Banking Reviews: Huntington Direct’s Online Savings Account

March 23rd, 2007 • Related • Filed Under • by admin

New online savings banks appear to be popping up left and right. Recently we saw the creation of FNBO Direct and now the next competitor has entered the market. Hunting National Bank has created an online arm they call Huntington Direct and are offering high-yield savings accounts at a very competitive rate of 5.20% APY.

Hunting National Bank is headquartered in Columbus, OH and has been around for over 140 years. The bank has 380 regional banks in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia. They have a network of over 1000 ATMs, and have $36 billion in assets. They even have offices in Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands! This is not a small bank by any means.

Direct Huntington’s online savings account is a pretty standard product. It offers a 5.20% APY for balances from $0 to $1 million. You can link to a checking, savings, and money market accounts. The application is done online through the cash edge management system, which can be quite a hassle to get everything set up, but it does the job.

The account has some very major down sides which would probably make me choose to look elsewhere. First, the account has a minimum balance of $1,000. If your account drops below that amount, you have to pay a $3.00 monthly fee. You have to pay a $1.50 fee if you use another bank’s ATM machine. If you close the account within the first 6 months, you have to pay a $20 closing fee. The account is also not available to residents of California, any non-US citizens, or anyone under the age of 21. According to their terms and conditions, the interest is paid quarterly.

The bank has some pretty strange and annoying withdraw and deposit limits. . You cannot withdraw more than $2,000 a day or $10,000 a month according to their FAQ. There’s also a maximum of $25,000 for an initial deposit.

The interest rate is pretty reasonable, but that’s really about the only good side of the account. With this account there are a lot of fees that you have to pay that you wouldn’t have to pay at other places. When you add this to the limiting withdrawal and deposit limits, as well as their strange account restrictions, it’s just not worth checking out.

There are a lot of banks that are less restrictive and offer better savings rates than Huntington Direct. Instead checkout HSBC Direct, Amboy Direct’s Premium Savings, or another more established online savings bank.