Best High Yield Savings Accounts

Not all high interest savings accounts or money market accounts are alike. If you look at it from the standpoint of savers who decide to open such high yield savings accounts, you’ll find that we’re all prompted to select such accounts according to various reasons and criteria. Let’s take a look at some of the more popular savings products around:

Best High Yield Savings & Checking Accounts

Online Account APY Rate Min. Balance American Express Personal Savings 0.85% $0 EverBank Money Market .91% $1,500 EverBank Yield Pledge Checking .83% None / $1,500 FNBO Direct 0.70% $1 Ally Bank .89% $0 ING Direct Savings .90% $1 ING Direct Checking .20% to 1.10% $1 WT Direct 1.11% $1 Sallie Mae 1.30% $0 HSBC Advance 1.10% $1 Aurora Savings Account 0% to .89% $1 Aurora Money Market Account 0% to 1.06% $1 Aurora Checking Account 0% to .83% $1 E-Trade 0.40% $1 Dollar Savings Direct 1.00% $1,000 Citibank e-Savings 1.01% $100 VirtualBank Savings 0.50% $1,000

Based on where we are in our lives, we tend to choose accounts according to specific requirements. Younger people in their 20’s may be particularly interested in what kind of returns to expect from their savings, and whether an account has an associated debit card or ATM bank card. Older people with some money tucked away will be more interested in the ability to easily move their money around and between accounts — perhaps from cash accounts to investment accounts and vice versa. In this case, they’d be more interested in online bank account features such as ACH, wiring and account linking.

Given these concerns, I thought it would be good to present this comparison table that shows how various high yield savings accounts rank and score on a variety of characteristics and features. I sourced this data from a couple of reports (from WTDirect and EverBank, in particular).

Bank Features	EverBank	Ally Bank	FNBO Direct	ING Direct	WTDirect
Top Savings Account	EverBank	Ally Bank	FNBO Direct	ING Direct	WTDirect
Rates / Balances
APY (as of 1/09/12)	.91%	.89%	0.70%	.90%	1.11%
Maximum Balance	10MM	Unlimited	Unlimited	1MM	Unlimited
Minimum Balance	$1,500	$0	$0	$1	$0
Service
Live Person Answering Phone	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mobile Banking Availability	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Account Types / Transfers
Totten Trust Accounts Offered	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
# of External Bank Links	Unlimited	Unlimited	3	3	Unlimited
ATM Card	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Next Day ACH Transfer		No	No	No	Yes
Can Initiate Transfers From Another Bank	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

Personal Savings Rates: Some Observations

These days, many of us question the interest rates that are earned in these popular high yield savings accounts — could you even consider these to be “high yield” returns? I’ve often mentioned that the term “high yield” is used relatively, because you’ll find most rates at banks and financial institutions to be set at even lower levels, resulting in an average APY of 1.001% for money market and savings accounts.

Granted, our current interest rate climate is not the most exciting at this time, but the expectation here is that our savings account rates won’t be staying down for too long.

Also, the good news is that these low returns have not fazed us, as a nation. The U.S. personal saving rate (or how much money we sock away each year) has doubled over the past few years compared to how it used to be. Here’s a chart that shows this information.

Clearly, the state of the economy and the credit industry has had quite an impact on how we save as a nation. Question is, will this positive savings trend continue once our economy fully recovers or will we return to our spending ways as soon as we see an upswing?

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