ING Direct’s online checking account, Electric OrangeSM, is offering up a cool bonus to people who sign up for new accounts – a $50 bonus!
When you open up a new Electric Orange account and make at least 3 signature-based purchases within 45 days of opening your account, ING Direct will give you a $50 bonus. You need to open the account through one of the banners/ads in this article. If you open an Electric Orange account going directly to the ING Direct site, you won’t be eligible. This is a special promotion you won’t see on the ING Direct site.
Here’s a summary of benefits of Electric Orange online checking:
- No Fees
- No Minimums
- Free access to over 35,000 ATMs
- The ability to send money to friends and family via P2P Payments. It’s fast and free.
Let’s go through these real quick.
No Fees – There are no fees to open your account or to keep it open (some other banks have monthly fees). There’s also no fee to use their overdraft protection (you do pay interest on the amount of the overdraft that is needed).
No Minimums – You don’t need to keep a minimum amount in your account or make a certain number of transactions every month. Really, no minimum. I’ve had about $5 sitting in my account for the longest time – no fees for it.
Free Access to over 35,000 ATM’s - Your Electric Orange debit card can be used at any of the ATM’s that are part of the Allpoint™ network. You will be surprised at how many locations there are! True story – We have another checking account with a big national brick and mortar bank. Where we used to live, we had to drive to get to an ATM. It was a major pain! Then we discovered there were a bunch of locations that were part of the Allpoint network where we could use our Electric Orange account. I wouldn’t have thought that an online bank would have more ATM locations available near me than a major brick and mortar national bank.
The ability to send money to friends and family via P2P Payments – This is a pretty cool feature. If you have a friend’s account number (you can just ask them), you can send them money straight to their account. Owe your buddy $20 but you’re not sure when you’ll see him again? Send him the money right to his account.
What I really like about Electric Orange is it’s part of ING Direct, meaning it’s the same place I have my savings as well as investments (through ShareBuilder). When I make a transaction I can see all of my account balances together and I can easily transfer money between accounts.
Other cool features – They will send a paper check out for you. You can earn interest on the money that’s in your account (compare with many other banks where you pay a fee just to have the account). And you have a number of options to make payments.
ING Direct also has awesome customer service!
So if you have been interested in an online checking account but have been sitting on the fence about it, now is the time to take actions! You can get a $50 bonus for opening an Electric Orange account now (remember, to get the bonus you must sign up through one of the banners in this article). See why I list Electric Orange as one of the best online checking accounts out there.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a decent account even without the $50 bonus. It’s refreshing to see some banks still offer checking accounts with no fees and balance requirements, especially in a time where some of the US’s most well known banks are beginning to impose fees for checking accounts and debit card usage (ie, Wells fargo, Bank of America and now Citi)…
I’d love to see how much business ING gets as more of the “traditional” banks hike up their fees.