Banks for You!

Bank of America is revamping its checking accounts and will also increase the fees. The changes are already being brought in and the traditional checking accounts would be phased out over July and August. Once the checking account products are phased out more than 530,000 customers from three states would be moved into a new slate of accounts and that includes 170,000 from Massachusetts. It has plans of moving out all its checking customers by the end of next year.

If you wish to know more details you can have a look at the Bank of America checking account page and click on your state. MyAccess which is a very popular checking account will no longer be available. Despite the fact that they added the MyAccess Checking Fees last month, it still wasn’t enough. Some of the new checking accounts are:

Bank of America Essentials Checking Account – This is a very basic checking account and does not include any Bill Pay. It has a small monthly fee of$6 and it cannot be waived off.

Bank of America eBanking Checking Account – This is very similar to the eBanking account that is present now. Howev

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First Federal Savings Bank of Frankfort is offering outstanding CD rates right now, including a great 6-month CD rate to individuals interested in opening an account. Currently, the short-term CD commitment provides a 0.50% APY.

Terms of this 6-Month CD Rate

The competitive CD rate from First Federal is available to individuals who open an account and deposit a minimum of $500. It’s good to note that interest will not be compounded for this CD, meaning it will only be credited one time to your account at maturity. Account holders aren’t allowed to make deposits to the CD until the maturity date and there will be a penalty imposed if you withdraw money early.

About First Federal Savings Bank of Frankfort

In 1934, First Federal Savings Bank of Frankfort was formed as the Greater Frankfort Building and Loan Association by a group of nine Frankfort businessmen. Since that time, the bank has grown into a major financial establishment with several services available, including deposit accounts, loans, money orders and safe deposit boxes. Its three locations can be found in Frankfort, Kentucky.

You recently wrote that it wasn’t possible to get all three of your FICO scores. In fact, you can get all three credit bureaus’ FICO scores at the same time at http://www.creditchecktotal.com on a one-time or subscription basis. I have the subscription at $29.95 per month and I can run all three as often as I want. They also have online inquiry to two of the three bureaus.

Answer: You’re getting access to credit scores at that site, but they’re not the FICO scores that most lenders use.

CreditCheck Total is a credit monitoring site run by the credit bureau Experian, which stopped selling FICO scores to consumers in 2009, although it continues to sell them to lenders. Instead, Experian typically sells consumers its own in-house credit score, the PLUS, which is no longer used by lenders. As the

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Get $50 when you open a new InterestPlus Online Savings account online using offer code FUND222DF and have a balance of $10,000 or more on Aug 31, 2011.  Some of the small print is as follows.  You will receive a $50 bonus if you open a Capital One Bank InterestPlus Online Savings (IPOS) account online only, enter the offer code at the time of account opening, and have $10,000 or more on deposit on 8/31/2011. You are eligible for this promotion only if you received this offer from Capital One. This account must be your first account with Capital One Bank. This account must remain open 4-8 weeks after 8/31/2011 during which time the bonus will be deposited into your account. The bonus will be reflected on your monthly statement and will be included in your year-to-date interest and year end tax reporting. This offer cannot be combined with any other offers.

The account currently pays 1.10% APY on balances of $1,000 or more.  If you have less than $1,000 you can still get 1.04% APY with Ally Bankor 1.15% APY with a . If you don’t want to put $10,000 in an account you can open a PerkStreet Financial^SM Deposit Account and earn up to $600 in cash back rewards.

The checking accounts have been revamped and Bank of America customers will have to shell out more by way of fees and other banking charges unless they bring about some changes in their banking habits. One way to avoid the high fees would be to avoid the tellers for routine banking transactions, maintaining a higher minimum balance etc.

Some of the nation’s largest banks will begin phasing out the traditional checking accounts by August and around 530,000 customers from three states would be moved to other new accounts. These include 170,000 from Massachusetts as well. It has plans to move out all of the checking accounts customers throughout the nation by the end of 2012, to new offerings. It includes over 2 million from Massachusetts.

In order to avail free checking, customers will have to maintain higher balances as well as other conditions, in the new accounts. Earlier on, there were some customers who had qualified for the no-fee checking accounts under the previous system but they may not do so now. For example, the MyAccess checking account which is very popular is an account where customers could avoid the monthly fee of $8.95 provided they make direct deposits every month or maintain an average balance of about $1,500. B

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