Everyone is looking for the best banking deals these days. They want to get value for their money and rewards for their patronage. Realizing this, financial institutions from around the country are giving incentives to attract customers. Everything from free $100 to free barbeque grills are being used as a lure so that new clients will open up various accounts with the banking institutions.

So how can you take advantage of these bank deals? Fortunately, there are a lot of blogs that points you to the right direction. It is difficult to research each and every bank to find out what they offer. The blogs listed below does the dirty work for you. All you need to do is visit to get the best banking deals in your area:

Banking Guy @ Bank Deals outlined the rates of various market money accounts, certificate of deposit, and checking accounts throughout the country. This will help the depositor determine which bank they should consider opening an account at. This week’s blog post “Bank Deals Weekly Summary for July 4, 2009” was very comprehensive. It will undoubtedly help consumers who have saved up some money and want high interest yields on them.

My Bank Tracker has a section for bank deals. One notably entry for this week was the post entitled “Irwin Union Bank is Giving Away Free HDTV and HD Camcorders”. The offer is quite unique because most banks usually just give away bags, grills, or toasters. Irwin Union Bank rewards its depositors to a whole new level.

Banking Deals recently uploaded a blog post titled, “Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card $250 Gift Card Bonus”. Essentially, the entry provided the full details of the requirements, features, and benefits people can expect when they sign up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card. There are many other bank deals available throughout the site.

But while opening an account with banks nowadays have never been more attractive, it is also important to take note that it has never been more risky either. The financial industry is still not as stable as before. Depositors should choose their banks wisely to avoid heartaches later on.

As the United States experienced the deepest recession in five decades, banking institutions are responding by scaling back on lending,  applying credit card rate changes, and cutting back on the available credit limit of their customers. The quarterly survey from the Federal Reserve (released May 4, 2009) revealed that 65% of all banks have decreased the credit limit available to new and existing credit card holders. Aside from the obvious fact that consumers cannot borrow as much as they used to, what is the implication of these developments on their FICO score?

Take the experience of Sharii Rey who works as a paralegal in Oregon. Her credit limit was drastically cut from $42,500 to $12,000 by JPMorgan Chase & Co. The lower amount of available funds is the least of her problems though. This is because her debt relative to funds available to her quadrupled and this will reflect badly on her FICO score. It will essentially crush her ability to borrow especially if she has a high outstanding balance.

According to an Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez, the FICO formula has a lot of loopholes because it lowers the consumer’s rating no matter their individual risk profiles if banks decrease the available amount of loans. In the second half of 2008, 30 million Americans had their credit limits decreased. This is because three of the country’s largest bank – Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan, and Bank of America Corp. had cut a total $320 billion from the consumer’s credit lines.

The economic collapse raised doubts on the validity of credit scores. Around 90 percent of US banks still use the FICO score to gauge the customer’s credit worthiness. However, the FICO scoring system, which was developed in 1956, seems inappropriate in today’s turbulent times. Still, the FICO CEO Mark Greene said that “FICO scores have held up quite well in terms of predictive accuracy”. And that the score change because of the banks’ actions may just be a signal that the environment is riskier thus, those who had their ratings cut have become “riskier consumers”.