After the Fed's .25% rate cut, ING quietly dropped its interest rate from 4.3% (down from 4.5% before the previous rate cut) to 4.2%. I have no way of knowing how important that sort of thing is to ING's business, but I find it really irritating. Could I rely on them to bump their interest rate up immediately if the Fed were to raise rates, do you think?
I don't have nearly the kind of real understanding of these kinds of systems that I'd like to have. It's all sort of mysterious, but I definitely know that it affects my life in real ways. Just this month, my savings earned over $20 in interest from ING, and I was hoping that for next month I'd start edging in on the $25/month interest mark (effectively, my interest would be making one Freedom Fund payment for me, which would be very cool). But it looks like it'll be a little longer until that happens.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Dammit, ING
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13 comments:
I hate to say it, but if you have given away all of your ING referrals it is time to move to another bank (or at least the bulk of your deposits). Banks rely on customer inertia. Newer online players have to offer a higher rate to over-come that inertia and get you to move your savings.
ING is the market leader in deposits - so they can be slow in raising rates and quick in dropping them. They take the risk that these actions will not be irritating enough to make their existing customers leave.
Don't worry, the other online banks will be dropping their rates too.
Something to consider - how about opening a CD ladder at ING with a small amount of your freedom fund, say $100 per CD. Then you get some interest rate lock while rates are declining.
this is exactly what i thought was going to happen when the fed cut the rate yesterday. yesterday's cut was bad news for savers.
i was sad to see the rate cut. it's rumored to be the end of it. one can only hope...
i have had ING for a few years and love them. but yes, their rates are frustrating. then again, probably any one bank's are. rate chasing just isn't in my genes. i'd rather put half my ING savings into 6 month CDs and call it a day.
Yes, I love ING and their easy to use interface, and the fact that I can set up a dozen accounts and name them according to their purpose. However, I've started moving my money out since they've been falling behind others in terms of interest.
Some people say a 0.25% or 0.5% difference isn't a big deal. Well over the long run and as my savings increase, it is.
WaMu online savings is still holding at 5%.
aww man...thanks for bearing the bad news. i didn't check my ing account this week, nor have i been extremely focused on the news. school has been difficult, and honestly who wants to hear bad news constantly. i agree with another poster that i do not chase rates, so my money will be staying at ING, but it does such that it has dropped .3% since my account was opened
They'll all come down now and yes they do tend to go up when the Fed raises rates.
HSBC's rates dropped too...but from 5.05% to 4.5%.
So far EmigrantDirect's hasn't dropped again (but they did drop last time from 5.05 to 4.75... still holding steady at the moment).
I moved a lot of my money into my WAMU account at 5%, since it has been constant. I know it's not a huge difference in the scheme of things, but since I have all of my student loan money in there (which is a pretty big chunk-o-change by my standards), I might as well earn most of the interest payments :).
I've transferred my Emigrant direct savings into Etrade's online savings (5.05%) and there's a $25 bonus for opening with a minimum of $1 deposit.
when i opened my ING account in 2005 it offered a 3% APY. then as the Fed starting raising the interest rate, ING was pretty good at matching that with an increase on the rate they offered their customers, slowly working its way up to 4.5%, where it stayed until last month.
so yeah, i'd count on them raising rates again if the Fed were to do it.
I moved my larger savings (i.e., long-term) to another account a couple of months ago, but because of the easy interface with multiple accounts, I'm leaving my short-term savings (i.e., annual bills) at ING. For the smaller amounts, the .1% isn't a huge deal. I just hope my other accounts won't drop as far.
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