Today's hot savings rate online is 3% or more. Many of the higher rates are from direct banks operating primarily online such as ING Direct, Bank of Internet, or Virtual Bank.

But increasingly, traditional brick and mortar financial institutions are experimenting with higher rate offerings. One of the most visible is Emigrant Direct, which has spent a small fortune this year advertising its high-rate offerings (see previous article). We also noticed Zions joining the game with this 3.3% offer to customers searching for a $10,000 savings account in California via BankRate.com (click on inset for more details). Zions also makes the account available to any customer visiting its website.

What's a bank to do?
If you are feeling pressured to step up to the 3% rate level online, you can do it with a special product that doesn't require repricing your entire savings account base.

Here are a few ways to try to separate your high-rate online account from regular savings accounts:

• Give the account a separate name, such as Zions Bank's Internet Money Market Account
• Require that it be opened online
• Require that it be funded via ACH or wire transfer from another institution (aka new money)
• Offer to match any rate found online, users would submit the URL of the competing offer in the application
• Only promote it via special landing pages accessible through promotional advertisements, but not linked directly to your regular site
• Require a promo code on the signup form

More 3% offers
Download this file shown below to see an analysis of the 3% offers from MyBankingDirect (NY Community Bank), ING Direct, Emigrant Direct, MetLife Bank and Western Financial. The first three earned grades of A, while MetLife and Western scored only Cs.

Download tour_of_banks_with_3apy.pdf