Does anyone have a recommendation for an online savings account?

SRC1954

I gave up on American Express. I already have Capital One. I've looked at Marcus, Synchrony and Axios (or something like that). I am interested in a good rate as well as rock solid Quicken connections.

The app doesn't matter that much but I assume they all have them. I use Quicken Mac but if it works well in Quicken Windows, it should be fine.

Thanks.

Jon

If you already have an account at Capital One I'd start by looking at their savings & money market accounts just for the convenience of not having to deal with yet another bank.

I've had various accounts at Ally for many years, they're my go-to for regular banking at this point for anything that doesn't require face-to-face interaction.

NotACPA

If you've got an account at a brokerage, or one of many mutual fund companies, I'd look at their Money Market funds. They usually pay better than a savings account and they offer SIPC insurance which is in every way comparable to FDIC or FSLIC.

jfclague

I have a UFB Direct savings account and it is currently offering 5.25%. Haven't had any issues connecting with Quicken (or other financial aggregators).

Jim_Harman

+1 on brokerage money market funds. The Vanguard Federal Money market fund is currently paying 5.29% for example.

Vanguard also has New York, California, and national tax exempt money market funds, currently paying 3.56 - 3.88%.

Chris_QPW

I'm personally in the process of moving my "long term savings" (have done the actual savings account, but have to wait on the CDs) from Synchrony to a Chase brokerage account using VUSXX:

Synchrony is Express Web Connect only and is the slowest update of any financial institution I have ever used (but at least it worked). Since the only thing I'm using this for is long time savings it didn't have much more than the monthly interest payments.

I echo the others that most likely the best one for you is the one you are using now. Faster to transfer the money, and if you are using a fund/broker these days you basically can pick from any company's funds and as such do not have to open lots of accounts to get the funds you want.

The one thing I would certainly avoid is a "local savings account". It seems that no one has informed them that we aren't still in the era of negative federal interest rates. This is why don't have a savings account at Chase, and it didn't really dawn on me until others pointed it out that I could have money market funds that are secure, pay a good interest rate and still have a 1 dollar 1 share fixed price.

My days for trying to find that high interest, but not so convenient "High Yield Savings Account" is hopefully in the past.

jeeper

I have MMF at Ally - and checking and MC/Visa at Chase -
also have access to Ally check writing…. Same for Schwab -

BK

I use BofA checking with just enough balance to cover paying bills and avoid fees. Ally as my small online savings (4.2%). Then Vanguard Federal Money market fund (5.29%) for the rest as mentioned earlier. All have worked solid for me in Quicken where in QWin Vanguard's connection is Direct Connect, BofA is EWC+ and Ally is EWC.

Drawbacks of using only a broker as a savings account IMO: No immediate access to cash - so have plan B; No immediate fund transfer via Zelle; Setting up a new bank with the broker to transfer funds is more time consuming (days) compared to a bank to bank setup - so plan ahead. This is where having a traditional bank coupled with something reputable like Marcus or Ally have the advantage (note: I don't know how well Marcus works with Quicken). Example: once I went to a BofA branch to withdraw significantly more cash that was in my account, used my phone to Zelle funds from Ally to BofA and immediately I was able to withdraw that in cash.

SRC1954

Thanks everyone for the good suggestions and comments. I have consolidated for now my Savings in Capital One. I have Fidelity Brokerage and can write checks and use it, but have decided against putting more cash into it. I have a checking account at a local bank where I get bonus interest and I use it as a local savings by keeping some extra cash in it. I get about 2% from it; 4.25% from Capital One, and about 5% for cash in the Brokerage. I could get a Cash Management account from Fidelity, but don't really think it's a good option.

I am happy for now but in the long run I don't like keeping too much cash in any one account although it is within FDIC limmits. I will probably go with Ally or Marcus next week to split my savings.

Chris_QPW

@BK said:

Drawbacks of using only a broker as a savings account IMO: No immediate access to cash - so have plan B; No immediate fund transfer via Zelle;

For me, I have both my checking account and brokerage account at Chase and as such can transfer between them instantly. I probably could setup for checking against the brokerage account too, but I don't see any need for it. The only "delay" I see in this is the delay to sell, which definitely rules out weekends and holidays and since I picked a mutual fund it also means "end of day".

But for any such kind of emergency money I would certainly recommend some amount to cover that kind of thing be in your checking or other account that you can access immediately even if you can't get a good rate on it.

But this was true for my setup with Synchrony too, in fact it was even slower since it didn't have check/debit/Zelle access. I have to transfer it to my Chase account (about two days or so) before I could actually spend it.