Categories: Uncategorized

Looking for a High Interest Savings Account

I got an automated message from Google AdSense — the service that puts ads on this blog and gives me a small cut of the ad revenues every time someone clicks on an ad — that says that my bank account is no longer valid for electronic funds transfers because the transaction failed last night. When I went to AdSense’s site, I was informed that I couldn’t set it to directly deposit the money into my bank account ever again and that I’d have to provide a new bank account. A single technical hiccup has rendered my bank account invalid to receive payment from AdSense forever. Thanks, guys.

Although this is an annoyance, this is also an opportunity. I’ve been considering opening an account completely separate from my existing one for discretionary savings. After the rent and other living expenses have been covered and after I’ve made my monthly payment to my “Wealthy Barber” account, I’d like to take a portion of the remaining money and squirrel it away in a high-interest savings account for saving up for little niceties. I’d much rather save up for those things rather than buy them immediately on credit.

I’ve been looking at the high-interest savings accounts offered by PC Financial, ING Direct and HSBC. Have any of you had experiences with these accounts? Are there other accounts I should be checking out? Let me know in the comments.

Joey deVilla

View Comments

  • I know some folks have been happy with ICICI Bank and their savings accounts, but I've stuck with ING Direct and am quite happy with them.

    It's easy to setup links to bank accounts (TD in my case) so you can easily transfer money back and forth (including automated transfers), you can have as many savings accounts as you want with no minimum balance on each.

    And, for those who want it, they allow download of transactions for importing into financial sw.

    All and all, there are options with higher rates, but I've come to trust ING, they're never had a hickup, and I've had nothing but pleasant experiences with the customer support when I've called them.

  • Seems like a pretty serious problem to have if you're not willing to create a new bank account. There was no indication that you could resolve this through a customer service rep?

  • When I did my research a few years ago ING came out on top for interest rates. Time has passed and I haven't gone shopping around recently so I can't comment on the absolute best interest rate, but I can tell you about ING's service. I have had to contact them several times for things I wanted to change or fix.

    I accidentally started a transfer TO ING (for more money than I had in my checking account) rather than moving that money FROM ING to my checking. I called them up and they were able to cancel it before things went horribly wrong.

    They were also helpful when I wanted to add my wife as a joint owner after our wedding. She already had her own ING account and it was an easy operation. However, it's a little clumsy if you have joint owners and you want to open other joint accounts (like CDs), it requires both people to authenticate, so I can't open CDs unless she's at home too (she could give me her login but that's not the point).

  • @Andrew Lewis: Well, I've been thinking about creating a completely separate bank account that paid a high interest rate for my AdSense and other bonus money, and glitches like this are perfect opportunities to make changes like this.

    The Google AdSense control panel says:

    There was a technical error with this deposit. We were unable to fund your account.

    What to do next:

    1. This bank account is no longer eligible for EFT payments. If you would like to receive AdSense payments by EFT, please enter and verify another bank account.

    2. Alternatively, you may choose a different form of payment.

    I could go to Google support (I have some doubts about how helpful that would be), but since I'd been thinking about starting up a new account anyway, I thought I might use this glitch as a kick-start for that little project.

  • The RBC is now also offering a high interest account which is very handy if you are already a RBC customer since everything is under 1 roof and immediately available to you.

  • Stay away from RBC. My parents had an account there on the supposed high interest rate account. I think the rate only stayed high for the few couple of months and then dwindled to just a very touch higher than a regular account (in other words no HIGH rate at all). Not sure if other banks are the same however with their rates lowering back to almost regular saving account levels.

  • I've been with PC Financial pretty much since they launched, for my day-to-day chequing account, high-interest savings, and a joint account with my girlfriend. Because they're operated through CIBC, you can use any CIBC machine to access any of the accounts directly (no bothering with transferring to another bank). I've always found them very helpful whenever I've needed anything, and the rates are competitive.

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