Capital One 360 Savings Account Review
Capital One bought ING Direct USA back in early 2012, and has finally completed their transition and re-branding. Their new savings account product is called Capital One 360 Savings. Since I’ve had an account with them for over a decade (September 2001, as they remind me every time I log in), here’s an updated review of my 2nd oldest bank account meant for both new and existing customers.
User Interface
At first glance, the only thing that really changed was that the primary colors went from orange and blue to Capital One’s red and blue. However, there are a few other tweaks that I noticed were different from the ole’ ING Direct days.
Login. This is still a little unique amongst online savings accounts. You login with either a username/account number and a PIN number (not an alphanumeric pA$sW0rd). If you have an old 4-digit PIN, they’ll ask you to change the PIN to a 6-digit number for better security. In addition, while the default entry method is via mouse clicks to avoid keystroke loggers stealing your password, you can also use a keyboard to enter the PIN with a creative key-to-number conversion that changes each time. See screenshot below:
Main account screen. The home screen is simple and straightforward, as always. There is better integration with their brokerage arm, Sharebuilder, with your balance automatically showing and the ability to perform same-day transfers between accounts. So if you have a Sharebuilder account, you essentially have a high-interest sweep option instead of a money market fund paying zero interest. Screenshot:
Interbank transfers. You’ll need a separate checking account in order open an account, as well as to withdraw/deposit money via online ACH funds transfer. You can link up to 3 external checking accounts at a time. CapOne 360 online funds transfers remain a bit quicker than some other online banks, with an average of 2 business days for completion. (Day 0 request transfer during business hours, Day 2 the funds are deposited in target account.) You can link new accounts using either online (two small verification deposits) or physical methods (mail them a check). Screenshot:
Mobile check deposit. Finally! Even if you only have the savings account, you can use their new Checkmate service, which allows you to make check deposits via smartphone app or by uploading an image (taken with a camera or scanned) from your computer. Here are download links for the iPhone/iPod/iPad app and Android OS versions of the Capital One Mobile app. (Customers of other Capital One Bank products may be disappointed to hear that mobile check deposit is currently only available for 360 customers.) Screenshots:
Subaccounts. Another unique feature of ING Direct was the ability to create unlimited subaccounts to better facilitate specific savings goals. For example, you could open up additional savings accounts called “Europe Vacation”, “Emergency Fund”, or “Jon’s Slush Fund”. You can also easily set up automatic transfers to regular put aside different amounts of money into each of these accounts (i.e. $200 a month, $25 a week, etc). This handy tool remains, with a max of 25 subaccounts.
Important Numbers and Stats
Current interest rate: 0.75% APY (last changed 10/10/2012)
Interest Compounding: accrued daily, compounded monthly, credited monthly.
Minimum to open: $1
Minimum requirements to avoid monthly service charge: None.
Number of external bank account links allowed: 3
Routing Number: 031176110 (same as before)
FDIC Insurance: Capital One 360 is federally insured up to $250,000 per depositor with FDIC Certificate #4297 of Capital One, N.A. Their Bankrate Safe & Sound rating is 4 out of 5 stars (Sound). ING Bank, FSB and Capital One, N.A. legally became one bank, so if you have other accounts with Capital One NA your combined balances may now be subject to FDIC limits.
Customer service contact information: 24/7 Interactive Phone Service at 1-888-464-7868. Talk to a human at 1-888-464-0727 from 8 AM to 8 PM (all time zones), 7 days a week.
Recap
So far, it looks like Capital One 360 Savings has kept all the important aspects of the former ING Direct experience intact – No minimums and no fees, easy-to-use interface, and lots of subaccounts to tuck away your money. They have a long history of reasonably competitive interest rates – usually not the absolute highest these days, but consistently within 0.25% or less. The addition of mobile check deposit and better smartphone apps is a small but welcome improvement.
As before, the Savings account is meant to complement your existing checking account. If you want ATM withdrawals, checkwriting ability, or online billpay, you will need to open up a Capital One 360 checking account (formerly Electric Orange Checking).
This is all part of Capital One’s plan to become one of the big boys with a complete portfolio of banking products, credit cards (some good cash back rewards options and small business rewards cards nowadays), and brokerage/investment/401k plans (Sharebuilder).
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March 11th, 2013 at 9:16 pm
Great recap of the ING switchover. I haven’t been with ING as long as you, but I had been there nearly 8 years. I’m cautiously watching how Capital One handles this during the next 12 months — if it looks like the keep providing the same product and service I’ll stick with them. While I liked and miss the orange ball, I can live without that
March 11th, 2013 at 11:33 pm
Slightly off-topic. Since treasury yields have been rising, are you considering buying some rather than Parking money in online savings account(s)?
http://www.treasury.gov/resour.....data=yield
March 12th, 2013 at 7:51 am
I’ve been with ING/360 for a few years now, and they have had the mobile check deposit capability on their smart phone app for just as long, so its not a new feature.
By my measure, the only thing Capital One has done is reskin the ING site in their colors. Even though the savings rate is below others, I stink with them because of the simplicity and the features you mention. I’ll be watching closely to see what Capital One does or doesn’t do to the rates and features.
March 12th, 2013 at 8:04 am
AND…I just found out that Capital One 360 customers can now use the coin counting machines in Capital One bank locations for free! They can’t deposit the money directly into your (previously ING) account, but you can get the cash and not charge the non-customer fee. That’s good news for online bankers like me
March 12th, 2013 at 9:04 am
I didn’t realize CheckMate was a CapitalOne product improvement? I may be mistaken, but I thought that ability had been available since before the acquisition. No matter now though.
It’s these features you mentioned above that made me sign up 5 years ago. I love the subaccount feature.
March 12th, 2013 at 10:24 am
I think the CheckMate feature was added after acquisition, but before rebranding.
You missed one of the important numbers…. foreign transaction fee! It’s now zero, which is great for travelers.
March 12th, 2013 at 10:37 am
ING was my first online savings account. I moved my money around from bank to bank chasing rates a while back (ING, Emigrant, FNBO, HSBC). I’m now with Ally. I don’t think I’ve banked at a bank that didn’t let me open multiple accounts, so I’m not seeing the big deal about having multiple sub accounts. I have 5 savings accounts and 1 checking account with Ally and with my main bank I have 4 checking accounts and 1 savings account. Only takes maybe 2 minutes to open a new account.
Is there something special about the way Chase360 does subaccounts that makes it special?
March 12th, 2013 at 3:26 pm
@whytax – Treasury yields are still much, much lower than FDIC-insured CD yields available to retail investors.
@Jeff – I don’t know about a few years, Checkmate was rolled out around April 2012, less than a year ago. As @Chris noted, this was after ING Direct announced it would be acquired by Capital One in early 2012 so I view it as a CapOne change.
@Andrea – Good tip! No branches near me anywhere on the West Coast, unfortunately.
@Patrick – Depends on how you look at it. Acquisition announced about Feb 2012, Checkmate announced about Apr 2012, so it was probably in the works beforehand.
@Chris – Another good tip, although only applicable to 360 Checking… no foreign transaction charges for debit-card use internationally matches their policy on credit cards. I use CapOne credit cards almost exclusively while traveling for that feature.
@Robert – I think it’s a subtle difference, although yes you can replicate the overall experience elsewhere. It’s more about ease and intent. I’m not sure of this as it has been a while, but I think ING was one of the first to let you open new account instantly with no new identity verification – no typing in your name, address, etc and also you could easily apply custom names to each account.
March 12th, 2013 at 4:46 pm
My bad, I forgot I was in the Beta program they had. Some bankers got access to the system pretty early, August 2011 as I recall. Definitely a lot longer that April of 2012.
It was clearly an ING effort, not a result of Capital One purchase.
March 13th, 2013 at 5:39 pm
ING was just bought by Scotiabank here in Canada and I’m hoping their acquisition transitions goes as well as this. ING is a great brand but I would hate to see them get swallowed up into another corporate bank and lose their competitive customer service offerings.
March 14th, 2013 at 6:48 am
I also have a mortgage account with ING\Cap1-360. ING used to charge a $50 fee of you mailed in a mortgage payment to deter that practice and encourage you to pull money from your linked accounts (or just set up automatic payments) Capital One no longer charges that fee according to a CSR I recently talked to. She was not even aware that ING direct had that policy.
March 15th, 2013 at 8:40 pm
Jonathan,
I have open an account with “Bank of Internet USA” and happy with them. They have the highest interest rates and a very good interface, along with perks like mobile check deposits:
https://www.bankofinternet.com/
TJ
April 10th, 2013 at 12:33 pm
A word of caution – Cap. One “investigations dept” is paranoid to the point of ridiculous. They are happy to shut down one’s account on any suspicion – be that logging in from another IP or a trial deposit from another service. After a few such incidents, i ran out of patience with bid them my farewell.
April 24th, 2013 at 6:13 am
This 360 bank account is impossible!!!
I have now for the 3rd time opened a bank account with capital one online, gone thru the entire long affair of the Pin and user id and the security verification and 5 answers etc etc..
Made my opening deposit and linked the checking ACCT to 360.
****ALL 3 times, within 24 hours my new account was RESTRICTED****totally useless. WHAT IS THIS ABOUT??
April 29th, 2013 at 1:55 pm
Told ya. These people are bonkers