BillShrink delivers personal savings recs
Company releases a personal-savings tool that helps people find ways to find the best interest rates on savings accounts and CDs.
Online money-saving tool BillShrink launched on Tuesday a new Savings and CDs feature designed to help people find the highest interest rates.
BillShrink, which also offers help on finding cheaper cell phone plans, more advantageous credit cards, and low gas prices, told me in a conference call Monday that it's on track to help users save more than $1 billion by year's end across all three of its money-saving features.
With its Savings and CDs tool, BillShrink now enables people to take the cash they've saved and invest it in a savings account or a certificate of deposit.
To do so, users input basic information about their financial standing, including how much they have saved, how much they would like to put away each month, and the kind of amenities they would like to see from their bank account, like check writing or ATM access. From there, BillShrink delivers a list of recommendations on savings accounts, CDs, or a combination of both, that would deliver the highest return on their money, while still fitting their preferences.
The Savings and CDs tool also allows people to input where they live and what company they work for. With that information factored in, BillShrink can narrow the selections down even further.
According to BillShrink, all the banks in its listings are FDIC insured. The company also said the information contained in the listings is updated weekly. So if a bank has changed interest rates on an account, BillShrink's service will reflect that.
BillShrink's new feature also includes alerts that will send out monthly updates about the best deals based on users' Savings and CDs query. BillShrink's representatives said the alerts account for the choices users have made. They include fees and other applicable charges that might go into a switch to a better savings account or CD. Another alert tells people that rates have changed on their current accounts.
Although BillShrink's tool is decent, it's missing some key features that would make it far more appealing. For example, if a user decides to switch from one savings plan to another based on the alert received from BillShrink, there is no option to inform the site of the change. The company told me that the feature will be coming in less than a month.
Another glaring omission is the ability to transfer all the savings users have tallied from other parts of the BillShrink site to the savings tool to see exactly how to get that money working for them. Right now, users need to input figures themselves.
BillShrink is aware of that shortcoming and plans to deliver a "reporting" feature that will let people track the money they've saved and "transfer" it into other areas of the site. It didn't provide a timetable for that feature.
If you want to try out BillShrink's new Savings and CDs tool, the feature is live on the company's site.