You may have heard of ING Direct, from their commercials about the company sounding like the end of a sentence to their ads featuring a big orange ball, ING Direct is one of the best online banks going these days.
Here’s all you need to get started…
1. Click Here to open your ING Direct account
2. Link ING to your existing Checking account
3. Transfer your money to ING Direct and earn a super high interest rate
That’s it… seriously!
SPECIAL OFFER: Get $50 When You Sign Up For ING Direct Electric Orange Checking
About ING Direct
There are many reasons to sign up with everything from cash back bonuses to the convenience of using 35,000 nationwide ATM’s for free, the benefits are many, but one of the questions people keep asking me is “How does ING Direct work?” so here goes…
ING Direct is an online bank, with no physical locations. Unlike most banks where you can walk in and sign up for an account, ING Direct is done all online. What this does is saves them money on things like rent, electricity and property taxes and they can then pass it on to you with interest rates higher than your local bank, even on checking accounts.
Banking Options
You should also know that ING isn’t just checking and saving accounts. In fact ING offers a variety of banking products, their most common being savings accounts and checking accounts, but they also offer home loans and mortgages, online investing, IRA accounts (including Roth IRAs), and a suite of business checking and saving options as well. Essentially it’s one stop shopping for anything that has to do with money.
Ok, I got off on a little tangent there… back to how ING works. When most people ask me that question they are usually referring to checking and saving accounts so I’m going to focus on them for now, but perhaps I will get in to the mortgages, investing and business stuff in a later post if I have time.
How ING Direct Works
When you sign up for a checking or saving account though ING you use your current bank like a pass through. Many of you have sent e-checks or made payments online, well transferring money to your ING account works very much like that.
Once you have signed up for an account ING will make two small deposits in your current bank account, something like 3 and 7 cents. They do this for verification so you can prove to them that the account is in fact yours. Once you verify your account you do a transfer from your current account to the ING account. The process usually takes a couple of business days, but is really no harder than making an online payment.
Earn Interest
Once the money is in your account you can either have it gain interest in a savings account, or use your checking account like you normally would with checks and an ING direct debit card (through Mastercard). At the time that I am writing this ING is offering a $50 bonus if you sign up, make a deposit and use your debit card 3 times in the first 45 days. If you do these three steps they will transfer $50 to your account on the 50th day…how cool is that?
Conclusion
ING direct is a very simple service to use and really works no differently than a regular bank account except for the physical interaction with the tellers. For most of us with jobs we know that “bankers hours” never let us get to the branches anyway and ING is open 24/7 for customer service. I just signed up today and I’m very happy to have my checking account earn interest for a change!
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ING is great. They have good rates and are financially healthy too. Thanks for the comprehensive list of good banks and good rates.