SFGI Direct, a division of Summit Community Bank is offering a high interest savings account paying 2.25% APY. That's currently one of the best savings rates on the BestCashCow rate tables.

Capital One Direct Banking is offering another $50 bonus to open a savings account or money market account online. To get the bonus you need to open an account and fund it with at least $10,000 by 11/25/2009.

Details of the offer include:

• Online available to accounts opened online
• Must have opened account with offer code SAVER50DF and funded it with $10,000 by 11/25/2009
• This account must remain open 4-8 weeks after 11/25/2009 during which time the bonus will be deposited into your account.

The savings and money market accounts are currently paying 1.60% APY which is currently the 20th amongst the best savings account rates on the BestCashCow rate tables. That's competitive.

Let's do a little math. If you deposit $10,000 and get a $50 bonus, that's a .5% return. Add that to the 1.6% APY and you get an 2.1% APY, which would put it third on the rate table for return. If you deposit more money then that return will go down.

Capital One also has a Costco account. Costco members can open a savings account that currently yields 1.75% APY instead of 1.6% APY. With that bonus, the Capital One account would have the top 1 year APY for deposits of $10,000.

ACH Transfers Improved

As reported by BankDeals, Capital One Direct has also improved the speed of its incoming ACH transfers. Incoming transfers now post the next day as long as the transfer is made for 7:00 PM. Outgoing transfers though still take 2-4 business days. To me, the outgoing transfer speed is the bigger issue. If I need the cash, I want it quick. I'm less concerned about losing a day or two of interest on the way in.

Please share any questions or experiences you've had with this account and bonus.

Here's a Wall Street Journal article that's stating the obvious if you read BestCashCow. Money market funds, not money market accounts, are returning close to 0%. On BestCashCow, the highest money market fund rate is W&R advisors with a 0.67% 7-day trailing average. With inflation, or deflation, the returns are a bit better (add another 1%) but still well below the return on an FDIC insured savings account, money market account, or CD.

The Journal article even suggests short-term bond funds although the article states that last year, "Vanguard Short-Term Investment Grade took a beating—returning a negative 6.9% in the six months through November."

That's not where I want to park my "safe" cash. Go with a savings account or a CD. And if you have several million dollars to invest and are worried about FDIC insurance limits and don't want to run around opening 10 different bank accounts, then consider the CDARS program. The Certificate of Deposit Account Registry allows individuals to get up to $50,000,000 in FDIC insurance from a single bank when opening a CD.