Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Capital One Direct Banking Money Market

I'm not sure I really needed another online bank account, but what the heck — I've signed up anyway.

I'm now an owner of a Capital One Direct Banking High Yield Money Market Account. (Say that five times fast ... then read my fully-detailed Capital One Money Market review.)

As of today, the Capital One Money Market account's current interest rate is very competitive with other large banks' online accounts. I've been having a great time "test driving" all these online bank accounts, and I figured it wouldn't be fair of me to leave out Capital One.

Way back when, before I started using only credit cards that paid me cash back, I used to really like my Capital One No-Hassle Visa. It wasn't so much that the card did anything special for me; rather, I just really liked their online interface. It was so darn clean and simple — way better than what I saw from the Chases and Citibanks of the world.

With Capital One, making payments (and doing pretty much anything else) was a snap. I don't know why, but the layout really made sense to me, and I liked it.

I guess I was hoping that their Direct Banking setup would be the same. I was pleasantly surprised. Here's a quick glimpse of their interface:



As has become standard with online accounts, the Capital One Direct Banking Money Market has no fees, no minimum balance, and easy account-to-account transfers. Unlike some other online savings accounts, though, Capital One goes a bit farther and offers free checks and an ATM card*.

As for transfer times, so far I've only moved money into my Capital One Money Market account. That initial transfer left my bank account on Thursday and appeared in my Capital One account the following Tuesday. I'll be testing out times on withdrawals later this week and next.

Unless I find something about this account that I really dislike, I believe I'm going to stick with it for a while. I know some folks out there just despise Capital One, but all my experiences with them to date have been just peachy.

Let's see how it goes now that I'm letting them handle a bit of my non-credit-related banking activities, too.

* Note that federal regulations limit this account to six withdrawals per calendar month, three of which may be by check.

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— Posted by Michael @ 9:13 AM








8 Comments:
 

Did your bank charge you for transferring online?

Blogger AC
, at 9:13 AM, August 18, 2007  
 

AC,

Nope. I've never incurred any fees for transferring funds online.

Blogger Michael
, at 4:31 PM, August 18, 2007  
 

How long did it take for Capital One to credit your MMA after the debit to your external account? My external account was debited two days ago and I am still waiting for the credit to my Capital One MMA.

Anonymous Anonymous
, at 7:36 PM, October 04, 2007  
 

The Capital One transfers seem to be four-business-day endeavors, which I don't much care for. That's what it took for my initial deposit to show up in my Capital One account. (Note the timeline in my Capital One review.)

Blogger Michael
, at 8:04 PM, October 04, 2007  
 

Michael,

Thanks for your immediate response. There seem to be a ton of disclosures that must be read and initialed by the new depositor. Why doesn't Capital One tell you that they are going to float a personal loan? If I was told in advance about their "float themselves a loan" policy I probably would not have deposited my money with them. It just irks me!!!

Anonymous Anonymous
, at 9:59 PM, October 04, 2007  
 

I'm a bit confused. Yours is the second recent blog entry I've seen about Capital One's high interest MM accounts. I've had a high interest Capitalone account for a year and a half. I'm wondering why these accounts are being reported as new. As you say, there are a lot of great things about the accounts - I now have three set up for different savings goals. They are all linked, as well as linked to my credit card. I can see everything at a glance on one page. Transfers are easy. But external transfers to other bank accounts are slow. And they seem to be even slower than they used to be when i first opened the account. Also, you can't set up a recurring transfer out of your account, only into your account. All in all, I'm happy. But, I guess as with everywhere, the interest rate just went down this month.

Anonymous Anonymous
, at 4:04 PM, October 18, 2007  
 

Perhaps I should've done more research on this...but I wanted a high interest money market account, check writing, no fees and no minimums.

So, Capital One sounded like it fit the bill. But, if I had know about their slow transfers...I might have kept looking....

I guess Capital One has to make money somewhere.

Now that I have the account though, I'll probably stick with it for the time being.

Blogger The Dreamer
, at 6:10 PM, November 09, 2007  
 

These are great accounts....every review I see about them seems to have the same complaint,that the transfers are a ilttle too slow. I to have run into this problem w/ cap one but in looking deeper into thier operation I was happy to wait the extra time for my funds. Capital One direct banking actually reports one of the lowest Fraud loses for any OL banking service and furthermore on almost every independent rating system they are ranked higher than it's compettion(along w/ the consistantly competetive rate)

I like to recommend Bankrate.com for any potential savings need, It will give you the best rates on pretty much any savings product you are interested in. Cap one is currently 1 of 2 banks listed with in the top Money Market rates in the country also while also being listed as 5 star, the top rating.

Anonymous Anonymous
, at 6:28 PM, February 08, 2008  
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