Well, there I was, practically giddy about the 4.38% APY our new-ish rewards checking account was paying us on our savings … and whaddaya know? Two months in, and the credit union is about to lower its cap.
From the very top of my August statement:
Effective October 1, 2010, there will be two changes to the Rewards Checking program. The cap will change from $25,000 to $15,000. For qualifying accounts, 4.38% APY will be paid on balances of $15,000 or less and .50% APY will be paid on amounts greater than $15,000. The dividend rate for non-qualifying accounts will change from 0.35% APY to 0.10% APY.
“Boooo … hiss!” says the gallery. The change in the dividend rate for non-qualifying accounts doesn’t bother me, because unless I pull a complete brainfart, we should easily manage to hit all the rewards qualifications each month.
The lowered cap for high-interest earnings, however, is another story. It means I’ll be moving a chunk of our savings right back to ING Direct’s Orange Savings (my review) account, from whence it came. ING’s current 1.10% APY is nothing special, but it’s better than the 0.50% APY that my greater-than-$15k funds would be getting at the credit union.
At this point, it’s kinda silly to complain too much about the lowered cap, I suppose. Being able to get four-plus percent interest on ANY kind (or amount) of insured liquid savings is, in this environment, pretty much like stealing.
Gail wrote:
I hope this don’t happen to me; I just now open a rewards checking; got my trial amounts verified; and already they are charging me an NSF fee of $25.00. For what? I haven’t even had time to place my transfer over to this bank yet! Will be giving them a call tomorrow. They better not lower the interest rate that quickly. I went with one with $25000 instead of the $15000, so hopefully I will be crossing my fingers it don’t happen here.
FT wrote:
There are always hidden cost which are mis-representated in order to mis-understand it initially or there are in fine prints to make it difficult to understand. Always better to talk with few people within peer group.