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FDIC just released the third quarter report which indicated that the problem banks have increased to 171! This is a shocking news to all of us. Maybe your bank will be on the list of problem banks. Although FDIC increased the insured amount to 250k, consumers are still feeling scared and uncertain about the American’s banking industry.

It’s very obvious that the banking industry is getting worse. The number of problem banks has increased from 117 to 171. The banks are taking steps to tighten the loan applications to minimize the losses. Provisions for loan losses continue to be high.

In the report, FDIC indicated:

Commercial banks and savings institutions insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reported net income of $1.7 billion in the third quarter of 2008, a decline of $27.0 billion (94 percent) from the $28.7 billion that the industry earned in the third quarter of 2007.

Nine FDIC-insured institutions failed in the third quarter, the most since the third quarter of 1993. The failures included Washington Mutual Bank, with assets of $307 billion. The FDIC’s “problem list” grew during the quarter from 117 to 171 institutions, the largest number since the end of 1995. Total assets of problem institutions increased from $78.3 billion to $115.6 billion.

Problems still exist in the banking industry:

Higher levels of troubled loans, in both consumer and commercial portfolios, led to increased provisions for loan losses in the quarter.

Charge-offs and noncurrent loans are still increasing. Insured institutions charged off (removed from their balance sheets because of uncollectibility) $27.9 billion in troubled loans in the third quarter. The annualized net charge-off rate of 1.42 percent was the highest quarterly average since 1991.

Community banks are also facing increased stress. Community banks — those with total assets of under $1 billion — are beginning to exhibit stresses similar to those facing the industry as a whole.

Higher loss provisions for bank failures were primarily responsible for a decline in the fund balance to $34.6 billion at September 30th from $45.2 billion at June 30th.

The full press release can be accessed from here.

I subscribe to many personal finance magazines like Money, Smartmoney, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and Forbes. Reading articles from above magazines usually give ideas on what to write about at mycardblog.com. Usually the articles are written by experts on personal finance and are highly recommended to everyone. They cover all the aspects in your daily life in terms of personal finance: credit cards, banking accounts, mortgages, auto loans, investments, stocks, and even retirements.

In the November’s Kipling’s Personal Finance, they voted the best Savings, Checking and Money Market Account in 2008. I think it is important to let everyone know what the experts’ best banking accounts. Kiplinger’s Personal Finance usually publishes its annual list of what it considers the best items related to personal finance, such as best credit card, best savings account, and best retirement tool.

Following are Kiplinger’s 2008 picks for excellence in savings and checking accounts:

Online Savings Account: FNBO Direct. Earn 3.5% APY on the FDIC-insured savings account at www.fnbodirect.com. The savings account at FNBO features with no maintenance fees and no minimum-balance requirement plus minimum $1 to open. You can also link your FNBO account to other banking accounts.

Money-Market Account: Express Money Market, Flagstar Bank. You can earn 3.65% APY from the FDIC-insured money market account. Flagstar Bank also provides free checks and a free visa debit card which allows you to easily access your fund at money market account. You can also get free, unlimited ATM withdrawals through the Allpoint and Presto networks

Checking Account: Schwab Bank High Yield Investor Checking. This is a highly recommended checking account. You don’t have to be a Schwab customer to apply for this account. You can apply online at www.schwab.com. Earn 1.50% variable APY in an FDIC-insured checking account—plus no ATM fees, no minimums, and no monthly service charges. The Schwab Bank High Yield Investor Checking is highly recommended!

Money Market Mutual Fund: Fidelity Cash Reserves. The Fidelity Reserves is the safest mutual fund in the market. However, we should admit that the yields are low in the current market. If you want to put your cash is a safe place during the financial crisis, Fidelity is a top choice. Fidelity has signed up for the new government insurance program. Minimum investment is $2,500, and check-writing is available.

I really should have included the FNBO direct online savings account into my Top 7 Online Banks for High Interest Savings. The full report of the 2008 best list can be found at Kiplinger.com.

About Kiplinger’s Personal Finance: It is a magazine that has been continuously published, on a monthly basis, from 1947 to the present day. It was the nation’s first personal finance magazine, and prides itself on delivering “sound, unbiased advice in clear, concise language”. It offers tips and tricks on managing money and achieving financial security, as well as information and practical guidance on saving, investing, planning for retirement, paying for college, and buying automobiles, homes and other major purchases.

TCF Bank is offering a new promotion for checking account. This promotion seems to be the easiest one from TCF Bank as far as I know. All you have to do is to open a new TCF checking account online or in branch. There is no direct deposit requirement this time to qualify for the $50 bonus. This is a great time to jump for a free $50 gift card from TCF Bank.

The promotion page can be found at here.

There are two ways to open a TCF checking account. You can apply for a new account online through the above mentioned promotion page. A $50 gift card will be mailed to you after you open the account and fund it with new money.

The other way is to open a new account at local branch. After you make a initial deposit, you can get the $50 gift card on the spot! The only drawback for the banking account is you have to pay for checks. Usually banks will give you a free check for the first time. But it is not for TCF Bank. So the total profit you can get might be less than $50.

Fine print:

Offer is available to individuals and small businesses without a TCF Checking account in the past 90 days. $25 minimum to open a TCF Totally Free Checking account. This is a limited time offer.Limit one card per customer. The value will be reported to the recipient as interest income on Form 1099-INT. Customer is responsible for all applicable taxes. Gift Card will be awarded at the time of eligible account opening. Please allow up to 4 weeks for grocery card delivery if opening an account online.

The Free Checking account has no minimum balance requirement, no monthly fees and free online bill pay.

TCF Bank has branches located in Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Arizona. And you must have to be in one of the above states to qualify for this promotion.

Past TCF promotions are:

$50 Gas Card for Opening a Checking Account

$50 Gas Card for Opening a New Checking Account

Citibank is running a new checking account bonus now. We haven’t seen banking bonus from Citibank for a while. The latest mention of banking promotion from Citi Checking Account is back to this May. That promotion was offering $200 checking account bonus.

The promotion code for this bonus is CY72. You can either go to the promotion page or call Citi at 800-374-9500 to open a checking account.

How to get the $100 bonus?

1. Just open a qualifying Citibank regular checking account and fund it with a minimum of $1,000 by 12/31/2008.

2. Within the first month after your account is opened, make at least one direct deposit into your account or make at least two electronic bill payments from your account each month for three consecutive months and get $100 deposited into your new account.

But you ought to look the fine print:

This offer is only available to Citi cardmembers who are the primary credit card account holders. Offer is not valid for existing Citibank checking customers. All accounts are subject to approval. Checking account must be funded with $1,000 or more by 12/31/2008 and must be in a Citibank Account, Citibank Everything Counts or Citigold account relationship package. Fees may apply to the checking account. Within the first month after account opening, customer must complete at least one direct deposit to, or at least two electronic bill payments from, the checking account each month for three consecutive months to get $100. Electronic bill payments are those you make using Citibank^® Online, Citi MobileSM or CitiPhone Banking^®, excluding bill payments made to Citibank credit cards and transfer payments made to accounts with Citibank or its affiliates. $100 will be deposited to your Citibank checking account within 120 days from the end of the statement period in which you met the qualifying requirements.

As a feature of the Citi Checking Account, you can get fee-free use at over 21,000 ATMs nationwide, including over 5,700 at 7-ELEVEN stores.

Citibank right now is the fourth largest bank in the United States and takes about 3.5% of market sahre in the United States.

I recently wrote a post on “Get Overdraft Fees Back from Bank of America by Writing to Their CEO“. Many BOA customers did exactly the same way to get their overdraft fees back. But there are some banks that will not allow their customer service representatives to refund the fees to their customers. As a matter of fact, the fees charged by banks are huge every year! It’s a way to make profit for bank. ($33 billion dollars were payed by US consumers in insufficient funds and overdraft fees in 2003.) If you don’t check your online account frequently, sometimes you will accumulate more than $300 fees! If you don’t want to pay that fees, a collection agent might contact you. Your credit would be ruined in this way.

So the experience on how to fight with banks are essentially important. I made a mistake on one of my Chase Checking account several days ago. And I want to share my experience here with you.

I paid the Chase Amazon.com Rewards Visa Card with my Chase checking account without knowing that I didn’t have enough funds in that account (My direct deposit goes to National City Bank.). And in the next two days I didn’t check my online account thus I was not aware that I have a negative balance in my checking account. When I noticed it, there was a $32 “insufficient funds fee” charged in my account. The next day I went to Chase to deposit my money there immediately. However, Chase charged another $20 insufficient funds fee for that day. So for just two days I was charged a total of $57 insufficient funds fees by Chase.

Since this is the first time I made such a mistake, I called Chase customer service up and request to get a refund. The first time when I called in, an lady with Indian accent (speaking Indian English) told me that she could not refund me. She said I had already got a refund before! I told her that I knew she was lying. I then called Chase again after 10 mins. This time an American lady picked up the phone and told me that if I didn’t make a mistake in the past 12 months, I should receive the a refund. She told me that she put my request into the system and I would know the result in a few minutes. Yes, it did! A few minutes later, a refund of $57 went back to my account!

Then I knew that Chase allows its customers to make a mistake every 12 months! So if you are charged by Chase with an insufficient funds fee, you can call Chase and ask for a refund. If you failed at the first time, you can call Chase up again and do the same thing. Of course, the requirement is you should only make a mistake every 12 months.

Sometimes consumers might get confused with “insufficient funds fee” and “overdraft fee”. Actually both of them are indicating non-sufficient funds in your banking account. Different banks might have different ways to describe them. Sometimes you will also see Nn-sufficient funds fee (NSF) which means a transaction, check, or entry in excess of available account balance is returned unpaid. Overdraft, otherwise, means the entry is paid by bank.

Although we may all know that National City Bank is to be sold to PNC Bank by the end of this year. It seems that this deal got some troubles. Rep. Steve LaTourette, an Ohio Republican wrote a letter to Henry Paulson and asked for an immediate investigation into PNC’s recently deal to acquire National City Bank. Even the GOP president candidate John McCain says he supports a probe as well. According to the latest news, a Delaware law firm has filed a class-action lawsuit against National City Corp., its board of directors and PNC Financial Services Group over PNC’s purchase of National City.

Although there is so many troubles out there, National City Bank is continuing to attract more new money from new customers by offering great sign up bonus opportunities. The previously reported $200 bonus for opening a new National City Checking Account onlie has expired on Oct. 31, 2008. But there is a new promotion just released: $150 National City Visa Gift Card for opening a new checking account. This time you can also open a new checking account at your local branch! And the promotion time has been extended to the end of 2008!

This is definitely a great opportunity to open a new checking account at National City Bank either online or at local branch. This sign up bonus is even better than the all-year-long Chase checking account bonus.

Here is how to get the $150 bonus:

1. Open any new personal checking account online, at a branch or by phone by 12/31/2008 with a minimum $50.
2. Set up a direct deposit to your newly opened checking account with at least $250 per month. Direct deposit must be received within 60 days of your account opening.
3. Make 10 check card purchases within 60 days of account opening.
4. Limit of one bonus per household and available only to households without an existing National City checking account.
5. Visa gift card will be mailed within 60 days after all conditions have been met.

The most important part is how to establish a direct deposit to National City Bank. Someone might not want to direct their payroll to National City. Some may have already had a checking account at Chase which also requires direct deposit. Actually, all ACH transfer will be counted as direct deposit. In this way, ING and PayPal should work. But I’m not sure.

Since National City branches located only in IL, MI, IN, FL, KY, MO, OH, WI and PA, only the residents in the above states can participate in the promotion.

The promotion page can be found at www.nationalcity.com/cash.

ING Direct was just mentioned here several days ago about a lawsuit against a customer who took a total of $9,180 from ING via “refer a friend” program. ING just released a new promotion targeted to selected customers for using their Electric Orange Debit Card. This promotion was sent out via email. Anyone who received the email can get either a $10 or $20 bonus for using ING Electric Orange Debit Card in November.

According to the promotion page, you have to do the following steps to get the bonus:

1. You are enrolled in the Electric Orange Checking Account.

2. Make at least 5 purchases of $10 with your Electric Orange Debit Card in November.

3. The purchases must be displayed on your November statement.

4. A $20 bonus will be automatically deposited into your Electric Orange Checking Account by December 15th.

5. Only 1 bonus is allowed for each account.

The promotion page for the $20 bonus can be found at http://www.ingdirect.com/wise.

If you are an ING Electric Orange Checking Account owner, you are automatically enrolled and will receive an email soon. However, if you are not an existing ING Electric Orange Checking Account owner and want to apply for a new one, you are not qualified to receive this promotion.

As I mentioned in the “Top 7 Online Banks for High Interest Rate“, ING Direct was rated as one of the top online savings account and was famous for its easy user interface. Don’t be scared by the story of the lawsuit, if you just want to refer your friends to ING.

For those who don’t have an Electric Orange Account, there is another promotion running which will give new customers $50 bonus. But you have to do it by October 31, 2008.

Here is how:

1. Open an Electric Orange account online
2. Enter EM227 when prompted for a reference code
3. Activate your debit and make 3 signature-based transactions within 45 days
4. Receive a $50 credit in your account within 50 days

If you want to open an ING Direct Electric Orange Checking Account, you should act soon.

Key Bank is offering $100 checking account bonus for new customers. This promotion is the latest bonus promotion from Key Bank which is famous for offering iPod Nano as sign up bonus for its customers. I have reported the situation of some regional banks some days ago. National City Bank was acquired by PNC Bank. The future of other banks including Key Bank is till not clear. Key Bank reported a 36 million loss in the 3rd quarter. But the good news is Key Bank together with other major regional banks have just accepted the bailout money from federal government. Key Bank received 2.5 billion while PNC got 7.7 billion. Capital One got 3.6 billion.

With the money from US government, I personally think the situation of Kay Bank might be better in the 4th quarter. I reported a similar $100 bonus promotion in this March. The latest mention of sign up bonus from Key Bank was in July. Apparently, there is no other promotion from Key Bank for a while. So this $100 bonus is a good offer for those who want to open an account at Key Bank now.

As the promotion indicates:

Get a $100 Key Possibilities Card when you open a qualifying checking account and make one debit card transaction plus a combination of two direct deposits or automated payments each of $100 or more. Offer ends November 7, 2008.

The recommended checking account is the Key Express Free Checking Account which features:

• No monthly maintenance service charge
• No minimum balance requirement on your checking account
• No per-check fees or limits
• No monthly or annual KeyBank Debit Card fee
• No fee for using your KeyBank Debit Card on purchases when using a PIN or signing for a purchase
• Free, unlimited use of Key’s nationwide network of ATMs
• Free Key Bill Pay to pay your bills quickly and easily online
• Transfer funds between your Key checking accounts and accounts at other banks

The promotion page can be found here.

No hard pulls were reported at the account opening process.