I finally decided to give HSBC a try because of their much higher APY rate. Currently it's at 5.05% which is much higher than ING's 4.35% APY. After the Feds raised interest rates, ING only went up slightly while HSBC raised their rates significantly. This one move was the biggest factor that led to me opening an HSBC account. In the next post I'll detail the HSBC sign-up process and how it all turned out for me.