Jodi Hilton for The New York TimesDan O’Malley of PerkStreet, which gives checking account customers as much as 2 percent back on their purchases when they use their debit cards.

I remain obsessed, as ever, with the outliers in financial services who continue to be particularly generous to their customers. So when both President Obama and Senator Dick Durbin took to the airwaves to denounce Bank of America’s new $5 monthly debit card fee this week, I got curious about what was going to become of the various rewards checking accounts I’ve written about in the last year or two.

One of them comes from PerkStreet, which gives customers up to 2 percent back on all debit card purchases that people sign for. Another comes from BancVue and is often known these days as Kasasa. Here, account holders who make lots of debit card purchases each month can earn 2 or 3 percent interest on the money in their checking accounts, up to certain limits.

This week’s Your Money column is about whether such feats of generosity are sustainable. If you are a customer of either, please let us know how it’s been going so far. If you’ve turned away from them because you think it can’t last, please say so as well.

And yes, for all of you who plan on (loudly) noting in the comments that it is merchants who ultimately pay for these deals through the fees they must pay to accept debit cards, I did explain all of that in the column, too. But have at it anyway if you need to blow off some steam.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=1d01830bab02df4466e0fc871fd14d1e