Discover Bank Review, Online Savings, Money Market, and CD
Discover Bank was originally known as Greenwood Trust Company. In 2000, they joined Discover Financial Services and became “Discover Bank.” Discover Bank provides banking products with service that includes: Online Savings, Money Market, Certificates of Deposit, and IRA CD.
Here are highlights of their Online Savings and IRA CD products:
Online Savings
Discover Bank offers online savings at a competitive interest rate. Accounts can be opened online by completing the 4-step online form (it cannot be opened by phone or mail). The minimum initial deposit amount must be at least $500 to open an account, and there is no minimum balance requirement. Interest begins to accrue on the business day of your deposit if the deposit occurred at or before 2PM EST, is compounded on a daily basis, and credited to your account on a monthly basis.
IRA CD
Discover Bank offers both Roth and Traditional IRAs at competitive interest rates with maturity ranging from 3 months to 10 years. When choosing which type of IRA to open, you should consider factors such as your taxable income, age and family status. Your financial advisor or tax professional can help you determine which type of IRA is best suited to your needs.
For more options, please visit our list of high yield savings accounts.
User Rating
(3.33 out of 5, 6 votes)
Loading ...
I recently opened a “savings” account at Discover. I think it will work out but there was at least one hitch along the way.
I opened the account on-line and Discover did an eft from my local bank. Discover sent me an email thanking for opening the account, blah, blah, blah. The email also said that I would receive a second email when the deposit was posted so I could access the account on-line.
Tick, tick, tick – visualize days flipping by. No email.
It turns out, I will never receive the second email, because that is not how the system works. Via their 800/877 number I learned that you have to go to different website to apply for access to your account. They then promised to send me a temporary password (within two or three business days) to provide access to the account.
If you do sign up for an account, I suggest you wait for a day or so after Discover hits your local bank account – and then call them up. It was not at all obvious how to apply for account access, but “Amy” was very helpful and she has a pleasant voice. The are working on eliminating the confusion.
Why on earth it would take two or three business days to send a temporary password to the email address on the original account application is another matter.
And if your memory is poor, write down your mother’s maiden name. They will ask for it multiple times – like their computer doesn’t remember that you have previously entered it.
Anyway, I will see how long the 2% interest rate lasts.
Agreed. Discover Bank has the most arduous sign up process of any of the online savings accounts I’ve had. It only goes downhill from there. The layout of the account screen is horrible and confusing. Click on the provided “Transfers” link to set up a transfer? Nope. Click on MoneyHQ and then Money Movement. Not to mention constantly receiving the message “Your account is temporarily unavailable. Try again in 20 minutes.” They may have the best rates currently, but I’m not sure the hassle of using their atrocious website is worth it. Especially if I can’t even log in to access my money.
Bought a CD in mid-August 2009 after having had a good experience with a Discover CD beginning in the previous year. I had to call repeatedly to get them to make the electronic transfer from my checking account to fund the puchase. Finally it showed up online, but the amount had been mistakenly DOUBLED. I understood straightaway that this could only be trouble, and not a windfall! Many calls to customer service since, and the account online is still a shambles, and not a dime in interest has been paid to me yet. Worse, these geniuses went into my checking account again and attempted to withdraw an amount equal to my original purchase, presumably in a scatterbrained attempt to “reconcile” their mistake. You need to know that as of this writing, the only way the reps can communicate with their Brain Trust at headquarters is by e-mail — good luck, dear reader!
I have a CD with Discover Bank through the AAA Deposit Program. After two months of compounding my interest (which I wanted), they changed my account to deliver monthly payments. When I asked why, they said that I mailed them a document to do so.
I never mailed any authorization to them. The first two reps I spoke to on the phone said they would look into it, and then just blew me off. The third rep said she would look for the document and get back to me.
She never found the document. It never existed. She said she would change my account to compound again, but that change never occurred.
So, in today’s monthly interest payment that shouldn’t be happening, the amount of the interest has dropped.
After two months, they took away the compounding of my interest, and after another 3 months they seem to have decided to change the interest rate on my 1-year CD. I wonder if I’ll get any of my principle back at the end of this mess.
Discover Bank is either a bunch of crooks, or incredibly incompetent. I plan on staying far away from them in the future, and even farther away from the AAA Deposit program.
So far, so good. No problems. The learning curve on the website is a little steep, but once you figure it out it works well. I haven’t tried, but it is apparently possible to transfer money between two other banks of your choice without it passing through Discover. The Money HQ feature hooks into the national electronic transfer system (ACH). It can also aggregate information from disparate accounts.
They will have a redesigned website in February. I can’t tell whether it will retain the Money HQ feature.