After reading nothing but positive ING Direct reviews, I finally took the plunge and signed up for an ING Direct Orange Savings Account. It was fairly painless, as online banking applications go. The standard questions were asked including name, address, ssn, etc. ING Direct was recently rated as the most secure online institution and it showed. The series of security questions were unique and enough to make identity theft difficult.
I was immediately pleased with the straightforward interface. ING Direct has long been competitive with other online banking institutions, and though others may offer a slightly higher yield, I am planning to maintain the bulk of my savings here because of the other benefits.
ING Direct Review
ING Direct offers a couple perks over similar online banking institutions. I enjoy the ability to give our savings account a nickname. Having a name for our accounts helps me identify with the savings goal more. For instance, having $1,500 in my “Emergency Fund” account means more to me than $1,500 in “Account #123456789.”
The ability to create subaccounts at ING is a nice feature for consolidating various targeted savings accounts into one bank, and one master control screen. These subaccounts at ING are really just separate savings accounts, but because they are all tied to your customer ID they appear as a list on your ING customer homepage. Over time I plan to add accounts labeled “Christmas Shopping,” “Vacation,” and “New Sofa.” We can then create some automatic contributions into each of these funds based on the targeted savings goal. For instance, my wife and I would like to save about $600 in our Christmas Shopping account so we plan to automatically transfer $50 a month into this account. With our savings on auto-pilot the money is moved automatically without any hassle-factor. When the targeted savings goal is within reach we will schedule an electronic withdrawal back to our linked checking account.
Targeted savings accounts are a great way to pay for things that occur once or twice a year, or for one-time goals such as our “New Sofa” account. Insurance premiums, car tags, and taxes all have a way of sneaking up on us and wrecking a monthly budget. By using a savings account reserved for each specific purpose these events will no longer be budget-busters, rather a simple electronic transfer to your checking account.
I encourage you to consider signing up with ING Direct today. Their customer service, interface, security features, and account options are second to none.
Additional Resources:
Now that you’re with ING, don’t forget that you can also send yourself the referral emails and post the links directly on your blog. People are much more likely to click than to email. The codes expire after 30 days, so you have to do it once a month, but you’ll increase your chances of a referral that way.
Congrats on joining the ING gang! I love it
Welcome to the dark side!
How funny, I had just gotten off the phone with the nice lady at ING, (I opened an account a couple of days ago) and then I clicked on your blog and there was ING. Unfortunately, I opened an Electric account (after reading a different blog), only has 1.7 % !!!! So, I called to switch the account to the regulasr 3% one. Just have to wait for the funds to be cleared and the lady said I could do it all online tomorrow. Make sure you get the 3% Orange account. Glad I looked before it was too late!
@Tara: Good advice. There are some advantages to the Electric accounts, but they function more like an online checking account, rather than the Orange Savings account. I’m glad ING could steer you in the right direction – yet another testimonial for their customer service.
ING has a decent interface and is reliable. I appreciate the sub-account features.
I know there are folks who move their money around each month from one online back to another, but right now the savings rates are so low across the board that it isn’t worth my time to try and eek out another 0.075%. Like FD said, at least ING is a large margin better than most people’s local bank.
Signing up with a referral for the free $25 – that’s worth the ten or twenty minutes it will take to sign up and verify your account. You’re making 10% on your money in one shot. Now if only the CD rates would start moving upward again…
Another interesting feature I failed to mention in the post above is that you are able to see the interest accrual real time (by day) on your accounts, even though it doesn’t post until the end of the month. This is a great way to get kids interested in compounding interest, building off my post last week about teaching kids the magic of compounding. It’s pretty exciting for us adults, too!
came over from TSD links….
I love ING, been “banking” there since 2002. We have our emergency fund set up with xx$$ in available cash then CD ladders for the rest. It works great.
Oh and you’ll LOVE the Wii. totally worth every penny. we have 3 small kids and we all play together and now have social gatherings at our house rather than going out. it’ll pay for itself by us staying home rather than going out!
Danielle
I have NEVER had a problem with ING in my 4 years as a customer. When/if interest rates ever raise, you should check out there CD’s. I am currently enjoying the benefits of a 6 month CD at 4.75% from ING.
Know what’s real neat? On my paper statements it tells me how much I’ve earned since I first opened my account years ago. It’s a good feeling seeing all that interest.
Also, I had my tax refund direct deposited to my ING account. As a result my stimulus check should hit there too. No delay in earning interest for me!
I love the sub-accounts feature. We’ve used a bunch of them in the past. We have one now for our daughter to show her how her savings grow.
@Danielle: I am excited about getting a Wii someday – it is the only thing I have really wanted for the last year or so. I’ve read dozens of stories and reviews about the Wii, and stood in the aisles at Sam’s Club and played it for thirty minutes on more than one occasion (OK, several occasions!).
One of our new subaccounts at ING will be a “Wii” acccount, because after almost buying one on impulse a few months ago my wife and I agreed “Wii” need to save our money and pay cash!
@Caveman: Thanks for the idea – I didn’t even know that was an option.
@Tara,
Is the electric account you originally had the same as Electric Orange savings account? I’m on ING’s website and it says that Electric Orange has a 3.40% APY. Is the catch where it says “Up to…”
Sorry;
Disregard last comment. I just looked at the details (guess I should have done that first) and saw that there’s a pretty high minimum balance to get the >3%
I have been researching this also as my savings interest is pathetic right now. How many withdrawal transactions are you allowed a month, do you know? We rarely take anything out out of our savings but it’s good to be aware of these things. Also I would love your code so I can open an account. Do I need to send you a separate email?
Thanks,
Shannon
@Shannon: I emailed you directly with a referral link. I believe you are limited to 6 monthly withdrawals from your Orange Savings account. Can anyone else confirm that for us?
How funny. I just signed one up last night as well using someone else’s referral. I started reading your blog couple weeks ago, and really appreciate all your helpful advice. Please keep it up!
Good luck working towards that Wii. We found ours on Craigslist with all the extras and a game for $200. I know it was a steal and we decided to do the “family gift” instead of a lot of separate gifts for family members. It can be a fun date night with your spouse. Beware- can be addictive
Great job on setting up the acct too. We need to do this at some point and I love to read real reviews of services/products. Thanks!
I love ING too!! Thanks for the mention and I hope you enjoy them!!
I’ve had an Orange Account, and I was pretty impressed. They must be doing something right.
I’ve been considering switching to ING for months now. I was just talking about this on another post… I use BoA and I really don’t like them much, but I’m all set up in their system and since my credit card is with them, I’ll stay for now. As soon as I’m out of debt, I think I’ll switch
Thanks for more info on ING! A lot of bloggers write about it, but all the info is useful.
The question that I have is about emergency funds and how “close” they should be. I have an ING Savings account, but I have seen others to say that your Emergency fund should be in your local banks savings account to get to it quickly. It could take several days for your emergency funds to get to your “local” checking account. What should I do???
@James: We actually keep $1,000 in a local savings account to catch “small” emergencies, and anything above that we keep at ING in various targeted subaccounts including a long-term emergency fund. Great question! Thanks for commenting.
Have been using ING for a couple of years. I have about 10 subaccounts, everything from kids savings accounts to property tax savings. The auto deposits work great and I have never had a problem.
ING is not worth the trouble!! After opening a joint account, I added a
link to an external bank, which had only one of the joint account holders
name on the external account. We are married and have both joint and
individual accounts. ING accepted the link, verified the account, and
accepted a deposit from that account to the ING account. Then they froze my
access to the ING accounts; I could only transfer money into ING. After two
days of trying to get the fraud department on the phone, they explained
that the external account needed to be in both names or needed to be
deleted. This made no sense, but I gave up and deleted the external
account. Then they froze my account completely and put it through a
sixty-day risk review. I had no access to my money and no recourse. Bank
elsewhere!
I have a money market account in a brokerage account at Wells Fargo where I get a yield of only 1% or so now (plus it isn’t insured by FDIC) so opened an account at ING to put some of these funds into CD’s where I can get over 3%. So far I’ve been happy except that it takes a week or longer to transfer the funds. I’m uncomfortable transferring large sums between 2 institutions so have done it in small chunks which takes considerably longer and time is money when the Federal Reserve is aggressively is lowering rates. Nowhere in their FAQ does it explain what happens if your transfer gets lost in cyberspace. ING does give you a printable receipt with a reference number which I don’t find very reassuring if there is a problem. Other than this it’s working quite well. If you lose your account number or PIN there are about 5 security questions you must answer to get them which seems extremely secure. My biggest regret is that I didn’t set this account years ago which would have nette me several thousand dollars more in interest.
I have a question about the subaccounts – do you just keep opening new savings accounts? And when you buy the item you are saving for, do you close that account, or just start saving for something new and change the name? I want to set up a savings account for a new computer, and since I already use ING, having it there would be ideal.
How do I close a sub-account on ING?
INGDIRECT saving and checking account are OK, but their easy orange mortgage is terrible. First of all, when I applied mortgage, the customer service gave me the wrong information. They said that when I relock my rate, the clock does not restart which means that no matter how many times I relock my rate, the prepayment penalty only applies to the 1st year from the initial refinance. But when I signed the paper work, I saw that I still need to stay with ING for another year to avoid the prepayment penalty. Then I called customer service, basically they said that I could get out of my loan now but I still had to pay $300. I went ahead sign the loan because I thought relocking the rate for $700 is still attractive which they advertise it. Then now I am ready to relock, they told me its two month mortgage or $2500 just to relock the rate. I will never use ING mortgage.
No one that I am aware spoke of the quality of the assets backing ING direct. 1% yields and ease of account setup may not compensate for the possibility of loss of principal. So far that has never happened but in the future it may. See this: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/20/us-usa-moneyfunds-europe-idUSTRE7AJ0CC20111120
I am VERY SAD that Capital One bought ING. I’ll be moving my money to a credit union this month… Tsk. Tsk.