Competition has certainly been heating up in the banking sector over the past few years! We were talking about online banks recently, and how they're paying pretty decent interest these days. Since most of the online banks don't have physical branches, they seem to be able to keep costs down more and offer better rates. This caught my attention because the interest we've been getting on our "bricks n' mortar" savings accounts have been abysmal for years.

After looking into it some more, I signed up for an Orange savings account at ING Direct. ING was one of the pioneers of online banking, they're FDIC insured, and they're pretty big in Europe, the UK, Canada, and Australia. Currently they're offering savings accounts paying 4.35% 4.5% APY interest (Updated 12/6/06) with no minimum balance. There were others offering higher rates, but not all of them had as good a reputation from what I read (see Bankrate.com and elsewhere), and the higher rates usually required high minimum balances or applied only to money market accounts or CDs.

Sign-up was quick--about 15 minutes to setup the account and make the initial deposit from checking, and a few days to confirm the small deposits for checking account verification. The only downsides that I can see are that the first deposit is held for 10 days until it becomes available for withdrawal (5 days for subsequent deposits), and withdrawals typically take 2 business days before they hit your checking account. Transfers are entirely through checking at this stage, so if you don't have a checking account at another bank, you're out of luck.

The site itself has a nice, clean interface that makes it easy to keep track of your finances, and they seem to keep on top of things security-wise. They also have a referral scheme, with new accounts allowed to issue up to 25 referrals, with both the referrer and new customer receiving referral bonuses when a new account is opened with an initial deposit of at least $250. I've included a few of my referral links below (USA readers only) in case anyone is interested in signing-up (Last updated 2/3/07):

ING Direct $25 Account Bonus
ING Direct $25 Account Bonus
ING Direct $25 Account Bonus
ING Direct $25 Account Bonus
ING Direct $25 Account Bonus

Please note the following if you use one of the referral links above:
* The new account must be funded with an initial deposit of at least $250 to obtain the sign-up bonus.
* You're only eligible for the bonus when using one of the above links.
* The bonuses are only credited when the account has been open for at least 30 days.
* Assuming the above conditions are met, you'll get $25 deposited by ING (appears as interest) and I'll get $10.
* The second screen (after clicking Open Now) will mention the bonus and initial deposit requirement. If the link has expired, it'll show the following message: The link you’ve used to open a new Orange Savings Account is no longer valid - it has either expired or has already been used.

I'll replace the links above with new ones if any get used. Send me an email if you have any questions.

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On the writing front, I submitted a short piece to an anthology market last weekend. I hadn't written anything in awhile, so it was nice to work on something new. As an added bonus, it was a fun piece to write, too. Let's hope they like it!

I haven't forgotten about the garden entries, despite my lack of posting on the subject lately. I've been busy out there harvesting tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, and beans, and keeping an eye on everything else. The zucchini is attempting to take over our yard, but thus far hasn't grown anything other than lots of flowers and huge leaves. I've taken a bunch of photos of the veggie and flower gardens over the past month--now I just need to pick the best ones for journal entries. I'll post 'em soon :)

What I'm Reading:
Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
The World is Flat (Updated & Expanded), Thomas L. Friedman (audiobook)