Banking Reviews: ING's Electric Orange Checking Account

Just a half-decade ago, the term online savings account was known to very few. Online banking was merely in its infancy. Some banks were allowing people to view their accounts online, but that's about it. ING changed the name of the game when it launched the first online high-yield savings account. They could offer much better rates than everyone else because they didn't have the overhead of branches, tellers, and the like. ING Direct is now hoping to replicate the success that they had with their savings account by pioneering a new online-only checking account for its customers. The new service, called ING Electric Orange Checking is offering a lot of interesting features that most online checking accounts simply do not have.

ING Direct's Electric Orange Checking Account has one of the highest interest rates among any checking accounts that are out there. With most checking accounts, you can expect to earn zero for interest, not with ING Direct. With Electric Orange, you get a whopping 3.0% APY on the money in your checking account. In comparison, BankRate.com's average of all interest bearing checking accounts is a mere 0.3%! The 3.0% APY is a little bit deceiving. If you read the fine print, you'll see that it's a mix of a savings account and an interest free checking account. After you reach the 6 withdrawals a month, it's turned into an interest free checking account for the rest of the month. So if you write a lot of checks, be aware that you probably won't accrue that much interest! If you have a crazy high checking account balance, more than $50,000, you'll have an even higher interest rate, of 5.05%!