Sovereign bank makes me $300 richer

Back in September I opened a personal checking account and a business account at Sovereign Bank and deposited $15,000 in a money market account to take advantage of a new account promotion. I also agreed to use the debit cards for the two checking accounts at least six times. By opening these accounts and keeping that amount of money at Sovereign, I was promised new account bonus payments totaling $300 after 90 days. They kept their word. Exactly 90 days after opening the accounts, $150 appeared in each of the checking accounts, for a grand total of $300. I also earned a very decent interest rate on the money market account. So, overall this has been a good move.

The personal checking account does pay a tiny amount of interest as well. The business account does not pay any interest, but has the advantage that as a "non-interest bearing transaction account" with the bank enrolled in the new FDIC Transaction Account Guarrantee Program it has unlimited FDIC insurance. I do not happen to need that degree of protection, but it is nice to know that it exists.

-- Jack Krupansky