MyCardBlog

Today I received a credit card invitation from WaMu card services. The name of the card is WaMu Real Rewards Visa Platinum Card which offers 7,000 bonus points after first purchase. I have already had a WaMu Visa Platinum Card on hand which provides free credit score monthly based on my TransUnion credit report every month (The review on this card can be found here.) . So this card is not so attractive to me (not to mention the 7000 points). However, this seems to be a new credit card product from WaMu which is currently the 9th largest credit card issuer in US. I want to briefly introduce this card here.

The basic benefits of this card

This WaMu Real Rewards Visa Platinum Card actually is previous Providian Real Rewards Card. As many of you may have already received this card, this card offers 7,000 bonus points after first purchase which can be redeemed as a $50 gift card. If you request a balance transfer at the card application, you can receive a 0% fixed APR on purchases until January1, 2010! That’s equal to 18 months 0% APR on purchases. There is no minimum amount required to do the balance transfer, so if you can transfer $100 and then pay off it in 1 or 2 months, you lose nothing but a small amount of interests. However, the 0% APR on purchases is really sweet. Besides the 0% APR, you can also get 1 point for every 1 dollar spent on this card. After you accumulate a certain amount of points, you can redeem them for a gift card from BestBuy, Target, Macy’s, Hertz, Circuit City and so on.

What else?

This is a Visa Platinum Card, so you can enjoy the built-in benefits from Visa Network like $0 liability for unauthorized charges, free auto rental collision damage waiver and many others. Plus, this card also provide free online access to your FICO credit score like other credit cards from WaMu. With WaMu credit card, you can receive automatic credit line reviews every 6 months. If you don’t make any mistakes with your WaMu credit card, your credit limit will increase automatically. These benefits seem so tempting.

However, I also receive some complaints from my readers about WaMu. He told me that his WaMu Platinum Card was closed due to the following three reasons:

• Inactivity for the last several months
• Serious delinquency
• Too many accounts recently opened

My answer is: If you use your WaMu credit card regularly and manage your credit in a normal way, you can enjoy the benefits brought to you from WaMu credit card. Anyway, if you don’t have a credit card from WaMu, you can try this one or maybe other credit card products from WaMu.

Nowadays there are many online banks offering all kinds of banking services like: checking accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts and certificate of deposits (CDs). You might be quite familiar with some of them as they are advertising all the time. However, you might also have never heard of some of them. The later sometimes may even offer better interest rates than other well-known banking institutions. Before you start your relationship with a new bank, you have to do a little bit research about the new bank. You have to make sure that the bank is insured by FDIC and have been in banking business for many years.

Following online banking institutions as recommended here provide good customer support and offer competitive rates.

1. ING Direct

I should admit that ING is not always offering best interest rate in banking industry but they are a very good online bank to deal with. Right now, their ING Orange Savings Account is still offering 3.00% APY. I choose ING as the NO 1 online bank just because of how easy they make everything. I can easily transfer any amount in and out of my account at ING. The online banking interface is also very intuitive. You can also easily refer your friends to open a new account there and both of you can get bonus. Current APY is 3.00%. (Frankly speaking, interest rate is not the most important factor when the rates only differ by 0.5%.)

2. Washington Mutual

This is my another favorite bank by far. If you open a free checking account together with an online savings account, you can get 3.30% APY. With WaMu, you can get free checks for life, cash back on your debit card purchases, free ATM withdraws, free outgoing wire transfers worldwide and most importantly, no monthly fees! Yes, WaMu is so good! You can use their online banking service without any worry. The free of fees, convenience and high yield interest make WaMu checking/savings combination a top choice for all of you.

3. HSBC Direct

If you are not comfortable with WaMu, you can consider HSBC Direct banking as another option. HSBC direct is rated as the Best Overall Online Bank by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance in 2006. HSBC currently offer a very competitive interest rate ~ 3.05% APY. Their service is completely online. You can transfer you money in and out of your current banking accounts for free. Their customer support is also very helpful. However, if you have an account at ING, I really doubt whether you will open another account at HSBC. Of course, if you have an account at HSBC, I will also doubt whether you will open another one at ING. Sometimes, once you have  a high-yield savings  account,  you really don’t need to open another one. HSBC is offering  $75 sign-up bonus through May 31, 2008 (here).

4. E*Trade

E*Trade, known as a discount online broker, is also a very competitive online bank. E*Trade only provides Complete Savings Account and Money Market Account. The reason why I put E*Trade here is you can link your banking account with your brokerage account at E*Trade  and instantly transfer funds between the two accounts. This feature enables you to transfer your funds between a savings account and brokerage account immediately. In this way, you don’t have to wait for several days until an ACH transfer completes.

Of course, there are other online banks provide great service and competitive rates. You can also consider CapitalOne Direct Banking, WT Direct, AmTrust and Emigrant Direct. They also offer great interest rates but other than that you can’t expect more. This post is open to all of you, please feel free to list your top online banking institutions.

WaMu has just started out rolling out a new saving account named “Savings for Success” which is only available to residents at Illinois, Georgia, Texas and Washington. However, not like Bank of America’s “Keep the Change” (also available at Lasalle Bank) and Wachoiva’s “Way2Save”, you just earn high interest rate in this account.

How does Savings for Success work?

You will need a checking account and then open this savings for success account, and then link them together. After that, you can set up automatic monthly transfer from your checking account to this special saving account (up to $500 per month) for t he rest of the year. In the first year, you can’t withdraw the money at this special account otherwise a penalty will be applied. The reward is 5.50% to 6.50% APY in your account for a year. After the first year, you can choose to renew at a new interest rate or close the account and take the money out from this account. The initial deposit is from $1 to $500 at your choice without monthly fees. And you can transfer from $25 to $500 per month from your checking account to this special saving account.

If you are currently using WaMu’s checking account and want to earn some interest, you may want to think about it. (link to WaMu, compare this to BOA Keep the Change & Wachovia Way2Save)
Obviously, this account is not suitable to people with large deposit. If you have lots of free money, you may want to consider WT|Direct Saving account.

• 4.30% APY*
• Accounts $10,000+
• No Fees
• FDIC Insured**
• Rate consistently in top 5% of U.S. banks
• Customer service with a direct connection to real people
• Part of a family of companies recognized globally as leaders in financial services.

Currently, the best checking and saving combination in the banking market is from WaMu. Use the free checking account together with a saving account from WaMu and you will see how much you can save!

Recently, I received a lot of invitations from WaMu about their new credit card offers. This time they are offering 12,000 bonus points after first purchase which is equal to $100 gift card. I have already had a WaMu visa platinum card and have been using it for about 5 months. It’s time to write a review for this card.

The most attractive feature of this card is you have free access to your FICO credit score with this card. They also promise to automatically review your account for every 6 months and increase your credit limit if you keep great performance with your account. Let’s me briefly introduce the free FICO credit score feature.

After you set up the online account, you can see “FICO Credit Score” on the up right of the screen. Click that text, you will then be directed to your credit profile. Here you can see your Credit Report Snapshot which is provided by TransUnion. This snapshot will provide important information about your credit report. And that information is enough to know your credit profile.

You can track your credit score by using the FICO score tracking which will provide your credit score month by month. Another great feature of their credit score service is you can see find out the primary reason why your score is XXX. They also provide FICO Score Simulator to let you know what actions are needed in order to improve your credit score. Wonderful!

As I mentioned before, currently I’m using the National City Identity Protect Service which costs me $8.95 every month. Although I can access to my credit report from 3 credit bureaus every 24 hours, they don’t provide official FICO credit score. Instead, they provide FAKO credit score. With this WaMu card, I don’t need the service any longer.

WaMu Visa Platinum Card will also occasionally provide special promotion to you. For example, they will send you a mail saying you can get 10% cash back gasoline purchases in the next 90 days! They will also send you some coupons together with your monthly bill. It’s a sweet card!

Recently, WaMu keeps sending me mails and emails about its free checking account service. Ok. Let me briefly introduce the free checking provided by WaMu.

WaMu is officially known as Washington Mutual. It is actually the largest savings and loan association in US. Wamu provides financial service across the US. After the acquisition of Providian Financial Corporation in 2005, it’s also the 9^th largest credit card company in US.

The most intriguing feature of the WaMu checking account is “free checks for life.” In this way, you can order checks from WaMu online for free at any time. This will save us a lot of money. WaMu offers one Overdraft/NSF fee waived for each 12 months. It also offers free outgoing international wire transfer. Another feature is they offer free Gold Debit MasterCard with Reward. Reward paid to the account on anniversary date and equals $0.03 for each Gold Debit MasterCard purchase transaction made with the last year up to a total reward of $250. (Is this similar to BOA keep the change?) If you open a free checking together with a saving account, you will earn 4.75% APY from saving account (Statement Savings account)! Minimum amount to open a checking account and saving account is $1 each.

I would say the banking service from Wamu is really great. They don’t impose common fees. No minimum balance required and no direct deposit needed. You can transfer your deposit from saving account to checking account instantly. Another nice feature is that online funds transfer. You can link up external accounts. Of course, they need to verify the account via two trial deposits.

The free of fees, convenience and high yield interest make WaMu checking/saving combination a top choice.