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Finances & Money

Opened a Bank of America Money Market Savings Account

September 24, 2007
By Clever Dude
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Bank of America Money Market AccountI’ve been doing my banking with Bank of America for the last 5 years, and I’m very pleased with their online billpay features. I do find their interface a bit cluttered, and they bury information such as APR/APY, where other sites have it up front (ING Direct), but their ATMs and branches are convenient to my home and work locations, so I stuck with them.

A year ago, I went on a quest to find a better savings account because BoA’s savings rates were horrendous. They were only providing about 0.2% return on the savings, and although at the time I had very little saved, it was still nowhere near the competition. So, I jumped ship Emigrant Direct, HSBC Direct and ING Direct in search of a better rate, but I was uncomfortable having to manage my money in so many locations. I kept hoping that BoA would come in and rescue me from financial clutter!

And then along came Jonathan from My Money Blog to tell me that Bank of America was now offering a high yield money market account! I signed up for a Penn State Alumni MMA through MyExpression Banking last week. The account was opened and linked to my online account within a day or two, and as of this morning was funded with $3,000 from our HSBC Direct account.

Here’s the unfortunate part: Between opening the account and funding it, the rate dropped from a 5.3% APY to a 4.65% APY (for balances between $2,500 and $10,000). In comparison, that’s still better than ING Direct’s new 4.3%, but now below HSBC’s and Emigrant’s 5.05% rate. Why couldn’t BoA show some love and compete a little better with the market leaders??? If you want all our savings, you need to pony up some more interest baby!

So for now, I’ll keep the majority of our money with HSBC, but keep the money I have with BoA in there to avoid the $12 month charge for balances under $2,500. I’ll link our checking to this savings for overdraft protection and dump our old regular savings account with BoA. I’ll also keep ING Direct because it has some sweet referral bonuses for both YOU and ME, so let me know if you want a referral for a free $25! I’ve already had 6 readers take advantage of this bonus!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Juan Millon says

    September 24, 2007 at 4:43 pm

    I have to tell you, after working for BoA for a number of years and watching the transition from a San Francisco BoA to it’s nations bank derivative — it will be a very long time before I trust BoA with my money again.

    Reply
  2. realist says

    September 24, 2007 at 5:51 pm

    Mike,

    Bank of America is horrible…they are the ones who bought out MBNA…so much hidden stuff in their contracts…I hope you can get your money out of there the second you can.

    -Mish

    Reply
  3. Jonathan says

    September 26, 2007 at 5:02 am

    I know, I was hoping the account wasn’t just an accident that they would soon find out and lower the rates to the level their other dismal offerings. The rate apparently changes every Friday, so keep your fingers crossed. 🙂

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. » Interest Rate Cuts: Moving Our Savings to Bank of America @ fivecentnickel.com says:
    September 27, 2007 at 8:23 am

    […] tip: Bank Deals via CleverDude and […]

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