Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Risky?

I opened a money market account today w/ Indy Mac bank. Bankrate.com gave the bank a low rating for on their "Safe and Sound" index. From the website:


Bankrate.com's Safe & Sound Capitalization, Asset quality, Earnings and Liquidity (CAEL)® is a proprietary, analytical product that assesses the financial condition of banks, thrifts and credit unions.

Safe & Sound CAEL rating system

Safe & Sound CAEL rating Definition Star rating
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To learn more
We believe that many banking consumers consider a bank's financial stability to be pertinent to their banking decisions. Bankrate.com's Safe & Sound CAEL rating feature is an independent resource to assist consumers in those banking decisions.

Hmm - Indy Mac Bank of Pasadena only got 1 star. Should I be worried? Big financial institutions like Countrywide didn't even have a rating, so I'm not sure how accurate/updated this rating system is. I had pared down my choices for my $1,000 to either a 3 star rated bank with an interest rate of 3.59 or Indy Mac with a 3.97 rate.

I figure both are FDIC insured and went with Indy Mac. My only other thought on the matter is - WOW, interest rates suck now!

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