Capital One is relatively new bank coming existence back in 1989. It has a number of different subsidiaries and offers dozens of financial products. It currently has about 15,000 employees and has an annually revenue of $10.7 billion dollars. It’s headquartered in McLean, VA and its current CEO is Richard Fairbank. Oddly enough, Capital One is the fourth largest customer of the US Postal Service.

Capital One Direct Banking’s high-yield money market account offers a lot of useful features for customers. In addition to having a relatively decent interest rate, it has no fees to speak of and no minimum balance. You can transfer money to and from your accounts at banks through electronic transfers (ACH) and your money is FDIC insured up to $100,000.

Another great feature of their account is that they give you check writing privileges and an ATM card. With most online savings banks, you have to wait three or four dates for your money to be transferred electronically. If you need your money in a pinch to pay for an unexpected bill, you can simply write a check and take care of it with money from your money market account.

Capital One certainly doesn’t have the highest interest rate out there, but it’s definitely up there. Currently it offers a rate of 3.50% APY, and the standard for premium rates is about 3.75% APY. It’s not that much of a difference when all is said and done until you start looking at extremely large account balances.

They have excellent customer service to go with their online savings account. BankRate.com gives them a customer service rating of five out of five stars. This is an extremely rare and prestigious rating to receive from the definitive place to compare banking online. Discussions I’ve had with Capital One Direct Banking customers have indicated that they have had some very positive experiences with Capital One’s customer service.

There really are now downsides to the account. It has all the features one would want, as well as great customer service. The rate’s not at the top of the market, but the difference in rates are minimal.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 8:23 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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