These comments are all based on my personal experience. Do your own additional research before you open new accounts. Let me know if you have any FDIC-insured account recommendations :)
- T-Mobile Money Checking (APY on 2/10/2021: 1.0%)
- Minimum balance to avoid monthly fees: None
- Special feature: First $3,000 earns 4.0% APY for T-Mobile wireless plan customers. This is also a checking account--there's no 6 withdrawals per month limit.
- ACH limit: Daily limit $3,000 (This is pretty bad--can't get larger amount of money in/out quickly without having an external account with no/larger limits)
- Customer Support: 24/7. I've called them once only and there was 0 wait time... instant connection. However, my issue was not resolved (See "Mobile App" section for the issues I called about)--the agent basically told me to wait, and the issues remain unsolved now, 2 weeks later.
- Mobile App: App usually takes a while to load. It's been a month and I haven't received my debit card and/or trial amounts for external accounts. I had to do it the other way around (setting up T-Mobile as external account) and it was completed in 1-2 business day by other banks.
- Overall (Y/N to recommend it to others): Yes for the 1.0% APY, which is rare these days.
- Discover Bank Savings (APY on 2/10/2021: 0.45%)
- Minimum balance to avoid monthly fees: None
- Special feature: None that I'm aware of.
- ACH limit: None! This is great. I use this as my "base account" to get larger amounts of money in/out of different banks.
- Customer Support: 24/7, minimal wait time. IMO best out of these 4. I've called them several times since I've owned this account for years, and the agents were all super helpful. Once I called to get a cashier's check, and it arrived in mail after 2 days.
- Mobile App: Best app experience out of these 4. You can complete basically every task you need without using the desktop version (for example: check out tax/account docs, setup external accounts, etc). The app is not janky and very intuitive to use.
- Overall (Y/N to recommend it to others): Yes. Good customer support, good app. Might not always have the best yield but they're still one of the best.
- CIT Bank Savings Builder (APY on 2/10/2021: 0.45%)
- Minimum balance to avoid monthly fee: No fees, but to get 0.45% APY, you need $25,000 minimum deposit OR $100 monthly deposit
- Special feature: Free outgoing domestic wires if you have balance $25,000 or more; $10 otherwise, which is still super affordable!
- ACH limit: None! This is great. I use this (along with Discover) as my "base account" to get larger amounts of money in/out of different banks.
- Customer Support: Not 24/7--business hours only. I've called them several times and usually get connected right away. The agents were helpful, too. Because they're a smaller bank (?), they were able to accommodate special requests. I once called to stop a wire transfer. I also called another time to expedite a wire transfer.
- Mobile App: Not the most intuitive app (or desktop site). For example, I don't think you can add an external account on the app. The app also doesn't show the most up-to-date APY.
- Overall (Y/N to recommend it to others): Yes for free wires! I've never heard of this from any other banks.
- Varo Money Savings (APY on 2/10/2021: 0.40%)
- Minimum balance to avoid monthly fees: None
- Special feature: Make at least five qualifying Varo Debit Card purchases AND Receive qualifying total direct deposits of $1,000 or more --> Gives you 2.8% APY on $10,000 balance or less
- ACH limit: $5,000 per transfer Up to $10,000 per calendar month (it would be a hassle if you try to close the account but need to move money >$10,000)
- Customer Support: Not 24/7, also long wait time on phone. I've made the mistake of using an email alias when setting up my Varo accounts (for example, instead of `a.b.c@example.com`, I used `abc@example.com`, which was fine for all other banks, and I've received all account emails). This led to the support agents "unable" to answer any of my email questions. I even tried asking a generic question (for example, what is the APY?) and the agent just didn't want to answer me... (please email back with the account holder's email). I tried calling 2 times: first time was a 45-min wait, second was a 38-min wait. I closed my accounts with them yesterday.
- Mobile App: The Plaid external account connection consistently errors out or fails to reconnect for me. I basically have to re-setup the same external accounts multiple times.
- Overall (Y/N to recommend it to others): No--unless you can get 2.8% consistently
Submitted February 10, 2021 at 10:24PM by janeyang2k19 https://ift.tt/3a6RESn
