When asked to review a site, I always find it difficult coming up with the right words to say so that I not only get my point across, but I also like to not offend anyone either. Today’s review is based on thepiggybanker.com. Their tag line includes “Best CD Rates, highest savings, money market, credit card reviews & bank deals.” as someone who sees the importance behind going with a good bank, not one that will potentially rob you blind, I feel it’s important to learn a thing or two about the companies you’re interested in before you even give them your information. Resources like these could be a valuable one to anyone who uses it.
This site offers the ability for you to look through a database of the top banking companies so you can compare them based on rates and other options that would be the deciding factor on your choice of banks. They also offer the ability to find Best Credit Cards so that you can know from the get-go what you’re getting into when dealing with this company. They give honest reviews and statistics to help make your ‘shopping around’ run a little smoother.
One section I came across was a WT Direct Savings Review. WT stands for Wilmington Trust, a company that’s located in many places around the US and one I was considering when I moved to Delaware considering one of their banks are located right outside of the complex. After reading this review, however, I understand that they’re not exactly going to be the best account to go with unless I’m looking for a high yield savings account. The minimum balance required at deposit is $10,000 and any balance in the $1-$10,000 range will earn approximately 5.26% APY for the first 60 days. So after doing the math, if I happen to deposit $10,000 and then within the first 60 days, I happen to deposit another $1,000 it will give me a total of $11,578.60 in my savings account. I would assume that if I maintain over $10,000 I’ll have the same 5.26% interest, but according to the site if I’m UNDER, it drops it down to just .6% which is even less than my account with Washington Mutual that I closed before moving down here.
As far as the site goes, it primarily looks like a bankers blog. The owner compares many rates through archived blog entries and minus the banner ads spilled all over the page, it’s really not that bad looking. I would personally recommend cutting back on a few of the ads but since the user is offering a free service then I can understand why the page is loaded the way it is, it just makes it hard to actually find the CONTENT of the page considering everything valuable about the site is basically underneath all of the useless links. This is only from a design standpoint, however. The site seems to be updated on a some what regular basis though, the RSS feed shows a recent updated in Wednesday the 27th. I assume that the owner knows he has a good thing going and is going to keep up with it, as many web masters should.