I was looking around at who had the best CD rates in our ever-lower interest rate era, and I found that GMAC Bank has very nice rates, 4% for 1 year, compared with the average of 2%. I am planning on taking them up on it. 4% 12 month CDs are not growing on trees right now.
Now, before you shout that GMAC may go bankrupt, and eat my deposits, know that GMAC Bank is FDIC insured. So even if GMAC did go bankrupt, and GMAC Bank is a division of GMAC, FDIC would step in, and in a few days I would have my money back.
This is in contrast with the GMAC Demand Notes (5.25%) or Ford Motor Credit's Interest Advantage (3.9-4.2%), which are unsecured loans directly to the companies. If you are invested in GMAC Demand Notes or Ford Motor Credit Interest Advantage, you should re-evaluate your tolerance for financial risk right away, because I am guessing that you are investing money you consider "safe", but what you are buying is basically a junk bond.
And, by putting money in GMAC, I can help GM by providing badly needed cash to their lending arm, and helping support the Detroit auto industry.
There are some downsides to GMAC Bank. It are online-only, so if you want to be able to talk to a human being about your account, the only option is the telephone. It also doesn't support direct connection through Quicken or Microsoft Money, if you want to download transactions you have to use the manual download feature on your account page.
Note: GMAC did not sponsor this post or influence it in any way.
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