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.

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.

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

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!)

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

in either case, the application link can be found here: http://amboydirect.com/openpremium.html