Should I have a lot of saving accounts with different banks and frequently move money around to keep it in the bank with highest APY? Any downside of this approach (my bank has been consistently dropping its APY)?

If its anything like britains banking industry the highest APY changes accounts monthly and the finance industry makes much of its money by finding a sucker.

A sucker stays put and loyal to one organization and they know it. Many will offer High APR or APY to sucker in customers then reduce it and introduce new accounts with higher APY, existing customers(suckers) cannot transfer in, it's as if they don't want you to stay.

You have to be nimble and don't get suckered into the big one. spread it around and make them work until they start rewarding loyalty.

Here it takes on average 3 working days for the transfer to take place using internet banking. So there is a measure of hysteresis in swapping and this includes end of term on term deposits but its worth moving for a gain of 0.15% if you leave it for a year.

Shorter periods would require proportionately larger gains to be worthwhile and I would say moving every month would be impracticable and counter productive.

But then if you had 12 accounts, to move one each month would become reasonable, so there is every reason to hold a number of smaller accounts.

Everything comes with a qualification and here it's the banks propensity to offer higher interest rates for higher deposits, you have to do the math and the rewards are not cor! blimey! except in the longer term.

Yes.

1. Most banks now pay interest on the "average monthly balance" and not the balance on the date they pay interest. Thus moving your money as you describe would only serve to AVERAGE, not multiply, the interest received on all the accounts.

2. If you do not have a sufficient balance, some accounts may charge you transaction fees, which would negate any interest benefit you may be hoping to accrue.