When it came to shopping for a bank twenty years ago, you might have the choice between three or four different banks that served your local community. They would all offer about the same level of service and a very familiar banking experience, but thanks to the rapid expansion of technology and hyper-capitalism, we now have thousands of different choices when it comes to where we want to open our checking and savings accounts with. One of the hundreds of banks offering online checking and savings accounts is UnivestDirect and they are currently offering some fairly decent deals when it comes to their online checking and online savings account.

Currently UnivestDirect is offering a 3.00% APY on any money in one of their online savings accounts. The minimum to open the account is $1.00 and your money is FDIC insured. Interest is compounded daily and credited monthly. Unlike many banks that have limitations on how much money you can transfer in and out of the account, UnivestDirect has no limitations on their online checking and savings for transfers. There are no monthly fees to speak of and they offer free online banking.

A great feature of the UnivestDirect online savings account is that you can get a free ATM card with your account, so you can withdraw money at any ATM machine. UnivestDirect has a deal with the Allpoint network so that you can use ATM machines on the Allpoint network without paying any sort of usage fee. Since Allpoint has ATMs just about anywhere, it’s very easy to get money out of your account.

UnivestDirect is also offering a very competitive online checking account. It’s not the best we’ve seen, but it’s definitely up there. The current annual percentage yield is 1.75% and your money is FDIC insured. You need $100.00 to open the account and need to maintain a balance of $1.00 to accrue interest. Interest is compounded monthly and credited monthly. You’ll receive $500 in overdraft protection and a free debit card with the same functionality as the ATM card provided with their savings account. Online banking and online bill-pay is completely free as well. The one downside of the account is that they do not offer free checks. They cost $18.85 for 120 checks, but you can get cheaper checks elsewhere from places such as Current and get a good deal that way.

Overall UnivestDirect has a pretty competitive offering in a market that’s been flooded by all sorts of banks who want to get in on the online savings market. It’s definitely worth taking a look at if you want to open an online savings account in the near future.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 9th, 2008 at 10:03 am and is filed under reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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