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| Wednesday, December 28, 2005 |
| ING Direct Savings vrs HSBC Direct Savings |
My Mother recently asked me to help her establish an online savings account for her eBay money*. Currently the money is sitting in a Passbook Saving Account with a local bank earning about .5% interest. While my Mother does have a computer and internet access she does not do any banking online. She is the type who goes downtown 2 - 3 times a week to do her banking, mailing, etc. While she would never think of doing her day to day financial transactions online, she is willing to "dip her toe" into online banking with this one account.
I am very excited that she has finally said she wants to do this. Maybe years of my nagging have had an effect? Now I am faced with a dilemma. I want to get her the best interest rate yield, but I also want her to be happy with her online experience. Since I will probably be called on to help her navigate whatever site she signs up with, I need to be sure I am very familiar with the online bank. Since I have accounts with ING Direct and HSBC Direct those are the two banks I am considering.
HSBC Direct is currently paying 4.25% interest on its online savings account with just a $1 minimum and has a $25 sign-up bonus. I joined HSBC Direct just this past October but since joining I must say I am disappointed in the design of the website. When you arrive at the main site you then select Personal Internet Banking and click on the Log On button. This is where the first problem occurs. The Log On button launches a pop-up window where you actually enter your Customer ID and Password. I have pop-up blocker on my Mother's computer and "feature" of the HSBC website alone will cause numerous problems and phone calls from her to me. Then there is the problem of the length of the Customer ID #. Having my mother enter a 20 digit customer id number to login will also cause many problems.
Even if she does manage to get used to the pop-up windows and the 20 digit login the design of the site is not that inspiring. At least not when compared to ING Direct.
ING Direct is currently paying 3.75% interest on its online savings account with just a $1 minimum. With a referral you can get a $25 sign-up bonus, but you need to deposit at least $250.00 to get the $25 bonus (if you are interested in opening an ING Direct account and need a referral please Email me - click on Jane Dough under About Me in the sidebar for address). The ING Direct site does not have any pop-up windows which is great. You do need to enter info into 3 fields to login (vrs. HSBC 2 fields) but the customer id number is just 6 digits, the second field is a rotating question that is based on your personal info and is generally 3 - 5 digits long. The last is a four digit pin you select but which does require picking out the numbers with your mouse. This could pose a problem since my Mom is not exactly an expert with the mouse.
But once she is logged in it is easy to see how much money you have saved with a running monthly tally of interest earned to date. This is a great feature and one I wish HSBC would implement. It also shows you how much interest you earned year to date and how much last year.
I am leaning toward ING Direct for my Mom. She really needs to get comfortable with online banking and 3.75% is far more than her current .5%.
* eBay Money - My Mom is a packrat who loves yard sales. She has a large house which is filled from attic to basement with "stuff". About five years ago I finally convinced her to try to sell some of her more interesting "stuff" on eBay. Over the years I have listed and sold items dragged from the depths of her house as varied as empty Billy Beer Cans (Former president Jimmy Carter's brother Billy Carter sold beer in the 70's - the cans are collectible now) to her childhood 1940's era Ginny Dolls (think Barbie only shorter and with baby fat). These are all items that no one else in the family wanted and she was willing to part with. She quickly got hooked seeing how much her "stuff" was fetching on eBay. However, there was one drawback. My agreement with her was I was willing to help her by photographing, listing, and even paying all the eBay and PayPal fees for her if she agreed to take the money earned and put it into a savings account and not turn around and use the cash to buy more "stuff" at yard sales. The goal is to help empty out her big house while earning her some mad money. |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 5:25 PM *
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| 14 Comments: |
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How about Emigrant Direct? They're fantastically simple to operate: a login and a password of your choosing. Transfers are a matter of picking an option from a drop-down menu and pressing a button. And they're also at 4.00% APY. No signing bonus though, so unless you plan to put in more than $10,000, ING's $25 bonus means it will yield more in the first year.
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The userid on HSBC can be changed once you log in. I don't think I would put up with that long of a login for too long either. You may have to help her out initially with HSBC, but it should be smooth sailing after that.
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I changed my login to a 5 digit login. All you do once you get the customer id and pw is goto profile and change login id and password to anything you want.
That being said I agree with Nick unless we are talking about some real money the differnce between 3.75% vs 4.25% is small that even worth discussing.
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I think your mom can key in the ING password/PIN section without touching the mouse. She just has to tab a few extra times (two or three I think) to get the cursor to appear in the right box.
My mother is also mouse-challenged and pop-up blocking is key for not distracting her away from the website in front of her eyes. I say go with ING.
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You could add the direct link for the HSBC login to your mother's favorites bar. The address is
https://www.ebank.us.hsbc.com/servlet/
com.hsbc.us.ibank.signon.Logon
No popups from this site.
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That's fantastic that your mom's ready to set up an online savings account! My dad has a lot of money sitting in his money market account which has a sad .36% interest rate.
I keep trying to convince him that the online savings accounts are fantastic, but he won't budge. Just doesn't trust it for some reason. Any sales pitch ideas?
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Wow - Thanks for all the suggestions. I am not considering Emigrant Direct at this time since I don't have an account with them myself. I anticipate that whatever online account I set my Mom with will require me to be very familiar with - since she will likely call me when stuck and I will have to talk her through whatever the problem.
I will have to look into changing the initial 20 digit customer id to something shorter. Thanks for the tip!
I am still leaning toward ING Direct to begin with because it will be simpler to set-up and use. But I am now thinking that I will sit down with my Mom and show her both HSBC Direct and ING Direct and have her login to my accounts and let her pick. I hope to do this all next week sometime and will let you know how it goes.
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Hi Will Kirby,
My Mom is 69 years old and while she enjoys using Email, watching her Ebay auctions, and occassionaly shops online, trying to get her to do anything financial online has been a struggle. I have been working on her for about 5 years. I think what has worked has been my occassional mentions of how much my online savings account is earning in interest. I would also bring up online banking when a group of us kids are gathered. She knows that all of her children use online banking and we are all benefiting from higher interest rates. I don't know why she has now finally decided it is time to try it. I am just thrilled that she has finally come around.
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I have an ING account also and recently learned that you don't need to click on the PIN numbers. In the PIN box, just type (in capitals) the letters that appear next to the numbers on the relevant buttons. These corresponding letters change each time you log in as an additional security measure.
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I recently opened an Emigrant Direct account. The site is easy to use, but the support is awful. My emails concerning the account have never been answered. You have to dial the 800 number to get any response at all. Stick with ING or HSBC.
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I currently have an ING Direct account and an Emigrant account. My suggestion between those two is definitely ING. The fact that Emigrant uses the snail mail sign-up and makes me change my password fairly often, I do not really like using it. I just did it for the bonus.
I will have to try HSBC Direct and see how they are. I actually don't keep much money in any of these (under $100) as I keep my emergency fund in a MM account on Vanguard. That is currently about 4%. That might be worth checking out if oyu eventually want to start her investing online.
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Having an acct. with either ING or Emigrant LOCKS in your $$$.
(1)Can you transfer $$ between banks that are linked to either of these banks or make an ATM transaction ?
(2)how do you withdraw money?
HSBC, inspite of the few negligible problems users may have faced(setting up acct, customer service etc), wins hands down in ALL respects !
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I can't really speak for Emigrant since I don't have an account with them, but I have been a happy ING Direct customer for a few years now. I have never had any problem getting my money out. I just transfer it to my checking account. ING Direct was where I held my downpayment money before I purchased my current house. I now keep my "if I lost my job" money there. I value and trust ING Direct and recommend them as a great online saving bank.
HSBC Direct is similar to ING Direct for me since I transfer money from that account to my checking account. I do have an ATM card for this account, but to use it I would have to pay a fee since I don't have HSBC ATM machines near me.
I find the ING Direct interface easier to use, but HSBC currently offers a higher interest rate. But both are great banks.
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How about Emigrant Direct? They're fantastically simple to operate: a login and a password of your choosing. Transfers are a matter of picking an option from a drop-down menu and pressing a button. And they're also at 4.00% APY. No signing bonus though, so unless you plan to put in more than $10,000, ING's $25 bonus means it will yield more in the first year.