Brian @ Wongside

I don’t know about you, but in times of uncertain financial environments, capital preservation becomes one of my top priorities. Interest rates on checking and savings are pretty much in the toilet. I’m earning nothing on my Bank of America Checking, and something like a measly 0.5% on my savings. So I was ecstatic to find that E*Trade Financial has a Max-Rate Checking account with a whopping 3.25% interest rate. That’s even more than their Max-Rate Savings, which is still earning a pretty amazing 3.15%.

Other than the fabulous interest rate, there are some other pretty nifty features:

• Online bill pay that is free and unlimited
• Free Debit card
• Unlimited ATM fee refunds. In other words, I can go withdraw from other ATMs, and E*Trade will refund any associated fees.
• Free Quick Transfer to and from any of my other accounts, including my B of A account.

I will say that the one downside to the Quick Transfer feature is that it’s not exactly Quick. I’m not sure who got to define it, but “quick” in this case means about 4 business days. I’d say that’s rather slow, but at least it’s free.

If you’re looking for a great interest rate on a checking account, this is the highest one I’ve found to-date.