Wachovia offers new savings incentive

With the nation's personal savings rate in negative territory and banks on the hunt for low-cost deposits, Wachovia Corp. has introduced a way for customers to save a little money every time they spend a little money.

And the nation's fourth-largest bank will reward them up to $300 a year to do so.

The special savings account, called Way2Save, is similar to a program offered by rival Bank of America Corp.

For customers who enroll, Wachovia will transfer $1 from a customer's checking account into the Way2Save savings account each time that customer makes a purchase with their check card or makes an online payment.

Wachovia will also contribute a 5 percent annual bonus in the first year the account is open and a 2 percent annual bonus in each of the next two years, up to $300 each year.

The account will also carry a special annual percentage yield for the first three years, starting out at 5 percent, followed by 2 percent in years two and three. After that, customers earn a competitive, traditional savings rate.

Bank of America introduced its Keep the Change in 2005. That savings program automatically rounds up to the nearest whole dollar every purchase made with a Bank of America debit card, and deposits the "change" into the customer's savings account at the end of the day.

Bank of America matches 100 percent of each transfer for the first three months and contributes five percent a year thereafter. The maximum match is $250 annually. Bank of America said the program to date has allowed 6.6 million customers save $778 mil-lion.

Personal saving as a percent-age of disposable personal in-come was a negative 0.5 percent in November, according to the Commerce Department. That compared with a positive 0.3 per-cent in October.