| By Jim Bruene on January 23, 2007 9:53 AM | Comments (2) |
Kiplinger published an article on the state of online banking (see article here). It's an interesting read, but it's the WT Direct ad in the upper-right corner that I found most interesting (see screenshot below). WT Direct is the new direct banking arm of Wilmington Trust (see coverage here).
It's a Flash animation that's part parody of the whack-a-mole banner ad and part a direct shot at ING Direct.
Viewers are directed to:
"Hit the ball and get a really great rate."
That's when the humor begins. Attempting to move the cursor over the ball causes the ball to move away. So there is no way to actually click on the ball. After a few seconds a new screen appears with two words, "Give up?" It's a not-so-subtle dig at ING Direct rates which are revealed on its homepage usually after an orange ball bounces across the screen. ING Direct is currently paying 0.75% less than WT Direct on a $10,000 balance (see note 1).
Then finally, it's revealed who is sponsoring the ad, WT Direct:
The landing page reinforces the banner ad with a direct comparison to ING Direct's payout with the animated graph in the lower-left corner (see screenshot below).
Nicely done.
Notes:
1. After the first 60 days, balances of less than $10,000 earn just 0.6% at WT Direct. ING Direct pays 4.5% on all balance levels.
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Has WTDirect provided solid service since its inception a few moths ago? Is it worthwhile to put money into their hands while they are still untested?
I'm wondering how safe this is? My wife and I have just sold our house and will be living in my in-laws home while they are away for a few years (out of the country). So, we have a lot of money and won't be needing a home for quite some time. Is it safe to put all this money (almost 200K) into a place such as WT direct?
How is this different (in terms of risk) from putting the money in a CD? Obviously, with the CD you can't get the money out whenever you want, but I'm wondering if there's a hidden risk with WT Direct.