So far I’ve been impressed with HSBC Online offering over Emigrant Direct. First off, their bank-to-bank transfers allow electronic sign up and verification via a couple of trial deposits. Which means a whole bunch of accounts that do not issue checks (including Emigrant Direct itself) can be added. The phone representative also mentioned that there’s a maximum of 8 external accounts, which is better than Emigrant’s maximum of 2 and ING Direct’s maximum of 3. The transfers themselves seem to take a little longer – 3-4 business days usually, so unless they’re initiated on Mondays, you end up losing two days’ worth of interest due to the weekend delay.
The ATM card is also a nice add-on. I never use it, but I guess I could at some point.
