British Expats - Best US$ Bank % Rate for Savers ?

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Best US$ Bank % Rate for Savers ?

In the UK, if you bank with http://www.ingdirect.co.uk/home.html you can get 4.7% APR on your savings. This is for GBP savings of course. There are no restrictions on withdrawals and the account can be managed on-line.

In the US, the same company http://www.ing.com/us/ are only offering 2.1% for what appears to be a similar account(orange) for US$ savings.

I'd like to take advantage of the current exchange rate USD/GBP without tying up money long term etc. But at those rates, even with the exchange rate at 1.8, I still earn more interest by keeping it in GBP.

Does anyone know of a better Interest Rate offering for a USD based account?

Re: Best US$ Bank % Rate for Savers ?

Quote:

Originally posted by Wiggle
In the UK, if you bank with http://www.ingdirect.co.uk/home.html you can get 4.7% APR on your savings. This is for GBP savings of course. There are no restrictions on withdrawals and the account can be managed on-line.

In the US, the same company http://www.ing.com/us/ are only offering 2.1% for what appears to be a similar account(orange) for US$ savings.

I'd like to take advantage of the current exchange rate USD/GBP without tying up money long term etc. But at those rates, even with the exchange rate at 1.8, I still earn more interest by keeping it in GBP.

Does anyone know of a better Interest Rate offering for a USD based account?

For a regular savings account, that's about as good as you can do. You can get a bit more by opening a CD (Certificate of Deposit) but of course that means tying up your money for a while.

Be warned: last I checked, ING was one of a few US financial institutions to have a clause in their fine print requiring you to be a citizen or Green Card holder to open an account -- no H-1Bs etc. (Capital One is another.) So although I wanted to open an account with them, I couldn't...

i don't know what the legal ramifications are but a friend on a h1 opened an ING account

Oops, I opened a ING account but I only have an E2 visa, must have missed that in the T & C.

I think I'll give them a call and see what they say, probably have to close the account.

whats the worst that could happen if you don't tell them?

I don;t think that they will sue you for an easy mistake and as long as you pay interest to the irs you'll be fine with them