AmTrust Direct is offering one of the highest money market rates on the web at 5.36% APY. This e-Savings Account comes with a $1 minimum requirement to open and you can also deposit it as a CD with a raised minimum deposit of $1,000 USD. The rate is fixed for 90 days and this rate to limited to deposits up to $100,000, anything over will be a 5.00% APY instead of 5.36%.

Read more: AmTrust Direct 5.26% e-Saving Account

Some of the biggest players in the banking world, looking ahead to a time when a tax or trade system becomes the law in the U.S., are taking the cost of carbon emissions into account when it comes to loaning money, especially to utilities. Bank of America, Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley have all said they will be including the cost of carbon emissions when determining when to loan money to companies.

Read more: CBO: Taxing is the best carbon policy

Russell Heimlich wrote to share his method for organizing bank statements. He uses a three-ring binder, a stapler, and a hole-punch. I really like this method — it reminds me how we handle the finances at work. It’s a vast improvement over my system, which literally involves a series of shoeboxes.

Read more: Daily Roundup: Tips and Tricks from GRS Readers ∞ Get Rich Slowly

I took my son in the other day to open a teen checking account at Wells Fargo, where I am an existing customer. They said that I had to be on the account as well (presumably because my son is a minor) so I said ok. Prior to going in, I’d called their customer service to find out the details of the account, and to ask if they did a credit check.

Read more: Unwanted credit inquiry

And they want to make us believe markets are returning to normal. Money market rates tell a very different picture and I rather rely on the data than the propaganda coming from central banks. And in this reality banks are scrambling to borrow funds at rates significantly higher than what the priests of ever expanding credit would like to see implemented.

Read more: Central Banks Continue on Path of Monetary Inflation

The Fed along with Canadian and European Central Banks are flooding financial markets with money trying to drive down interest rates and provide liquidity. The European intervention was their largest ever, $130 billion.

Read more: Central banks scrambling

Court gawkers have been witnessing a wild match of words between Floettl and former Bawag CEO Helmut Elsner who has been stripped of most of his assets by the court. Elsner was certainly the most despotic CEO Austria's banking industry has ever seen. He is infamous for his quick loss of temper and a tendency to mistreat subordinates.

Read more: Floettl's Fall From Grace

In the morning I meet with some of the top lenders in Australia to talk about industry standards. My presentation covered the varying issues with standards bodies and how leadership from the banks them selves can really jump start the process. This event was a lot like the insurance event but focused on lending within the banking industry.

Read more: Sydney Wrap-up

July was not a good month (really the last two week) for any of my investment accounts, nor were the first couple days of August which are reflected in my IRA value as 8/3/07. The value of my IRA accounts dropped nearly 7%. I saw large decreases especially in my mortgage industry related investments, AHM (American Home Mortgage) and WM(Washington Mutual).

Read more: IRA Update July 2007

Brendan O’Connor spends his time studying the underlying security of the banking industry, specifically, the online banking and bill payment services. One error in security in that field, and customer’s information is completely exposed, which combined with e-statements, tax forms, and electronic copies of the checks that current online banking services keep could have a rather dire impact on customer’s finances. Discoveries from the talk? All those images the banks display to you to prevent phishing are sourced from a single database with the primary key into that database displayed in the ALT field.

Read more: DefCon weekend

In my initial post about FPS, I said that I thought FPS would change the online banking industry. After spending the weekend with it, I’m even more convinced of that! There are some issues and short-comings that are causing frustrations for people.

Read more: The Amazon FPS API - not your simple widget

ING DIRECT is an internet bank with very good interest rates on insured savings and checking accounts. ING recently launched a mobile banking site which lets customers view balances and transactions and transfer funds between accounts using their mobile phones. The site works fairly well but has some issues.

Read more: ING DIRECT Mobile Banking at Wap Review

Another way to start an emergency fund, especially if you don’t get paid regularly or in set amounts, is to start a change jar or emergency envelope. This works best if you have cash on a regular basis, because at the end of each day you can simply dump your leftover cash into the jar or envelope. Once it hits a certain amount, take it to the bank. You can do something similar with a program like BofA’s Keep the Change.

Read more: How to start an emergency fund

Unbeknownst to me, the Loonie was not adopted wholeheartedly by Canadians in its early years. People don’t like change, in more ways than one. Not me, I loved it right from the start. I emptied my change into a jar every night and once a year I’d roll it up and buy Canada Savings Bonds for my son’s education. His savings grew massively with the advent of the Loonie, and again nine years later with the Twoonie.

Read more: Happy birthday Loonie!

I still stand by my earlier statements that you really need to sit back when choosing a bank though, the fact is that their are banks that have these great rates, but you have to make sure your getting the Best money market rates for your cash, because their are still banks out their that somehow get away with offer 1% or less on accounts while the competition can offer as FNBO does 6.00% plus other perks.

Read more: Have banks gone insane?