(originally posted here∞)

• As rates have risen, the gap by which ING's yield lags the top high-yield banks has kept increasing.

• Emigrant's website looks like something from 1996 and is equally painful to use. Their promise of offering a high-rebate credit card to online savings users has not materialized. They did send me a baseball cap, though @_@

• HSBC pays the best attention to security throughout signup, password assignment, and usage (especially bank transfers). I lambasted ING for treating the account # as secret and only allowing a 4-digit numeric PIN. Awful, simply awful practices -- even Emigrant's amateurish website is better. In response they added some javascript that forces you to "type" the PIN, and slightly increased the # of possible questions for the 3rd auth factor, but I'm not convinced they know what they're doing.

• HSBC supports 2-way OFX for downloading transaction history. If you use Money or Quicken, this alone is worth the 1-time hassle of switching.

• HSBC's bank bank transfer feature is absolutely unparalleled.
  • There is no limit on the # of accounts you can link to. No fees either, obviously.
  • You can establish a link thru web service calls. That means that if the other bank is OFX-aware, it authenticates you with your password instead of the usual trial deposits. This practice is safer (can't be defeated by dumpster divers) and happens instantly instead of having to wait for the ACH microdeposits. It also means you can initiate transfers from inside Money/Quicken.
  • They support linking to investment accounts. Vanguard isn't available yet, but they've shown continual interest in expanding the list.
  • No doubt due all of this power, the feature is protected by an extra layer of security.

• HSBC is the largest, most well-established company offering these kind of accounts, with local branches all over the world.

• HSBC gives you an ATM card. It doesn't appear to limit withdrawals, either: I've been able to withdraw several thousand dollars in a single transaction, while most bank's debit cards top out at a few hundred per xfer & $1k/day.

• HSBC lets you make deposits by mail.

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