Choosing The Orange Everyday Account

i've been shopping around quite a while for an everyday account that has no fees because Westpac has not dropped their fees yet whereas every other banks have. Not good.

ING Direct has always caught my attention with its good marketing skills. Advertisments at the bus stops and TV and of course the attractive colour, orange. straight away, being a soccer fan, I knew that this is a dutch bank, spotting the same colour as their national team jersey colours.

The last factor to convince me was that "Money" magazine gave a good review and awarded the Orange Everyday Account as the Most Innovative Product for 2010.

Many features of this account attracted me:

1) No account keeping fees (of course)

2) No ATM fees if more than $200 is withdraw at any ATM

3) If you get a cashout of $200 with an Eftpos purchase, ING Direct even gives you 50cents.

The first feature is a must for me. Second feature is for me to control my budget better and not allowing me to withdraw whenever I like. Third feature is something innovative and not offered by any other banks. I was thinking - Why Not? I can even link this account to a Savings Maximiser Account which gives one of the highest interest rates around.

The down side for ING Direct is that they are only available through phone and email even though they do have an office in Sydney. However, I think this is not an important factor considering that it is a everyday account. On the other hand, if it was a home loan. I would have factor that in as you guys can read from my previous posts.

In the end, I've got sick of Westpac charging me $60 per year for fees and decided to go with ING Direct. They even gave me $600 to donate off to my charity for writing this blog. Now, that's something different.