Got an email this morning from HSBC. Their Online savings account is now offering 6% interest on new money (meaning anything above your balance as of the close of business last Friday) until April 30. Looks like it’s time for me to do my credit card application/balance transfer spree…

This is the first post of a series I’ll be doing on government and other public sources of solid financial information. I’ve added a category called Financial Information Resources which will contain all of the posts in the series. I’ll be characterizing and rating the sites based on the type of information they have as well as how valuable I found it to be. So without further delay, my guide to Financial Information Resources:

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I received my $50 bonus for opening the Smart Package Checking account with them. (You had to open a Smart Checking Plus and a Money Market account.) I already had an Online Savings account so I only keep $25 in the Money Market. I’m most of the way through the process of making HSBC my primary bank. All that is really left to do is have my paychecks direct deposited into my HSBC account. Jonathan at MyMoneyBlog has a scan of an offer he received and some other info there (use code Get50 when opening the account.)
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First off, my wife received the balance of her severance. Overall it worked out to about 10 months’ worth of take-home pay, mainly because we no longer had the car lease payments being taken out of her checks. We’ve got a decent war chest now. In fact, I think we have a bit too much money in the savings accounts. CDs don’t really make sense right now, we’re getting 4.8% at HSBC on the savings. Perhaps I’ll just move a slightly bigger amount of money into the brokerage account and find some more individual stocks to buy.

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Logged on this morning to send out a referral and saw this:

Thank you for your interest in the Refer a Friend program. As you are probably aware, on January 19, 2006 we introduced the Winter Save Up Sale, which helps you to save even more money.

We have temporarily suspended the Refer a Friend program. Please check back after the Winter Save Up Sale is over for further details.

Don’t worry, all of your current referrals are still active and will continue to follow the ‘Program Details’ below.

Seems sort of silly to me.  Perhaps they think they’ll get all the new accounts they need with just the promotion.  (HSBC has a better rate in any case…)

Someone asked for a $20 referral to Virtualbank a day or so ago. I logged on to their newly redesigned site but could not find the link anywhere… Until just now.  It’s very buried.  Basically, to get there you log in, then click the statement archive link in the lower left.  Once you’ve done that, a link to the Refer a Friend page will show up (again in the lower left.)  Of course when I tried to actually send the referral it failed… :)  I’ve sent a note and I’m sure they’ll get it fixed shortly.
By the way, the eMoney Market account there is now paying a competitive 4.5% rate (4.6% API). Not as hot as HSBC’s 4.8% or Ing’s 4.75% but not bad either. I am sure all rates are subject to change but we’ll likely see even higher interest rates soon.

As Jonathan had suggested I wrote to Netbank’s customer service regarding my inadvertent T-Bill screw up asking them to reverse the $30 NSF charge. Today, I received the following response:

Dear XXXXXXXXXXXX,

Thank you for contacting NetBank. In response to your inquiry, as a courtesy to show that we do appreciate your business, we have reversed the NSF fee on your account. Please be advised that overdraft protection only covers checks written on a checking account or a Bill Payment scheduled from the account. It does not cover ATM/VCC transactions or ACH debits.

In an effort to ensure that all the contact information we have on file for you is complete and accurate, please take a moment to verify your correct mailing address, home and work numbers and email address. If you have recently processed a change request on any of these items your account(s), you will not need to send the information again. We certainly appreciate your cooperation.

By the way, are you aware that all NetBank customers have access to a free financial plan? NetBank has a Financial Planning and Investing group available to you. This financial planning system is sponsored by NetBank and is provided by AdviceAmerica, Inc. For more information, please contact our financial advisors at 1-866-NetPlan (1-866-463-8752) and press option #6. Please be sure to use the reference number XXXXXXX when calling.

We apologize for any inconvenience. Please visit the “Help Center” found in the top navigation bar of every screen for valuable account instruction and navigation assistance. You may also find it helpful to select the “Site Map” for a list of links to common account service requests.

If you need further assistance, please contact us. We value your business and appreciate your choosing NetBank. It’s been a pleasure serving you today. Have a wonderful day!

Just checked and indeed they credited my account for $30. So my mistake ended up costing me nothing and I received a few days of double interest on my money (both the T-Bill I hadn’t paid for yet and the money sitting in my account earned interest for 5 days). Not a lot of money but not bad either. Obviously this isn’t something I intend to repeat but it’s nice being appreciated. I’ve been a customer of Netbank for well over five years now.

I may also check out the free financial plan they offer. I have looked over their online tools and they are pretty good. More detailed than most other financial planning tools I’ve seen. If I get time I’ll log in and take a few screen grabs for you all this weekend.

As I mentioned in my last post, I moved about 1/3 of my 0% credit card balance funds to a 3 month (91 day) treasury bill last week. Something interesting came out of this. The T-Bill was scheduled to be issued on Thursday (1/26). I have it set up to pull the money from my Netbank Savings account but had forgotten this and transferred the money to my checking account. When TD attempted to pull the money, there were insufficient funds (costing me $30 :/ ). The bill was still issued on 1/26 however and the money did not get pulled from my account until today (1/31). Obviously I didn’t make anything on this transaction (the $30 represents a decent chunk of the interest I’ll be earning from the T-Bill) The extra 5 days the money sat in the savings account earned some of that back however.

Saw on Fatwallet that HSBC is now paying 4.8% on their Online Savings Account (which is where I keep most of my liquid cash). The website has this figure on the rates page but not on the big splashy graphic. So I’d say it’s probably not a mistake but your mileage may vary. It is evidently a promotional rate until April 30th. (After which I presume it will go back to 4.5%)

I moved about 1/3 of my 0% credit card transfer to a 3 month Treasury Bill last week paying 4.397% (state tax free) so the new HSBC rate isn’t all that much better. Glad I didn’t take the time to move a bunch of money to Ing when they offered 4.75%. I did open an account though, to catch their $25 account opening bonus. If you’d like a referral email me at mypfblog@gmail.com with your first and last name as well as email address you’d like the referral to go to. (I get $10 you get $25 for opening an account with $250) The $25 credit happened immediately for me.

I hadn’t seen much need to do so until now but Ing Direct has a ‘Winter Save Up Sale’ going on right now. From now until April 15th you earn 4.75% on all new money deposited to your account! That deal beats my HSBC account hands down although you need to keep the money there for a few days to make up for the lost interest during the transfer.

If you don’t have an Ing account and would like one email me and I’ll send you a referral. Deposit $250 and you get a $25 bonus (disclosure: I get $10 if you do this…). Free money is always good…