Ally Bank - Online Savings

Average Score:

•   quick and simple

  I am not by any means a bank savvy person, but I appreciate a good interest rate. I originally switched to ally because after searching BankFox for the best savings rate that fit my needs, ally came up number one. The switch was quick, easy and painless. It required very little work and was really straightforward.

  I had previously had my savings with ING. At the time that I switched, ally was a much better rate than ING's Orange Savings but it has since dropped. I hope that the rates do not continue to drop as ally becomes much more popular.

  Posted by mishan -- June 22, 2009

•   Ally bank is my ally!

  My son introduced me to GMAC bank, now Ally. I had been banking with my local credit union for over 25 years and was happy with the services. My son saw my interest rates (or should I say less-interest rates!) and suggested that I move some money to GMAC and give it a try. It was easy and quick to set up an account. I was focused on paying off my house, so I used GMAC for this purpose. I linked the account to my mortgage and set up automatic payments every two weeks. Partly because of the higher interest rates being paid a few years ago, I was able to beat my targeted pay-off date by just over a year, which turned out to be a good thing since I was “downsized” last October. I live in Michigan and jobs are scarce, but at least I have a roof over my head. I would highly recommend Ally bank. It’s easy to use, pays some of the highest returns without having to commit your entire life savings and has good customer service. Ally Bank is where I keep my long term savings (outside of retirement savings) so that I can earn as much interest as possible while keeping my money at the ready. The only downside I can think of is that there is a slight delay when transferring money from Ally to another banking institution, so you have to plan.

  Posted by kbks1972 -- June 13, 2009

•   No-hassle savings

  I have been a customer of Ally Bank (formerly GMAC Bank) since February 2009. The easiest thing for people to do when they'd like to make a free $10-20 a month is to find the bank with consistently high interest and very few surprises - and Ally Bank fits that to a T. Opening the account was a breeze and took about 15 minutes. I've worked with other "high-yield" (is that an oxymoron in today's environment?) savings accounts before, but what stands out to me with Ally is that while their rate might be lower in the good times, it's the best spot to be in when all rates are down across the board. Transferring money is a breeze - just type in the other bank account's information, and the money will be transferred into or out of your Ally account within several days. This bank also offers highly competitive rates on their Certificates of Deposit, and have been great in handling my meager amount. However, the biggest advantage of Ally is that there are no surprises - their interest rates change much less often than other banks (my former account with Dollar Savings Direct fell from 4% to 2% in a span of 4 months, while Ally only fell to 2.05% from 2.75% in that same span), and there are no hidden fees or catches that might trip a client up. All in all, Ally is an excellent place to have your money work for you.

  Posted by gleasonrr1 -- June 12, 2009

•   Nice online experience

  Okay, so I haven't actually spent much time with ally (formerly GMAC). But I have, as of now, opened an account. The process was smooth, and their online banking is much much much cleaner than others I've used (BofA, e*Trade). I'm pretty web savvy, but I've always found those sites to be kind of confusing online experiences; they'll often have three different sets of nested tabs at the top of whatever page I'm on. I don't think I fully appreciated how awful those sites are until right now.

  I ultimately picked ally because they have the highest rate for a bank that met all my requirements (online transfers and statements), 2.25% APY (as of this writing). Beats my old e*Trade account by a long shot. And the online banking is so much better I'd probably take this over a 2.3% APY account.

  Small note: another reviewer reviewed this account back when it was branded as GMAC. S/he didn't like that you could choose paper statements or paper and electronic statements, but not online statements without the paper. I haven't had an account long enough to test this thoroughly, but they appear to have fixed this, and I believe I'll only be receiving electronic statements.

  Good work, ally, you lower-cased rogue, you.

  Posted by gmlaughlin -- June 9, 2009

•   Good rate - be ready for paper statements

  Just recently got on the phone with GMAC to get a little more info about their newest Online Savings Account that just started in October 2008.

  The guy I ended up speaking with was clearly in a call center, and was not very happy to be there. But to his credit, he stuck with me and answered all of my questions.

  Now this account has only been around since 10/08, but since that time, they've offered a rate that seems consistently above average. One reason for those high rates may be GMs troubles, and their need for cash. Frankly I'm not sure, and if that's the only reason for high rates, then it's going to be tough to avoid with many banks…

  Either way, I don't plan on making a big bet on GMAC, because GMAC's ACH system will only allow $100k/transaction. My friend in the call center mentioned that this is only a limitation of their online ACH system, and if I just gave them a call, they would help transfer much larger amounts - but that doesn't make me a feel a lot better.

  Now, just to pick on GMAC a little more (because it's easy), I asked about online vs. paper statements - being an almost 100% online guy myself, and not wanting my neighbors rooting through my financial statements as they are inadvertently left on the sidewalk by my mailman. Turns out that online statements are readily available, but to stop the paper from coming....you need to go to the post office and ask to have them destroyed on a regular basis....I really wish I was making that up - but that's what he said.
  

  Posted by fightingirish80 -- March 22, 2009