Choosing The Best Bank

By Tim McMahon, editor

Finding the right bank is much different than it was twenty years ago. In those days, you went to a bank primarily because it was located in your neighborhood and it was convenient or perhaps because they offered a gift like a toaster for opening an account. Today with the advent of online banking you can open a bank account with a bank across the country and never step foot in its building.

Today there are a variety of different reasons to open an account and none of them involve toasters.

Reasons to Choose a Bank Account

A higher rate of interest is a good reason to choose a bank account. But these days most banks offer a pitiful interest rate. One of the biggest online banks EverBank® does guarantee to yield in the top 5% of all competitive accounts. Because they don’t invest in fancy branch office buildings, they can afford to offer a better return on their FreeNet Checking Account and still maintain a healthy balance sheet, so they will be around when you decide you want your money back. They are also insured by the FDIC just like your neighborhood bank. But there is an even better reason to look into EverBank®. They also offer

some features that are not available at any other bank in the U.S. They have taken on a style similar to the full-service banks of Europe. In Europe, banks are one-stop financial service supermarkets not restricted to simply checking accounts,  savings accounts and Certificates of Deposit (CDs). If you walk into Barclays in London or Credit Suisse in Zurich you will have a menu of options that would stagger most Americans. You can of course open the typical accounts available in a U.S. bank like checking, savings, money markets, and CDs but you can also buy bonds or stocks and even invest in currencies, plus much more. You are not limited to opening an account in the local currency so you can open a checking account in a variety of different currencies, buy CDs in other currencies, and even borrow one currency and deposit it as another currency.

The interesting thing is that in addition to great interest rates, EverBank® offers many of these “European” services as well. You can open a checking or savings account or buy CDs in a variety of different currencies and even in a bundle of currencies (rather than just one currency), invest in stocks using their brokerage services, etc and you can do it all from your computer anywhere in the world. EverBank® also offers a world-class Yield Pledge(SM) Money Market Account that also offers the top 5% guarantee. In addition, they offer a bonus rate for the first three months so you will earn even more.

If you are interested in hedging your currency risk in the Dollar, their Senior Vice-President Chuck Butler writes a newsletter on currencies and market trends that you can get free from the bank.  This really is my favorite bank! Can you tell?

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To get started open either their FreeNet Checking Account or Yield Pledge(SM) Money Market Account first and then you will have easy access to their Currency CD’s and brokerage accounts.