In today's climate, to have a checking account with a interest rate above 1.00% is beyond rare.

Today is Wednesday, March 17 and it's time for the mid week review of CD rates. March has shown an overall decline, with an average drop of .01% across the board for CD rates with a 12 month term.

Metro New York based financial institution Dime Bank has finally rolled out with a fully functional website which you can check out by visiting http://dimewill.com/ - up until now the site only had a splash page which changed periodically depending on their offer.

As reported earlier this week top online banks have decreased their rates across the board. These drops could be a result of the dip in the Consumer Confidence Index, which fell 10.5 points from January to February.

Today has seen a drop in CD rates from some of our top online banks. Ally, Discover and ING Direct have all lowered their rates across the board, some by as much as 0.25 percentage points.

UPDATE: This change will not affect current depositors; E-Trade has removed CD accounts from their website and will not be accepting new deposits.

E-Trade has continued to cut back on its banking services, after announcing last week that it will transferring its Complete Savings Accounts to Discover Bank in March.

A report released today reveals that the current economic crisis may have changed the average individual's spending and saving habits more than anticipated.

Ally Bank is always looking at ways to differentiate themselves from the competition.

This week, major financial institutions one by one revealed their bank earnings for the last quarter of 2009.

Those eagerly looking to see how the economy turns out in the next few months will have plenty to watch out for in the next few days.