Interest accounts are a specialized form of deposit account. One would still deposit money into an interest account and would still retain the right to withdraw money from such an account. But interest accounts benefit from additional terms. Specifically, an interest account allows account owners to profit from the accrued interest of the account as it builds over time. Often, the price that interest account owners pay for this accrued interest is ease of withdrawal, but for some, this is a worthwhile price if the account will exist for a long enough time period.
A savings account is a primary example of a type of interest account. In a savings account, the account owner deposits money into the account, but cannot access that money as easily as if it were in a checking account, for example. The account owner would not be able to treat whatever funds were in the savings account as if they were directly available assets. This is primarily represented through a greater cost on a withdrawal from a savings account, along with a greater amount of time required to file the withdrawal. But the benefit of a savings account lies in that the interest rates for such accounts are normally high enough that the accrued interest over long periods is significant.
Some checking accounts are actually interest accounts in that the money within the checking account is earning interest at some rate. But the rate of interest is usually so small that for the accrued interest to have any significance, it would take a tremendous amount of time or a large amount of money in the account. Checking accounts fluctuate in amount consistently, however, which would mean that they are unlikely to have such a large amount as to generate significant accrued interest, even if they are interest accounts.
Money market accounts are yet another form of interest account. Using a money market account, one might be able to make a fair amount of money through accrued interest. The primary flaw of a money market account is that they require a certain balance in order to make money and, in fact, may result in charges if the balance within the account dips too low. They do offer fairly high interest rates, however, and though they are legally treated in much the same fashion as are savings account, the account owner can usually draw checks on a money market account.
There are some restrictions to the account, such as the fact that only six withdrawals to third parties are allowed per month from a money market account, but these restrictions are usually compensated easily by the potential for high accrued interest. As long as one keeps a money market account relatively full of funds, then one can avoid most of the problems of a money market account, while still generating a great deal of interest.
The primary advantage of interest accounts is that they allow money which would otherwise be doing nothing to be growing and creating accrued interest. If the money were in a non-interest checking account, then it would be available and protected, but it would not be growing at all. Interest accounts allow for growth, while continuing to offer a fair degree of protection. Some would advocate investment into the stock market as a better means for generating accrued interest on invested money, but most would also acknowledge that the stock market is a substantially riskier way to generate interest.
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