E*Trade gained its popularity by creating an affordable investment solution for technically savvy individuals. The company allowed individuals to self-direct their own retirement plans and do a lot of the work over the internet. Now E*Trade is following suit with many other financial institutions and offering their version of a high-yield savings account, also known as an online savings account. Their product, the “Complete Savings Account” is similar to other high-yield savings accounts, but does it shine above the others?

E*Trade itself is a very solid company. It was founded in 1982 by William Porter and Bernard Newcomb. In 1993 it was one of the very first companies that offered online trading services through CompuServe. The company went public in 1996 and has only grown since then. When it comes to experience in online financial services, nobody can top E*Trade.

The “complete savings account” has a lot of benefits. E-Trade’s account features exceptionally fast online transfers, and even guarantees that no interest will be lost because of transfer time. In addition, if you have an E-Trade brokerage account, you can transfer money to your brokerage account instantly. This is good if you want to make a purchase in the market and time is of the essence. In addition, ETrade does not perform a hard credit pull so your credit score will not be affected if you open an account with them.

If you have at least $5000 in your savings account, you can get a free linked checking account and a debit card that offers an unlimited number of rebates other bank’s fees. This means you could withdraw money from any ATM without ever paying a fee.

The downside is that the savings account only offers an interest rate of 5.05% APY. This is a pretty decent offering, but there are better rates out there to be had. For example, Amboy Direct is currently offering a 5.25% APY rate, and 5.35% APY for accounts with balances higher than $20,000.

There are some questions about their customer service overall. From what we can tell, there’s not a separate customer service department for their savings products. In addition BankRate gives them a rating of three stars. If you are seriously considering opening an account with them, I’d call up their customer service line and ask a couple of simple questions to see how painful of an experience it is to get help from them.

If you have an ETrade account already, opening one of these accounts might make some sense. If you don’t have a brokerage account with them, chances are there are better options in terms of features, interest rate, and customer service elsewhere.

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