Student checking accounts don't all make the grade

By Peter Andrew

Student checking accounts in ancient history

As a student, I had a novel approach to the management of my personal finances. Let's call it the Ostrich Strategy because it mainly involved burying my head in the sand. Each semester various bank statements and (I assumed) increasingly threatening letters arrived from my bank, and these were carefully filed--invariably unopened--in a box under my bed. Twice a year, they were ceremoniously transferred from the box, the envelopes still sealed, into the nearest trash can.

The Ostrich Strategy worked well for me for two main reasons. First, the bank manager was a friend of my parents, and knew that I (or they) would eventually make good on my overdraft. And, secondly, it all happened a long time ago, in those distant days before credit scoring took off.

Student checking accounts now

You may or may not envy me the cavalier approach I was able to take toward my student finances, but one thing's for sure. Today if you try doing what I did some decades ago

by mimicking the behavior of Struthio camelus, you're likely to mess up big time. A dodgy credit score can give you a worse hangover than a frat house party, and it's one that's going to last for years after you graduate.

The good news is not only that you're almost certainly more responsible than I used to be, but also that you

By Kelly Richardson

The tech revolution encourages us to perform many of life's tasks on the Internet--and banking is no exception. So rather than fight upstream, I decided a few years ago to try online banking. I was with one of the major players in the industry, so naturally I went with the Internet banking interface that they offered--which turned out to be a major mistake. Here's why.

First, opting to bank online meant that they expected me to no longer need the assistance of branch tellers and charged me hefty fees if I did. Next, getting online help was a purely stressful process--the FAQs were hardly any help and the toll-free number was frequently busy. And, finally, they imposed a monthly fee to download my own banking records to the financial management software I used on my local machine. Long story made short--my foray into online banking was frustrating to say the least.

However, there is a golden lining to this story. And that lining is choice.

Online banks have sprung up all over the World Wide Web, giving you and me the option of comparing institutions to choose from the online banks that actually want our business. So I compiled a quick list of the 5 features that the best online banks possess in hopes you'll follow me to financial bliss.

1. The best online banks take your privacy seriously.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has published a set of guidelines that

By Marcia Passos Duffy

I have to laugh when I see the interest my bank deposits into my checking and savings accounts each month. It is barely worth the effort to add in the pennies (but I do).

But if you think, like I once did, that you are doomed to get low percentage rates on any money you have squirreled away in you bank, you are mistaken. You don't have to settle for miserly interest rates -- particularly if you have enough accumulated in your combined checking and savings accounts to open up a "rewards" checking account.

Rewards checking accounts are typically no-fee, no minimum deposit, and can earn up to 3 to 6 percent in annual percentage yield (APY). This is higher than most savings accounts, CDs, and even money market rates. What's the catch? Well, there are actually five.

The basics of a rewards checking account

To get the "reward" of a high interest rate checking account you do need to fulfill some basic conditions (banks may vary on conditions), but these are generally what's required:

One other important catch: The highest interest rates for rewards checking accounts are often given by local and regional banks, and credit

By Gina Pogol

As a business writer and editor, I spend a large part of my day keeping up with economic news (these days that usually involves watching helplessly as financial poop hits the proverbial fan) and working up a lot of indignation over the country's economic state. So it's been a very long time since I spared a thought for credit unions, but they're worth paying attention to.

Credit unions: the historical prospective

Credit unions were a natural outgrowth of the medieval guild system in Europe, which provided business services to their members. The first modern credit union was formed in Germany during the Industrial Revolution in 1864, and the first credit union in the U.S. was started in Massachusetts in 1909. However, credit unions were slow to win acceptance here, probably because Americans like that whole rugged individualism thing and co-ops are for sissies...

Credit unions: yawn

Traditional, yes -- but credit unions are not sexy or hip. They don't have mascots and they don't own football stadiums. You won't find a lot of bells and whistles and gee-whiz at your local credit union. But you also won't find a CEO making gazillions of dollars while amassing a worthless subprime portfolio and begging for a bailout.

What makes credit unions different?

Credit unions are run for the benefit of their members. Here is a list of the characteristics that define credit unions:

• Non-profit cooperatives
• Owned by members
• Run mostly by volunteer board members

On the other hand, most depository

By Marcia Passos Duffy

Today, when a bank fails people might feel anxiety, but it doesn't cause the blind panic of the crash of 1929 - when people lined up to pull their money out of banks.

Most of us alive today don't remember - but history books will tell you - that before the government insured your bank-deposited money, there was absolutely no safety net if something went wrong. If a bank failed it was your own tough luck and the bank took all of your hard earned money down with the sinking ship.

As a result, in 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt created the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, to insure that this kind of crazy rush on banks would never happen again.

If it wasn't for Roosevelt's foresight, you can bet the bank panic of 1929 would have happened again in 2008 when the stock market took a nosedive and banks started dropping like flies.

How the FDIC protects your money

The FDIC web site asserts that, "no depositor has ever lost of penny of insured deposits since the FDIC was created in 1933." So how does it work?

By Matt Riddle

A year ago, my wife and I switched banks. She was pregnant with our first kid and, like many Americans, we were saving money however we could.

We had our accounts in two different banks -- both traditional national chains with thousands of branches in the country and sports stadiums named after them -- that offered savings accounts that were accumulating about 0.25 percent interest on a small sum. While we were mostly happy with our banks, our needs had changed, and we wanted better interest rates on our accounts. After fees, we realized that we weren't saving but losing money.

Employees at both banks essentially admitted they were giving us an inferior product. We sorted through what we thought were the best online banks as well as a few local ones and picked one that offered not only a high interest savings account but interest checking as well. After that, we couldn't switch banks fast enough. I wanted our money to go toward saving for our future, not domes for basketball games.

How to find the best savings account rates and what to look for

There is a growing trend among banks to offer better savings rates in non-traditional savings accounts. So if you're thinking about making a switch to capitalize on higher interest rates, keep these five things in mind while hunting for better savings.

1. Interest rate

Is