Friday, July 28, 2006

Limited Transactions on Online Savings Accounts

One downside of these high interest online savings accounts that I didn't know about till today. Received a letter from HSBC telling me that I had been doing too many transactions on my account and was violating Federal regulations. If you do this for three consecutive months they will close your account or change it to another account type. The limit is six transactions per month including transfers to your own accounts online. I had been trying to do as many transactions as possible using my savings account in order to maximize my interest income. I would move most of my pay into the account each time I received a pay check. So from now on I will only move money there that I think is really going into savings but I am not yet ready for whatever reason to move to its final "home".

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can get around that by opening a couple of savings accounts with them. I have 3 for that reason (18 transfers per month total) just means you might have to plan ahead and spread your cash out

mOOm said...

I guess so. But that is way too much hassle for me, personally, to get a couple of bucks extra interest a month.

Revanche said...

Yes, isn't that rule lame? Who came up with six? In AND out? I found out accidentally while talking to a Citibank rep, and I've been peeved ever since. Also because the CSR gave me attitude when I questioned it: "Yes, it is A SAVINGS account you know!" Well, yes, I do know and sometimes you can't predict if you're going to run short or have extra to deposit, can you? *hmph*

mOOm said...

The solution is a money market account, though they don't have quite as high interest typically. So there is a trade off.

Revanche said...

Actually to clarify, the high interest savings with Citibank is called a "preferred" money market account. So high interest, but still a bit inconvenient.