Establish Fund Transfer Links Both Ways
One of the first things you do when you open a new online bank account is to establish an external transfer link between your new account and an existing account. When I opened my FNBO Direct account, I immediately linked it to my daily checking account so that I could pull some money in and get that hot 3.50% APY. For most, the process stops there. If you ever need money to go into FNBO Direct or to go back to the checking account, you can simply log into FNBO and initiate the transfer.
99.999% of the time, that’s perfectly fine. But for that 0.001%, if the FNBO website is down, you will have no access to those funds via the Internet. If you can’t log in, you can’t transfer your funds. You could always call and initiate the fund transfer that way, but oftentimes the site itself is down and you’ll have to scrounge up the number some other way. You’ll also have to get your account number somehow too.
Here’s a better way, establish the link from the other side as well. So if you have a link between FNBO Direct and ING Direct but it’s only created on the FNBO Direct side, just create it again on the ING Direct side if you can. ING Direct is picky about their links but other banks won’t be, so establish a link out that way you can still get access if you need it.
99.999% of the time, the sites will be fine. But you never know when a little hiccup can put you in a bad spot.
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