sporadic issue at all, unfortunately (it’s ongoing).
I’ve been an ING Direct customer since 2004. I signed up for the free $25 that came with it. Now I have two savings accounts with them.
@Blogger – Sharebuilder was purchased by ING Direct, but they are likely still operating as an individual company just with a slightly “oranger” brand name. This would mean they have their own servers in their own locations and the code running the site is entirely different. It is conceivable in that circumstance that you would have problems with one and not the other. I have a sharebuilder account, but it’s mostly idle with long positions so I’m not on there very often.
I have been hearing great things about ING for awhile now to the point where I think I am ready to set up an account with them. Good to hear another positive review about it.
It’s such a shame that online savings accounts are decreasing the interest rates. ING is so popular that it can offer lower interest rates than its competition and still gain customers.
One of my favorite parts about ING is the easy CD laddering. The problem with CD laddering through ING right now is the savings account interest rate is better than every CD rate 3 years and under. What’s my incentive for laddering with ING right now?
I’ve had an ING account for a few years myself and I’m quite happy with it. I use it as my savings account and link it to my local bank checking account.
It is a bummer about the rates going down on these accounts. Take a look at rategopher, it lists yields for various institutions offering these accounts.
The rates are of course down due to 0.1% inflation rate right now and the relative health of ING. ING must not be as desperate for deposits as other banks. You pretty much have to chase the failing banks around the country to keep that nice high 3-4% yield. I have an account at ING, but only have about $20 in it now, while I have the rest in Everbank, since they do have better rates (although no longer the best). If the rates were were universally higher, like around 10%, that would only indicate we were in a period of high inflation and you would not be yielding much more than today, since you always have to adjust for inflation.
I do know some people who use ING Direct and they like it a lot. It does get some of the best rates in the country. I’m not currently using them, but I have been looking at making an account with them due to my bank’s interest rate’s dropping a lot.
While you can’t walk in and talk to a teller I have found their telephone customer service to be quite good the 2 times I have had to use them. Very knowledgeable and friendly. Not what I expected at all from the no frills persona they advertise.
Even though you can’t walk in and talk to a teller they have better customer service than most of the brick & mortar banks I’ve had. The wait is never too long (this is where my b & m banks have failed), the people are always pleasant, and I can do business after work. I also like that their call centers are US based.
Can you please give me a telephone number to call? I need to talk to someone at the orange savings bank.
Thank you
Sure Bunny,
Here it is:
Questions? Call 1-800-ING-DIRECT to talk to a real person.
Interesting post. Thanks for the review. I’ve been flirting with the idea of switching to ING for a long time, but never mustered up the confidence. I have a large sum of money sitting in a money market with Fidelity that is literally doing nothing interest-wise right now, so I’m thinking that I’ll make the big switch. Thanks for the review.