Should I Switch to HSBC?

In between trying to tunnel out of our house through four feet of snow, I got to thinking about whether I should dump my savings account in ING for a new one at the online bank HSBC. Currently, ING is paying 4.50% interest compounded monthly and HSBC is paying 6.0% on "new money" -- that would be me. Both pay interest monthly.

I am focusing on paying down debt these days, but as a psychological commitment to savings, I am autodepositing 40 dollars a month into my emergency fund with ING. I like ING, alot. I like the interface, I like the interest, and I'm used to it. This is a big deal because I am a creature of habit.

So, in between shoveling bouts, as an experiment I set up a spread sheet to "race" ING against HSBC for 12 months, adding $40 bucks a month, paying interest monthly, assuming HSBC pays 6.0% for the whole 12 months, and ignoring account opening incentives (for now, although they could factor in later). At the end of the race, my hypothetical ING account would have $494.27 in it and my hypothetical HSBC account would have $499.14 in it, a difference of $4.87.

Quite frankly, this is not enough of a difference to make me change accounts right now. But I am a little cranky that ING no longer has the highest interest rates. Further, my ING emergency fund account is tiny, so interest isn't really factoring in right now, but how about later when I have $10,000 in the account, the difference starts looking more substantive.

I haven't decided yet whether to switch or not and as one of my three things about money today, I am going to investigate incentives and see if they are enough to put me over on the HSBC side, because it isn't going to be the interest rates that compel me to switch, for now.