Preview: Amboy Direct Premium Online Savings Account
Posted by Cap in Online Banking on July 28, 2006 |
Currently at 3.05% APY, Amboy Direct’s Premium Online Savings Account is another potential choice for high-yield online savings account.
Just like ING, Emigrant, and HSBC Direct, Amboy Direct features no fees and no minimums. Account opening is a breeze, rivaling ING Direct’s simplicity. You’ll need your driver license number and checking account number around when you fill out the application.
Four steps to opening an Amboy Direct account:
- Enter your personal information
- Agree to terms and condition
- Make an electronic deposit from an existing account
- Confirm and submit information
Amboy Direct account opening is fast. Really fast.
- 7/24/06 - Filled out application and submit, received email confirmation.
- 7/26/06 - Received email notifying account has been opened.
- 7/27/06 - Received confirmation trial deposit in checking account.
- 7/27/06 - Initiated test transfer of $10.
- 7/28/06 - Test transfer of $10 credited in Amboy account.
Need To Know:
- Minimum account opening is $1, maximum deposit of $250,000.
- You can link the Amboy Direct account to only one external account.
- If you close account before interest is credited, you will not receive accrued interest.
- Premium Savings not to be confused with eSavings or Maximizer accounts.
- Interest is compounded and credited monthly.
- AccessID to login instead of a username, ala ING Direct.
- You can only ACH push into Amboy Direct, but not ACH pull. To transfer money out of your Amboy Direct account, you’ll need to use the Amboy Direct website.
Website Interface:
That’s the gist of it for now. Expect full review after at least a few weeks (or months) of usage to fully utilize the account. So far so good.
Update: Amboy Direct’s Premium Savings is currently 3.05%. To get the current rate, please check the official Amboy Direct website.
Related Links:
- Best Online Savings Account - FiveCentNickel.com
20 Responses to “Preview: Amboy Direct Premium Online Savings Account”
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July 29th, 2006 at 9:12 am
On their site, there’s no apply now button. Is there an expected public release?
July 29th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
hmm there’s an Open Now link right under the 5.05 APY message. Maybe you cant see it because it’s using Flash, you might want to check your Flash version.
in either case, the application link can be found here: http://amboydirect.com/openpremium.html
July 31st, 2006 at 12:23 pm
One thing I noticed about Amboy Direct Premium Savings. There is no option to automatically set up a deposit every month. I asked their CSR about this, and she said that if I wanted to email her the info, she could set it up. Yeah, and when I want to stop it, then what?
August 1st, 2006 at 10:46 am
ah good eye, I didn’t notice that at all. that is kind of silly.. they should have something like that setup so you can add or remove automatic deposit w/o hassles.
August 7th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Amboy Direct doesn’t seem to have a rate card up. Annoying. Oh and don’t forget. There is a $100 minimum according to their website.
August 8th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
yeah not having a rate chart to refer to is kind of annoying, in fact you don’t really see the full terms till you apply.
I think the $100 minimum is for the e-savings and money market account.. not the premium online savings one. if you go directly to amboydirect.com, you’ll only see those two accounts and no reference of the premium online savings account.
rather weird.
August 24th, 2006 at 8:33 am
well of course it “sounds” good but what are the fees from your external account when you transfer funds to the online savings acct that offers those wonderful free transfers?
August 24th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
there shouldn’t be any fees from your external checking accounts when online savings account ACH pull from them.
nor should there be any fees if you transfer these funds back into the checking account.
if you’re banking with a checking account that charges you fees for external sources debiting from it, you should definitely check for other offerings from other banks.
October 19th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
Any update on your experience with this company?
October 21st, 2006 at 4:24 am
hmm well so far so good.
there’s not much to report since it’s a savings account. the transfer continues to be prompt and fast.. in fact they seem to credit your account right away after a deposit, though I dont think it begins to accumulate interest till after 2nd business day.
I have a decent amount in the account, and interest has been paid promptly w/o issue.
still don’t really like the site interface as it can be difficult to track transactions.
they’re also starting to send monthly statements in PDF format via email. the PDF files are password protected.. (passwords are your login password)
which makes me wonder how they’re generating these PDF files, and I actually would prefer them to not email me w/ attachments that have my password encoded into it.
still, so far no big issues. can’t seem to go wrong with them as they’re paying decent rate, and so far has matched the increase… (and haven’t lowered any).
January 31st, 2007 at 1:50 pm
anything new to report on amboy?
they still top the list at bankrate for apy but are there other factors i should be looking at as i shop around?
January 31st, 2007 at 2:42 pm
hey Tim, sorry about the delay on the full review, I tend to get carry away w/ my reviews (like to have depth for them).
the low down is, I have had absolutely no problem w/ amboy direct.. had about 10-12k in the account in the past 5-6 months.
account opening is easy and fast.. and fund transfer is comparably faster than other online savings account (comparable to ING direct, if not faster). there were times when I submit the request after the cut-off time, but the funds appeared in my offline account in the next day regardless.
I didn’t get a chance to contact customer service much (since I didn’t have any problem at all).. but the few times I did email them, I received prompt respond.
so yeah, overall you can’t go wrong w/ opening an account at amboy, as they’ve been keeping their rates steady and competitive.
February 28th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
i find amboy direct’s interface disappointing… but their apy is obviously first rate.
transfers are very quick… and actually started earning interest on the first day it appeared in the account, even though they say it doesnt start earning interest until day 2.
the fact that the “premium savings account” has its own website and doesnt appear ANYWHERE on the amboy direct website is kinda confusing. it appears they dont want a lot of customers for the premium savings account.
April 8th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
I have had some money that was earning fractions of a percent in interest in a basic Wells Fargo savings account. After searching around many websites and many reviews about different online banking websites…I came upon the AmboyDirect’s Premium Online Savings account.
In late January ‘07 I signed up for an account, and deposited $7k. I’ve had no problems with the account and its been a blast seeing interest acrue!!
The account interface isn’t the best, but it gives a good amount of detail…just isn’t too pleasing to the eye… (no graphics or color etc..)
Overall, no REAL complaints…After a little over 2 months and 2 ontime interest payments, I couldn’t be happier with my decision to go with Amboy, and I would def recommend it.
It may be less well known than HSBC or ING or those big name banks that advertise….but Amboy has a higher interest rate…and i havent had any trouble yet (knock on wood!) …….
(BTW, I read this review before signing up at Amboy, and it was really nice being able to see the website interface, and what others had to say about it before I signed up! I have no idea who runs this site/blog…I literally was searching for reviews on Yahoo, and came across this review, and it was really helpful!…so thanks!)
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:40 am
Just my luck…Amboy direct premium online savings http://www.amboydirect.com/premiumsavings has now reduced their APY from 5.25% to 5.05%…..blah!!
May 20th, 2007 at 12:00 am
And of course, they didn’t tell anyone they were lowering the rate, they just kinda snuck it in there. I’m gonna check out Amtrust; they’ve still got 5.36% APY.
May 20th, 2007 at 5:43 am
ah yeah good point guys. I didnt even notice the lower rate until recently.
not that I had too much in there.
if you’re interested, you may want to check out http://www.fnbodirect.com — they have 6.00% APY guaranteed until september 28th of this year
June 1st, 2007 at 7:55 am
hey cap,
signed up for amboy back in january after reading the reviews in your blog and your answering my posted questions. i also received my $25 referral bonus that you had your friend send. all has been great.
with the recent lowering of the interest rate amboy is offering i have been eyeballing fnbo. how do i calculate the money i would be passing up by letting my money sit in amboy at 4.98% instead of the 6.0% for 4 months at fnbo with an unknown interest rate after that?
thanks for the help, great blog.
June 1st, 2007 at 8:33 am
hey tim, check out the rate chaser calculator at mymoneyblog. Example: $20,000 @ 4.98% APR vs 5.84 APR% (6.00% APY). Lets assume days of lost interest is 2 days, then the result will be: 11 days to break even, after 1 month you’ll earn an extra $7.74, after 6 months an extra $79.36.
I have a feeling that fnbo will keep it around 5.00% APY to remain competitive to other banks, and as long as the Fed doesn’t mess with rates.
hope that helps! (note: I transfered my funds out of amboy about a few weeks ago, not because they lowered the rate but because I’ll be needing some cash on hand in the coming months)
overall I don’t have a problem w/ them, it’s unfortunate that they couldn’t keep the rates up though.
August 31st, 2007 at 7:47 pm
They did lower their rate with no mention or message. Disappointing. So I pulled out all my money mid-month to move it to Amtrust. Guess what, I just went back to the Amboy account because I figured I’d have some interest to pull out (end of month). No interest… So now I have to call. What a pain! Prediction - they will probably not give me my August interest :(