ING Direct is another long lived online savings bank. Adding to their ways to help you save and grow your money, they recently acquired ShareBuilders to help everyday people invest their money. Since I am only reviewing their savings accounts currently, I will skip this and tell you a little bit about ING Direct.

ING has been around for a while and has been in the US for over 100 years. It offers banking to over 60 million clients and 50 countries. ING Direct is based out of Wilmington, Delaware and they also have ING Direct Cafes around the U.S. currently. These cafes are currently in St. Cloud, Chicago, New York, LA, Wilmington, and Philadelphia.

ING Direct has several different online savings accounts. Their Orange Savings Account with 2.75% APY (as of 10/09/2008), no minimum balances no specific balance to keep in your account, no fees or service charges. They have direct savings which allows you to automatically move a fixed amount of money regularly to your Orange Savings account.

Basically to open an account, you will need to be 18 years or older, proof of U.S. citizenship or permanent resident, social security number, and a U.S. address. The checking account you are linking to ING Direct needs to be a bank chartered in the United States.

You can link up to three checking accounts to your ING Direct account. Your Orange Savings Account can also be a living trust as well and there is additional information about this online.

Depositing money into your Orange Account is easy. You log into your account and can have the money transferred in two to three business days.

Direct Deposit is available and the forms are online for your employer. You can also set up a fixed amount of money to transfer on a regular basis to your Orange Savings Account.

Once your account is open, you will be asked to verify one or two small amounts deposited into your checking account – each is less than a dollar – within sixty days. You can still deposit money if you have not verified for sixty days at which time they will lock down your account. People, verify your account so you do not have hassles later!

You cannot withdraw money from your account for the first ten days and all subsequent accounts will be a five day hold. Interest starts accruing after two business days when you process your account. All transfers to checking account will take three business days. ING does not charge to do this; however, the bank with your existing checking account may. Withdrawals may not occur more than six times in a month – this is a Federal law – without a fee. If you continually withdraw more than six times in a month, they may close your account.

An interesting draw for me at least is that ING Direct offers a business savings account called Orange for Business. It is currently at 2.9% and is good for sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, corporations, not-for-profits and small organizations. There are no fees or service charges and will allow access to the business account for up to three people. To open this account, you will need a social security number (sole proprietors) or Employee Identification Number (EIN) for your business, personal social security number, and existing business checking account and routing number. There is a ten business day hold before initial deposits can be returned to the account linked business checking and after this hold has expired, all future deposits have a five day hold, similar to the personal Orange Savings Account.

They also give you a list and table of documentation they will need. You will have sixty days to provide ING with these.

Even though the rates are not the greatest currently, I was impressed with what ING does have including the business accounts, living trusts, and joint accounts. They seem to be a decent company and the complaints against the company have been limited to customer service complaints and common sense. I would beg everyone to read the fine print to know when you can withdraw money, how long it will take, how many times you can withdraw money before they close your account, all the legalese. Overall, though people have had issues, this is set up to be a saving account and if you want a checking account to pull money out of, they have those as well.

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