Capital One InterestPlus Savings Account Review

Savings accounts, particularly fancifully called “high-yield” savings accounts, are best for keeping your emergency fund or keeping money which you’ll need in a year or two.

Any money that you don’t want to subject to the short-term risk and volatility in the stock market should be held in a savings account, earning as much interest as possible.

“High-yield” is not really a “high” yield these days; even in 2006/2007 4% and 5%  interest rate from an online saving account like Orange or EmmigrantDirect were common.

Today, the best rates are all below 1.5% while only a select few are offering more than 1%, for most banks it is below the 1% mark. This trend will continue until banks need more cash from depositors. In low interest regime cost of fund access stays low.

I have my emergency fund stored across three saving accounts, one with teller and checking access. Two others are online only accounts – CapitalOne and Discover. I opened my CapitalOne account around a year ago.

No problems are associated with opening a Capital One Online Savings account. You can even have several sub-accounts under your account, and the requirements for opening each sub-account re simple – all you need is their Social Security Number,  their driver’s license or state-issued identification, and your checking, savings or brokerage account and routing number to make your initial deposit. Then follow the instructions on this link, and you have opened a Capital One Online Savings account – it is that simple.

Capital One Savings accounts have one of the highest annual percentage rates (APR) in the country, even if it is a variable APR. Currently standing at up to 0.60% APR for Interest Plus Online Savings, 0.50% APR for High Yield Money Market, 0.40% APR for both Rewards Money Market and Business Money Market accounts, all you need to remember is the USD 10,000 minimum balance on your savings account to take full advantage of the high annual percentages from Capital One for their savings accounts.

Account Conditions and Advantages

Even the conditions are simple enough to follow. The advertised high APRs from Capital One regarding the online savings account apply only to accounts with a minimum balance of USD 10,000. That is easy enough to remember because the amount is large enough for you to take notice. More than this, Capital One will even give you a 10% bonus on your interest rate on the condition that your savings account has, for each quarter, an average daily balance of more than the USD 10,000. So for an InterestPlus Online Savings account, your interest can reach up to 0.75% for the quarter, if you always have at least USD 10,000 within the period.

However, if you open your account with less than USD 1,000, the APR drops to 10%. Capital One tries to encourage you to save more with these conditions – the more money you leave in your account with Capital One, the more money your account earns with Capital One.

And for initial deposits for the Capital One Online Savings account greater than USD 10,000, you immediately receive USD 50 just for doing so. You do have to open the account online and use the offer code found on this page.

Capital One Online Savings account  Banking Security

While more and more depositors are taking advantage of more banks offering online banking services, less people appreciate the huge task of securing any transaction online, especially if the transaction holds your life savings. Capital One provides this high grade security for all accounts, making it virtually unnecessary to have to go to the physical location of the bank and make the transaction. With Capital One, online transfers between your accounts are not even charged, even while having the same level of security.

Also, Capital One is FDIC insured in addition to the ease of online banking, making your money safer than ever. FDIC protects your money to up to USD 250,000 per depositor, so take note of the amount as needed.

Falling Annual Percentage Rates

When banks offer lower and lower annual percentage rates, the reason is not that difficult to understand. Banks offer low rates in their savings account when the value of your money in your savings account is less than when you spend your money instead. So when banks like Capital One lowers the interest rates on savings accounts, it simple means you are better off spending your money or investing it in a more active business venture, rather than just keeping it safe and stale.

The Home of Capital One

Take a peek at the website of Capital One and you find everything organized. It is one of the few websites that still organizes everything in an orderly site map, where a potential customer or an existing depositor can manage his or her way clearly through the web pages and make the transactions needed as effortlessly as possible.

This is really all you need from a bank aside from the security of your deposit – a well structured method for anything a depositor might need to do, and here, Capital One shines.

The recommendation

Stop sitting down and let your money do all the work – if you are unhappy with the 0.60% APR on Capital One’s Interest Plus savings account, you can always take it out and invest the money with a higher rate of return on investments.

But if you are happy with the 0.60% APR, and feel safer knowing your money is with Capital One, keep it there. It is not going anywhere and it is going to earn a little too, with Capital One still offering a decent APR on their savings accounts.

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