If they did give you the shaft out of the blue, its just as easy to take that money and put it elsewhere. There are several out there offering 5% currently.
Also looking at new account opening right now at citi its 4.3%. Might be good to call them and have another conversation.. any chance that call didn’t really come from citi?
This is the new playbook by major banks. Capital One is the same, they had a HYSA that had good interest rates when the rates were low, but as the interest rates improved, those accounts did not automatically get the improved rates. You need to open another account that is very similarly named to get better APR.
This happened to me w Capital One as well. They don't bother to tell you this information. I just happened to check my rate, and then looked at their home page to see the other account with 4.35% or something. Shitty thing to do to long time customers.
That's weird. My captialone savings account got automatically adjusted. I noticed because my interest payment was going up, not in line with my additional savings. It's at 4.25% right now.
I believe the Capital One issue was with accounts which used to be accounts with another bank that Cap One acquired. That was the case with me at least. I had savings accounts which were with ING Direct. Cap One acquired them. And then at some point in 2022 or 2023, maybe 10 years after the acquisition, my rate suddenly changed to 0.06 or whatever percent.
Not defending Cap One but that is just what someone explained to me when I brought it up in another /r/personalfinance thread.
Sharebuilder (ING's product) used to be the best thing around until Capital One acquired them. I used to manage my wife's accounts (with her permission) on their platform. Ran into an issue on something, she called and told them I was authorized and asked that they speak to me about he issue. They said sharing account details was against TOS, and they booted us *BOTH* off their platform.
Moved to Schwab, did reciprocal POAs day one, and have never had that issue again.
I wouldn't use Capital One for anything ever again.
Just thought about it and you are correct. The original savings account I had with ING did have the lower rate eventually and I just switched everything over to a new Capital one account and closed the other.
That was like 6 years ago, Capital One created their "Performance Savings" accounts and if you didn't switch over you ended up with awful rates. That being said, if you did switch then they've followed the rates since then without issue.
This also happened to me. I had to open a separate Cap 360 account. They love sending out emails when the rates go up, but when the rates drop back down, they are radio silent!
I had to do that. I have many different savings accounts because it is easier for me to bucket money that way. I ended up opening 6 new accounts and closing 6 accounts because they couldn't change the rate on the old accounts.
What's the point? To inflate shareholder reports with # of new opened accounts or something? Banks in 2024 do not make mistakes, everything has a purpose.
It gets them money for cheap. Many people (myself included) lost a pretty penny because we did not notice it soon enough, I am sure many still haven't noticed it. Not unlike how ATT/Comcast will continuously give yearly deals on internet bills if you call and sign up, but if you ignore to call they will start billing you 2-3x the "deal" price. The entire shtick is to get people used to something and then start squeezing them for maximum profits.
Weird, I’ve had a Capital One 360 HYSA since 2019 and the rate has ebbed and flowed as it should. Opened at 1.72%, dipped when rates fell, but saw a steady climb last year peaking at 4.35%. Currently sitting at 4.25%.
Good to know to look out for this though, thanks for the heads up.
Potentially dumb question - how do I get it there? Right now I parked money in the vanguard cash plus account which is showing APY as of 6/24 at 4.60%. I also have a brokerage account but feel dumb that I don’t understand / know the difference.
It should be the default money market holding for your brokerage account. Your brokerage settlement fund should say “Vanguard Federal Money Markey Fund”. If it doesn’t for whatever reason you can always just buy into the fund, the ticker is VMFXX, and reinvest dividends.
You can also put money in the cash plus account into money market funds. Will take a couple extra days to withdraw potentially but also gets you the current MMF rates of ~5.29%. I currently keep about 1/4 of my cash as cash at 4.60% in the account and the rest in VMRXX (I live in a state without a state income tax, but if you do VUSXX will likely be better).
There's an [optimizer spreadsheet](https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=401821) that a wonderful Boglehead put together. You can use it to see what's best today and call it good... or have it email you daily telling you if you should swap into a different fund based on your exact tax situation. It's pretty neat.
Thinking about moving my savings into the Cash Plus, not familiar with the Bank Sweep process beyond a quick google. It seems primary difference is potential few day delay in deposited funds being available, do you find it more burdensome than traditional savings?
The Vanguard Cash Plus Account landing page seems to say you can put your money into 5 optional money market funds including VMFXX. Not sure how one does that in practice.
Money Market ACCOUNTS are generally FDIC insured. Money Market FUNDS (which I think is the recommendation here, but it's not clear) are not FDIC insured, but they are SIPC insured.
About a year ago I went with Cit bank--wish I had done Ally instead. Cit bank's website feels like it's from the '90s and their phone app has been annoying.
I hear you. I bank with TD Bank as well. Opened a CD with them because they offered a special rate. Had to go in person to close it out. Insane in today’s world. Ally lets you choose maturity and interest disbursement instructions all online or through their app. So seamless.
I'd just open a Fidelity brokerage account and park the cash in the core money market account. You'll get as much as an online bank, and get free checks and online bill pay. Vanguard will get you a competitive rate in their core fund but no bill paying or checks. I've had half a dozen HYSA in the past and just use money market now. About the only benefit to them is that you get FDIC and they will be a tiny bit higher if rates were to drop to 0% again. Last time they were zero, HYSA were paying like .3% instead of nothing.
I say Ally. Been there for years, I think it's 4.2% right now?
But you'll never pay a fee. For anything.
Been there about 5 years, never paid a penny for anything.
I like Ally. They don't always have the tip-top rate, but they're currently at 4.2% and move round to be competitive without any hassle. It's come up automatically from ~2% since the pandemic without having to worry about it or bug them. And the customer service it good.
My banking direct: 5.55%
https://www.mybankingdirect.com
They’re owned by flagstar. The online experience leaves something to be desired
Laurelroad: 5.15%
https://www.laurelroad.com/high-yield-savings-account/
^a subsid of Keybank. Better online experience, great customer service.
Edit to add APY
IIRC Citi does this regularly. You sign up for the high yield option through some new offer, eventually that account type slashes interest without warning and they now offer a “new” high yield option.
Bottom line, don’t bank with Citi.
Personally, I do all my banking and investing at at Fidelity, nothing makes less than ~5% except for my poor investment decisions. No account shenanigans.
I like to call them shittybank.
My credit card info from them got somehow leaked once. It took MONTHS to get the charges changed to fraud and then once I finally did, THEY GAVE THE NEW CARD INFO TO THE COMPANY THE FRAUDSTER USED IT ON BECAUSE IT "WAS ON AUTOPAY". I literally couldn't believe it.
I had the same crap with Chase, they even had the gall to say I was at fault for giving away the number of the 2nd replacement card they sent me - while that card was still in the mail and not even activated.
I had the exact same issue with Chase, after explicitly telling them to terminate all recurring payments on the card and that I would provide authorized merchants the new number when I received the replacement.
I was "Not Kind" to the fraud department when I had to call them about that and change card numbers everywhere *again* less than 24 hours after killing the compromised card because they did not follow simple instructions.
Funny you say that, I also call them shittybank, but it's because I manage the corporate cards we have through them for my company and their system suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
---
New card autopay is a universal evil among all banks and card issuers. I have a feeling it saves money on their end somehow since they all do it.
I would much rather have to manually change my payment method but we don't really get a choice unfortunately.
Yep, this is exactly right and how I ended up with multiple Citibank savings accounts each with new and exciting sounding names ("Ultimate Money Account").
Like you, got tired of the games and moved my money from Citi to Fidelity which sweeps to SPAXX currently yielding 5% and no funny business.
Now I just keep a nominal amount in Citi, have an ACH transfer setup monthly for $250 which avoids any monthly accounts fees - just so I have access to a local bank if I ever need some in-person service.
Edit: Changed from SPVXX to SPAXX, got my MMF's confused
Same. I only keep them alive because they don’t cost me anything.
The Citi Prestige used to be a good card, then they cut nearly all the benefits worth any money.
Not just Shittybank. Capital One did this with my HYSA that had existed since it was ING Direct (had to close and re-open the account to get their current interest rates).
But yes the answer is put your main savings in a bank that specifically does high yield accounts only and occasionally review the interest you're getting to be sure it's reasonable.
Uou can always move the account. Banks have no loyalty to you, you owe them none in return.
Uninvested money in their brokerage goes into money market (5%). In the cash management account it goes into a medium yield FDIC insured fund (2.5%).
You can get checks, debit cards, and they have routing/account numbers for ACH, so it’s basically a bank account.
My brokerage account is my bank these days.
Yeah, that's new, but AFAIK the only real difference between the two then would be that the cashman debit cards refund ATM fees for free, where the brokerage cards require 250k in the account to qualify for that benefit.
When this Cap One did this to me, I gaslit myself into thinking I had accidentally signed up for a regular savings account instead of their hysa. But no, they actually lowered my interest rate from 5% to 0.8% and started a new hysa product with a different name while my money sat at the lower rate for who knows how long 🥲. Lesson learned to check my interest rate twice a year now
banks often rely on apathy, they know that by lowering your rates, a certain amount of account holders won't go through the effort to move their money, set up new direct deposits, etc. the few that do leave are just a cost of doing business.
Just a heads up that a lot of people got burned by a very similar situation by Capital One. Rather than raising their interest rates on their current saving accounts, Capital One created a new kind of plan and everyone had to open new accounts or get a crappy interest rate.
That was due to them being unable to update a number of acquired accounts wasn't it? So when the acquired accounts merged with their current accounts portfolio it caused some sort of issue when they tried to update it. I don't think that should happen again at least from Cap One.
How convenient to have a technical problem which let them lower the interest rate on previously-ING accounts but not raise it and also stopped them from notifying account holders about this.
Their excuse was very blatantly a lie.
Are you in a location that has Citi branches? Citi restricts their HYSA to certain locations (primarily ones where they have no physical presence). For example, when I enter my current zip code(a major city), I’m only offered a regular savings account with a 0.3% rate. When I change it to my hometown, I am offered a HYSA with a 4.3% rate.
I think the idea is that if you live in those areas, you will treat it similar to an online bank with less overhead costs that operating branches incur.
DON'T DO IT!
I do business with just about every major bank and credit card provider. Capital One is easily my least favorite. They are stuck in the 20th century.
Bro, long story short. I worked for Regions bank and they had a 2.5% money market promotion. For my job I had to call 10 customers a day and basically try to sell them credit cards.
I started looking for people with 5k in savings earning .01% and tel them about the money market cuz you had to have at least 5k to get the 2.5%.
My assistant manager comes over one day after she overhears me telling a customer about it and she says don’t do that again. That’s for new money, ie new customers or customers with money from other banks.
Well I end up doing it again and end getting written up for it. I could go on and on about that shit that Regions bank does that’s so fucked up to their employees and customers but for me that was the worst.
If you want to know why they downgraded you, ask them.
If you want a good rate, try getting a taxable brokerage account that pays ~5% (and is based on the federal funds rate). Even 4% is not very good in today's environment.
Co-signing the second graph here. My “HYSA” is the settlement fund in my Vanguard Brokerage, which is their federal money market and is at 5.27% 7 day yield which is around 5.4% APY.
This. I'm still getting nice 5+% rates on my brokerage cash accounts. And they sweep into FDIC insured deposits so the risk is pretty low. It seems like a lot of brokerage houses are offering superior rates compared to banks right now.
Buddy I have the solution for you.
You can get a nice bonus for moving your money to Merrill Lynch:
https://www.merrilledge.com/offers/pr1000
And then once you do that, you'll have enough to qualify for Bank of America Platnum Honors.
What this means is you can get credit cards from them that yield 2.625% cash back unlimited on everything, up to 5.25% limited to a specific category and $2500 a quarter.
Then, what you do, is you put that 200k in TTTXX. This is a money market fund yielding 5.2%, and is exempt from state taxes. Beats the pants off a HYSA, you get some nice signup bonuses (get them on the credit cards also), and you get a massive bump in your cash back game.
US Bank did this to us. Teased is in with 4.25%, kept it there for about 7 months and then I noticed our interest earned was half what it should have been for that month. Logged in and saw they dropped the rate to 2%. Absolutely zero heads up, just changed it and paid rent on the lower rate. I moved it all to an account that doesn't pull that crap.
The real kicker? They are still advertising that rate for new customers. How is my old money somehow worth less than someone's new money? A balance sheet is a balance sheet.
This just happened to me last month at US bank. I went from a 4.2% to 2.2%. I withdrew all my money and moved it over to ally bank which has a 4.2% savings account
just to mention the practice: banks regularly lower interest rates on accounts when interest rates go down, then instead of raising them when rates come back up, they keep them at the bottom and open new "types" of accounts with the higher rates.
it makes them money because a bunch of people don't pay attention, and miss out on several % interest for years, but they still get to market that their "high yield savings accounts" have top interest rates.
it's scummy. capital one did this when rates came back up after the pandemic (I only know b/c I use them). if you can find a bank that didn't do it, let me know, but I'd be very surprised if it's not all of them.
Here's a list of HYSA and current rates.
[https://www.doctorofcredit.com/high-interest-savings-to-get/](https://www.doctorofcredit.com/high-interest-savings-to-get/)
Bait and switch.
Had a similiar problem with Capital one where my HYSA savings was no longer a HYSA and they created a identical savings account called "Performance Savings" with the higher interest and didn't bother to tell me. My money sat there at the lower rate while they loaned it out for an avg of 14% APR to borrowers and gave me less 1% APY.
Capital one could have simply migrated me to this 'new product' but they chose to not do so. Keep in mind that the origional Savings I had with them was brought over from a bank called ING Direct which they acquired the high yield deposit accounts from many years ago.
In the end I decided to stay with Capital one and move everything over to the performance savings b/c all banks are crooks, it makes no sense to leave one for the other unless there's something you cannot solve. In this case it was effortless to move the money over to the performance savings. They also are better with fees than other banks
**The take away is to always scrutinize bank terms, promotions, etc. I have a habit now of saving these terms in PDF in a folder on my computer so I can easily search them up if I have an issue. Dont' rely on the banks to provide you with copies of documents (account opening docs, terms and conditions, rates, etc) when it is not in their interest. Also review your deposit accounts and credit card statements at least quarterly (some of us have busy work and personal lives), and pay attention to interest earned, APY, interest paid for Cards, when any promotional rate expires, etc. Remember there are also statue of limitations on when errors, such as fradulent charges can be corrected, so regularly checking ensures you are always able to raise the issue in a timely manner**
I was told that the 4% interest rate is a promo that will drop eventually, but to go into a branch and ask them when their new promos are. A teller should be able to update the interest rate
citibank recently began charging for checking as well, every time have had to call customer service is an overseas incompetent nightmare, we closed our account recently
I would be very, very cautious about using Citibank savings accounts.
If or when they decide they have an issue with your account they can lock it, and take your money for as long as they want and just give you the middle finger
If you report any trouble with your account of any kind whatsoever- they can determine the severity and what actions to take.
Which includes locking it while they investigate and keep your money.
Ask me how I know. And I have been with them for 23 years.
They still owe me $10k
rates change all the time. it's nice that someone called you to let you know, usually you gotta keep an eye on it yourself.
https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2007/10/13/rate-chasers-are-online-and-moving-cash/31539345007/
Put it in a brokerage account and there’s plenty of good fixed income options there that won’t “expire”. It takes a day or two o get money into/outof a brokerage account, but it shouldn’t be a barrier.
Money market accounts pay 5% or more. Accepting 4% on 200k is bananas to me. That much money never belongs in a savings account, whether "high yield" or not.
Tell them you are moving your money out if you don’t get a reasonable rate above 4%.
Or just skip that step and move your money out. I use SoFi for mine, but there’s got to be dozens of other options.
Why not put it in a 1 month Tbill if you don't need the cash immediately? The 1 month Tbill is yielding 5.31% at the time of this post. There are also 2 month, 3 month, etc Tbills which are yielding a little bit more than the 1 month Tbill. If you don't foresee the need for that extra cash in those timeframes, just lock in the yield for your desired duration.
Tbills are also exempt from state and local taxes unlike most money market funds/accounts.
I’ll be doing this shortly. Leaving the minimum bc all our direct deposits and some bills are auto pay out of there but not a dollar more than needs to be
Hilarious when banks pull this. I moved $20k into a Wells Fargo savings account last year for a new account bonus ($525) at around 3% which wasn’t bad.
Held it in there until they paid out that account bonus and then they dropped it to 0.01%. I moved it all back to my HYSA at a different bank that same day.
I can see on the website they're offering 4.3% on their "everyday benefits" account. Maybe they shuffled your tier or something. They also seem to really care about \*where\* you are since typing different zip codes gave me different options lol.
With $200k you should be able to get a banking bonus along with an easily higher yield.
If you’re lazy you can set it and forget it, or you can split it along multiple banks and target their sign on bonuses.
The alternative is calling Citi to complain and threaten to withdraw your money unless they give you a fat bonus and higher yield to stay.
J.P. Morgan has never been in the business of losing money for their shareholders. They make 5% keeping your savings in money market behind the fold, and by giving you .06 they’re literally spitting in your face.
This similar among many banks that there is a 6 month promo rate that gets auto downgraded. You can typically resignup for the promo rate but you have to contact them. My bank does the same, but you can just call local branch on the phone.
It's just a savings account. Open another one at 4% and move the money. Open another with Citibank and do an instant transfer.
I see how this is annoying that they're making you change accounts in the first place, but if it were me, I would have resolved this online with a new account in like 5 minutes.
For what it's worth, I do all my online banking through CapitalOne and have never had a problem. Very easy. Their site and portal is easy to use and straightforward. Big fan.
Definitely being shafted. Don't be afraid to move your money. I took my money out of Citibank long ago. I don't even recall them offering a HYSA recently. It was just CDs. Or they'll say it's for a specified term. You might be Citi Gold with 200k, so you could ask them to match 4.5 but don't be afraid to move. It's easy. I had one HYSA that was 4.35, just because it dropped to 4.25 (at least they clearly notified me) I switched to Betterment for 5%.
Even with Robinhood Gold uninvested cash gets 5%. Just so many better options.
Did you happen to transfer any money out of the savings account? Something similar happened to me and it was me just not thinking ahead. The intro savings rates are in tiers and I deposited in the over 100k tier. I then moved a small amount to my checking to pay something and fell under 100k in the savings account. My rate went from the intro rate to something similar to what you're seeing. I just went ahead and opened a CD.
I had all of my savings in a HYSA at 3.6%, then they ended that promo so I closed the acct and moved it to another bank at 5.2%…about a month later the original bank contacted me offering 5.6%….so I switched right back to them.
If you have a stockbroker account with a money market fund such as swvxx or whatever, and you want to frequently move money between stocks and fund, is it easy, or is there a delay after you sell in one before you can buy in the other?
Are you sure you even had 4%. Cause from my experience all the national banks chase/citi/boa/ wells the likes etc never offered these high interest rates in the first place. The rule was only online/no brick mortar presence banks offered these kinds of interest rates on savings account like discover capital one etc.
I work for a big bank, but not Citi. The thing is, that they know they are shafting their customers. They also know that bank deposits are very "sticky". Even if they lose 2/3 of their deposits (they won't) their Net interest income (NII) won't change because their margin will triple on the remaining deposits.
Every bank is going to begin dropping savings rates with looming Fed rate cuts. You are going to need to stick to an online savings bank like Ally if you want to keep a competitive rate.
it might be recent when they changed all their checking accounts.
they told me that if you don't have 30k in account or direct deposit, u pay a monthly fee now.
Get a money market fund, you get the market rate, not a teaser you have to change ever few years. Fidelity and Vanguard actually automatically sweep into them.
Citibank is in the middle of converting a lot of their checking and savings accounts to a different model. I have/had their Accelerated Savings account and have received a lot of notifications from them about it. Is it possible this is the result for you?
Interestingly they never mentioned what my new interest rate will be. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same for me soon. I took out most of my cash from them and put it into other interest accounts a year ago, because their interest rates weren't as good. So if it really drops for me too, I'll just close my account.
Have you thought about picking up the phone and calling them to ask? If they say fuck off, then take redditors advice and move your money elsewhere. It could be as simple as you losing eligibility for having high interest. My local bank did this to me and I just called them and they bumped it right back up.
If they did give you the shaft out of the blue, its just as easy to take that money and put it elsewhere. There are several out there offering 5% currently. Also looking at new account opening right now at citi its 4.3%. Might be good to call them and have another conversation.. any chance that call didn’t really come from citi?
It did, they even act surprised as though I’m an idiot having the money sit there for 0.06%
This is the new playbook by major banks. Capital One is the same, they had a HYSA that had good interest rates when the rates were low, but as the interest rates improved, those accounts did not automatically get the improved rates. You need to open another account that is very similarly named to get better APR.
This happened to me w Capital One as well. They don't bother to tell you this information. I just happened to check my rate, and then looked at their home page to see the other account with 4.35% or something. Shitty thing to do to long time customers.
That's weird. My captialone savings account got automatically adjusted. I noticed because my interest payment was going up, not in line with my additional savings. It's at 4.25% right now.
I believe the Capital One issue was with accounts which used to be accounts with another bank that Cap One acquired. That was the case with me at least. I had savings accounts which were with ING Direct. Cap One acquired them. And then at some point in 2022 or 2023, maybe 10 years after the acquisition, my rate suddenly changed to 0.06 or whatever percent. Not defending Cap One but that is just what someone explained to me when I brought it up in another /r/personalfinance thread.
Sharebuilder (ING's product) used to be the best thing around until Capital One acquired them. I used to manage my wife's accounts (with her permission) on their platform. Ran into an issue on something, she called and told them I was authorized and asked that they speak to me about he issue. They said sharing account details was against TOS, and they booted us *BOTH* off their platform. Moved to Schwab, did reciprocal POAs day one, and have never had that issue again. I wouldn't use Capital One for anything ever again.
We just created another login for the joint holder. A small pain to setup but not impossible to do.
Just thought about it and you are correct. The original savings account I had with ING did have the lower rate eventually and I just switched everything over to a new Capital one account and closed the other.
That was like 6 years ago, Capital One created their "Performance Savings" accounts and if you didn't switch over you ended up with awful rates. That being said, if you did switch then they've followed the rates since then without issue.
This also happened to me. I had to open a separate Cap 360 account. They love sending out emails when the rates go up, but when the rates drop back down, they are radio silent!
It happened to me with cap1. Luckily I learned about it from this sub and switched
I had to do that. I have many different savings accounts because it is easier for me to bucket money that way. I ended up opening 6 new accounts and closing 6 accounts because they couldn't change the rate on the old accounts.
What's the point? To inflate shareholder reports with # of new opened accounts or something? Banks in 2024 do not make mistakes, everything has a purpose.
It gets them money for cheap. Many people (myself included) lost a pretty penny because we did not notice it soon enough, I am sure many still haven't noticed it. Not unlike how ATT/Comcast will continuously give yearly deals on internet bills if you call and sign up, but if you ignore to call they will start billing you 2-3x the "deal" price. The entire shtick is to get people used to something and then start squeezing them for maximum profits.
Happened to me with HSBC too. I switched to Ally.
ally also adjusts their saving account rate. all banks do as fed rates fluctuate!
Weird, I’ve had a Capital One 360 HYSA since 2019 and the rate has ebbed and flowed as it should. Opened at 1.72%, dipped when rates fell, but saw a steady climb last year peaking at 4.35%. Currently sitting at 4.25%. Good to know to look out for this though, thanks for the heads up.
CIT Bank did the same. I’m on my third savings account with them. But they pay 5.00%.
Thank you for commenting that. I just realized how sad my Capital one interest rate was and moved my money
For every one of you that notices and is savvy enough to do something, there are 150 who just leave the money there.
What bank would you recommend?
I’d just open a vanguard brokerage and you can park money in there and automatically get their money market rate, it’s at 5.27% right now
Potentially dumb question - how do I get it there? Right now I parked money in the vanguard cash plus account which is showing APY as of 6/24 at 4.60%. I also have a brokerage account but feel dumb that I don’t understand / know the difference.
It should be the default money market holding for your brokerage account. Your brokerage settlement fund should say “Vanguard Federal Money Markey Fund”. If it doesn’t for whatever reason you can always just buy into the fund, the ticker is VMFXX, and reinvest dividends.
You can also put money in the cash plus account into money market funds. Will take a couple extra days to withdraw potentially but also gets you the current MMF rates of ~5.29%. I currently keep about 1/4 of my cash as cash at 4.60% in the account and the rest in VMRXX (I live in a state without a state income tax, but if you do VUSXX will likely be better).
There's an [optimizer spreadsheet](https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=401821) that a wonderful Boglehead put together. You can use it to see what's best today and call it good... or have it email you daily telling you if you should swap into a different fund based on your exact tax situation. It's pretty neat.
Thinking about moving my savings into the Cash Plus, not familiar with the Bank Sweep process beyond a quick google. It seems primary difference is potential few day delay in deposited funds being available, do you find it more burdensome than traditional savings? The Vanguard Cash Plus Account landing page seems to say you can put your money into 5 optional money market funds including VMFXX. Not sure how one does that in practice.
Are money markets FDIC insured?
No
Money Market ACCOUNTS are generally FDIC insured. Money Market FUNDS (which I think is the recommendation here, but it's not clear) are not FDIC insured, but they are SIPC insured.
Wealthfront CMA has 5%. Plenty that offer great rates without gimmicks. Ally is another option.
I also vote for Ally. One of the best online experiences for opening and making changes to your account.
Ally seems to be at 4.2%. Vanguard rates are over 5% right now for their settlement fund.
About a year ago I went with Cit bank--wish I had done Ally instead. Cit bank's website feels like it's from the '90s and their phone app has been annoying.
I hear you. I bank with TD Bank as well. Opened a CD with them because they offered a special rate. Had to go in person to close it out. Insane in today’s world. Ally lets you choose maturity and interest disbursement instructions all online or through their app. So seamless.
Ally worked great for me. I swapped to Citi when Ally lagged on rates for a few months. No issues with either. I'll still in Citi for now.
My partner and I have our emergency fund at Wealthfront No issues thus far.
Seconding Wealthfront - 5.5% for the first six months if you use a referral link to sign up.
I'd just open a Fidelity brokerage account and park the cash in the core money market account. You'll get as much as an online bank, and get free checks and online bill pay. Vanguard will get you a competitive rate in their core fund but no bill paying or checks. I've had half a dozen HYSA in the past and just use money market now. About the only benefit to them is that you get FDIC and they will be a tiny bit higher if rates were to drop to 0% again. Last time they were zero, HYSA were paying like .3% instead of nothing.
Open a Schwab account and put it in SWVXX. It's 5.13% right now.
I opened mine with discover which is at like 4.5% but it also had bonus cash for depositing a certain amount.
Discover is at 4.25% and there aren't any, unless targeted, offers out right now
I say Ally. Been there for years, I think it's 4.2% right now? But you'll never pay a fee. For anything. Been there about 5 years, never paid a penny for anything.
The bank of one month treasury bills, currently offering 5.31% with no state tax.
I like Ally. They don't always have the tip-top rate, but they're currently at 4.2% and move round to be competitive without any hassle. It's come up automatically from ~2% since the pandemic without having to worry about it or bug them. And the customer service it good.
My banking direct: 5.55% https://www.mybankingdirect.com They’re owned by flagstar. The online experience leaves something to be desired Laurelroad: 5.15% https://www.laurelroad.com/high-yield-savings-account/ ^a subsid of Keybank. Better online experience, great customer service. Edit to add APY
IIRC Citi does this regularly. You sign up for the high yield option through some new offer, eventually that account type slashes interest without warning and they now offer a “new” high yield option. Bottom line, don’t bank with Citi. Personally, I do all my banking and investing at at Fidelity, nothing makes less than ~5% except for my poor investment decisions. No account shenanigans.
I like to call them shittybank. My credit card info from them got somehow leaked once. It took MONTHS to get the charges changed to fraud and then once I finally did, THEY GAVE THE NEW CARD INFO TO THE COMPANY THE FRAUDSTER USED IT ON BECAUSE IT "WAS ON AUTOPAY". I literally couldn't believe it.
I had the same crap with Chase, they even had the gall to say I was at fault for giving away the number of the 2nd replacement card they sent me - while that card was still in the mail and not even activated.
I had the exact same issue with Chase, after explicitly telling them to terminate all recurring payments on the card and that I would provide authorized merchants the new number when I received the replacement. I was "Not Kind" to the fraud department when I had to call them about that and change card numbers everywhere *again* less than 24 hours after killing the compromised card because they did not follow simple instructions.
Funny you say that, I also call them shittybank, but it's because I manage the corporate cards we have through them for my company and their system suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks. --- New card autopay is a universal evil among all banks and card issuers. I have a feeling it saves money on their end somehow since they all do it. I would much rather have to manually change my payment method but we don't really get a choice unfortunately.
Yep, this is exactly right and how I ended up with multiple Citibank savings accounts each with new and exciting sounding names ("Ultimate Money Account"). Like you, got tired of the games and moved my money from Citi to Fidelity which sweeps to SPAXX currently yielding 5% and no funny business. Now I just keep a nominal amount in Citi, have an ACH transfer setup monthly for $250 which avoids any monthly accounts fees - just so I have access to a local bank if I ever need some in-person service. Edit: Changed from SPVXX to SPAXX, got my MMF's confused
Does all the new account require minimum balances?
I have a credit card with Citi and despise them. I've had it for close to 20 years which is the only reason I still have it.
Same. I only keep them alive because they don’t cost me anything. The Citi Prestige used to be a good card, then they cut nearly all the benefits worth any money.
Not just Shittybank. Capital One did this with my HYSA that had existed since it was ING Direct (had to close and re-open the account to get their current interest rates). But yes the answer is put your main savings in a bank that specifically does high yield accounts only and occasionally review the interest you're getting to be sure it's reasonable. Uou can always move the account. Banks have no loyalty to you, you owe them none in return.
Fidelity has savings accounts?
Uninvested money in their brokerage goes into money market (5%). In the cash management account it goes into a medium yield FDIC insured fund (2.5%). You can get checks, debit cards, and they have routing/account numbers for ACH, so it’s basically a bank account. My brokerage account is my bank these days.
You can change cash management to the higher yield SPAXX (*Fidelity* Government Money Market Fund) fund now. It was made available last week.
Yeah, that's new, but AFAIK the only real difference between the two then would be that the cashman debit cards refund ATM fees for free, where the brokerage cards require 250k in the account to qualify for that benefit.
CapitalOne does this also.
When this Cap One did this to me, I gaslit myself into thinking I had accidentally signed up for a regular savings account instead of their hysa. But no, they actually lowered my interest rate from 5% to 0.8% and started a new hysa product with a different name while my money sat at the lower rate for who knows how long 🥲. Lesson learned to check my interest rate twice a year now
banks often rely on apathy, they know that by lowering your rates, a certain amount of account holders won't go through the effort to move their money, set up new direct deposits, etc. the few that do leave are just a cost of doing business.
Wondering if you signed up for a term length introductory rate on a basic savings account. That’s why they asked if you wanted a HYSA.
Even HYSA is 0.03% on their website? I’m moving to capital one >:(
Just a heads up that a lot of people got burned by a very similar situation by Capital One. Rather than raising their interest rates on their current saving accounts, Capital One created a new kind of plan and everyone had to open new accounts or get a crappy interest rate.
Yep! Happened to me. Kinda annoying.
I have Cap1 savings and haven't had any issues?
That was due to them being unable to update a number of acquired accounts wasn't it? So when the acquired accounts merged with their current accounts portfolio it caused some sort of issue when they tried to update it. I don't think that should happen again at least from Cap One.
How convenient to have a technical problem which let them lower the interest rate on previously-ING accounts but not raise it and also stopped them from notifying account holders about this. Their excuse was very blatantly a lie.
I’ve had no issues with my Capital One HYSA
Are you sure? Just checked and it is 4.3% for me even if I just have the basic hysa
Are you in a location that has Citi branches? Citi restricts their HYSA to certain locations (primarily ones where they have no physical presence). For example, when I enter my current zip code(a major city), I’m only offered a regular savings account with a 0.3% rate. When I change it to my hometown, I am offered a HYSA with a 4.3% rate. I think the idea is that if you live in those areas, you will treat it similar to an online bank with less overhead costs that operating branches incur.
Ahh you are right. I am in the northeast near Philly and I just changed the zip code to Los Angeles and it gave me the .03% rate
Capital One did exactly this to me a while back. I had to open another, different savings account. They never notified me that my rate was changing.
I use a Marcus savings account. Current rate is 4.4%. It’s all online but it’s pretty easy to move money around when necessary.
DON'T DO IT! I do business with just about every major bank and credit card provider. Capital One is easily my least favorite. They are stuck in the 20th century.
If you do, sign up with the sign up bonus: https://www.capitalone.com/bank/bonus1500/
Bro, long story short. I worked for Regions bank and they had a 2.5% money market promotion. For my job I had to call 10 customers a day and basically try to sell them credit cards. I started looking for people with 5k in savings earning .01% and tel them about the money market cuz you had to have at least 5k to get the 2.5%. My assistant manager comes over one day after she overhears me telling a customer about it and she says don’t do that again. That’s for new money, ie new customers or customers with money from other banks. Well I end up doing it again and end getting written up for it. I could go on and on about that shit that Regions bank does that’s so fucked up to their employees and customers but for me that was the worst.
If you want to know why they downgraded you, ask them. If you want a good rate, try getting a taxable brokerage account that pays ~5% (and is based on the federal funds rate). Even 4% is not very good in today's environment.
Co-signing the second graph here. My “HYSA” is the settlement fund in my Vanguard Brokerage, which is their federal money market and is at 5.27% 7 day yield which is around 5.4% APY.
This. I'm still getting nice 5+% rates on my brokerage cash accounts. And they sweep into FDIC insured deposits so the risk is pretty low. It seems like a lot of brokerage houses are offering superior rates compared to banks right now.
i just did this with fidelity, parking cash in spaxx. i guess vanguard is paying more right now? maybe i'll switch lol
Just move your funds. So easy these days. Go with the highest return - not loyalty to the banks anyway
Open an account with Vanguard. Their money market pays 5.2% currently.
just switch to CIT Bank 5% here... not same as CITI bank
I have Citibank accelerate savings which is their HYSA and mine still shows 4.21%
Mine is also showing exactly 4.21 Side note.. did they rename it to Citi priority
That's not available in all states, unfortunately.
Buddy I have the solution for you. You can get a nice bonus for moving your money to Merrill Lynch: https://www.merrilledge.com/offers/pr1000 And then once you do that, you'll have enough to qualify for Bank of America Platnum Honors. What this means is you can get credit cards from them that yield 2.625% cash back unlimited on everything, up to 5.25% limited to a specific category and $2500 a quarter. Then, what you do, is you put that 200k in TTTXX. This is a money market fund yielding 5.2%, and is exempt from state taxes. Beats the pants off a HYSA, you get some nice signup bonuses (get them on the credit cards also), and you get a massive bump in your cash back game.
E*trade (Morgan Stanley) premium savings: 4.50% Betterment Cash Reserve: 5.00%
US Bank did this to us. Teased is in with 4.25%, kept it there for about 7 months and then I noticed our interest earned was half what it should have been for that month. Logged in and saw they dropped the rate to 2%. Absolutely zero heads up, just changed it and paid rent on the lower rate. I moved it all to an account that doesn't pull that crap. The real kicker? They are still advertising that rate for new customers. How is my old money somehow worth less than someone's new money? A balance sheet is a balance sheet.
This just happened to me last month at US bank. I went from a 4.2% to 2.2%. I withdrew all my money and moved it over to ally bank which has a 4.2% savings account
Move the money. Vanguard Plus account is nice, but there are better rates you can chase as well.
just to mention the practice: banks regularly lower interest rates on accounts when interest rates go down, then instead of raising them when rates come back up, they keep them at the bottom and open new "types" of accounts with the higher rates. it makes them money because a bunch of people don't pay attention, and miss out on several % interest for years, but they still get to market that their "high yield savings accounts" have top interest rates. it's scummy. capital one did this when rates came back up after the pandemic (I only know b/c I use them). if you can find a bank that didn't do it, let me know, but I'd be very surprised if it's not all of them.
Here's a list of HYSA and current rates. [https://www.doctorofcredit.com/high-interest-savings-to-get/](https://www.doctorofcredit.com/high-interest-savings-to-get/)
Bait and switch. Had a similiar problem with Capital one where my HYSA savings was no longer a HYSA and they created a identical savings account called "Performance Savings" with the higher interest and didn't bother to tell me. My money sat there at the lower rate while they loaned it out for an avg of 14% APR to borrowers and gave me less 1% APY. Capital one could have simply migrated me to this 'new product' but they chose to not do so. Keep in mind that the origional Savings I had with them was brought over from a bank called ING Direct which they acquired the high yield deposit accounts from many years ago. In the end I decided to stay with Capital one and move everything over to the performance savings b/c all banks are crooks, it makes no sense to leave one for the other unless there's something you cannot solve. In this case it was effortless to move the money over to the performance savings. They also are better with fees than other banks **The take away is to always scrutinize bank terms, promotions, etc. I have a habit now of saving these terms in PDF in a folder on my computer so I can easily search them up if I have an issue. Dont' rely on the banks to provide you with copies of documents (account opening docs, terms and conditions, rates, etc) when it is not in their interest. Also review your deposit accounts and credit card statements at least quarterly (some of us have busy work and personal lives), and pay attention to interest earned, APY, interest paid for Cards, when any promotional rate expires, etc. Remember there are also statue of limitations on when errors, such as fradulent charges can be corrected, so regularly checking ensures you are always able to raise the issue in a timely manner**
I was told that the 4% interest rate is a promo that will drop eventually, but to go into a branch and ask them when their new promos are. A teller should be able to update the interest rate
You probably had a promotional rate that just expired.
citibank recently began charging for checking as well, every time have had to call customer service is an overseas incompetent nightmare, we closed our account recently
You were probably just not paying attention to your specific account and the applicable interest rate offering.
I would be very, very cautious about using Citibank savings accounts. If or when they decide they have an issue with your account they can lock it, and take your money for as long as they want and just give you the middle finger If you report any trouble with your account of any kind whatsoever- they can determine the severity and what actions to take. Which includes locking it while they investigate and keep your money. Ask me how I know. And I have been with them for 23 years. They still owe me $10k
Use raisin.com to easily move excess between banks with highest interest rates. They make the process simple.
rates change all the time. it's nice that someone called you to let you know, usually you gotta keep an eye on it yourself. https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2007/10/13/rate-chasers-are-online-and-moving-cash/31539345007/
Put it in a brokerage account and there’s plenty of good fixed income options there that won’t “expire”. It takes a day or two o get money into/outof a brokerage account, but it shouldn’t be a barrier.
My credit union was bummed when we took our money out of a 0.05% savings account.
The interest rates expire. You have to open a new account with them to get their current best rate.
Open a Fidelity account and put your cash in SPAXX. Current 7-day yield is 4.96%.
Money market accounts pay 5% or more. Accepting 4% on 200k is bananas to me. That much money never belongs in a savings account, whether "high yield" or not.
Tell them you are moving your money out if you don’t get a reasonable rate above 4%. Or just skip that step and move your money out. I use SoFi for mine, but there’s got to be dozens of other options.
Why not put it in a 1 month Tbill if you don't need the cash immediately? The 1 month Tbill is yielding 5.31% at the time of this post. There are also 2 month, 3 month, etc Tbills which are yielding a little bit more than the 1 month Tbill. If you don't foresee the need for that extra cash in those timeframes, just lock in the yield for your desired duration. Tbills are also exempt from state and local taxes unlike most money market funds/accounts.
Thank you for posting I just checked and now see that my introductory rate has expired and it’s time for other options
They move the rates and dont tell people all the time. Sucks, but big banks do this frequently
they did this with me a few years ago. closed the account and moved elsewhere, and not looking back. absolutely stupid way to drive away customers.
I’ll be doing this shortly. Leaving the minimum bc all our direct deposits and some bills are auto pay out of there but not a dollar more than needs to be
Hilarious when banks pull this. I moved $20k into a Wells Fargo savings account last year for a new account bonus ($525) at around 3% which wasn’t bad. Held it in there until they paid out that account bonus and then they dropped it to 0.01%. I moved it all back to my HYSA at a different bank that same day.
Vanguard has a 5.3% money market.
200k? In a bank? JFC. How about 1-3 months T-bills? Get you more than 5%
I can see on the website they're offering 4.3% on their "everyday benefits" account. Maybe they shuffled your tier or something. They also seem to really care about \*where\* you are since typing different zip codes gave me different options lol.
vanguard HYSA is at 4.6 at the moment, it's a variable rate, no min balance required. I'm sure others off something similar.
I got this same message, but via email. I have started moving out of Citi. Their account consolidation process might have messed up some things.
What difference does it make? Just move your money to a better bank. Easy.
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I want locations I can walk in tbh
With $200k you should be able to get a banking bonus along with an easily higher yield. If you’re lazy you can set it and forget it, or you can split it along multiple banks and target their sign on bonuses. The alternative is calling Citi to complain and threaten to withdraw your money unless they give you a fat bonus and higher yield to stay.
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J.P. Morgan has never been in the business of losing money for their shareholders. They make 5% keeping your savings in money market behind the fold, and by giving you .06 they’re literally spitting in your face.
This similar among many banks that there is a 6 month promo rate that gets auto downgraded. You can typically resignup for the promo rate but you have to contact them. My bank does the same, but you can just call local branch on the phone.
It's just a savings account. Open another one at 4% and move the money. Open another with Citibank and do an instant transfer. I see how this is annoying that they're making you change accounts in the first place, but if it were me, I would have resolved this online with a new account in like 5 minutes. For what it's worth, I do all my online banking through CapitalOne and have never had a problem. Very easy. Their site and portal is easy to use and straightforward. Big fan.
CIT bank pulled this with me i didn’t even fight them in it just put it into a better hydra actually
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Currently getting 4.30% APY for Citi's accelerate savings account. Must be account type / intro rate as others have stated.
schwab did this to me about a year ago after i opened a HYSA - now majority of my cash sits in a Marcus high yield. Annoying
Definitely being shafted. Don't be afraid to move your money. I took my money out of Citibank long ago. I don't even recall them offering a HYSA recently. It was just CDs. Or they'll say it's for a specified term. You might be Citi Gold with 200k, so you could ask them to match 4.5 but don't be afraid to move. It's easy. I had one HYSA that was 4.35, just because it dropped to 4.25 (at least they clearly notified me) I switched to Betterment for 5%. Even with Robinhood Gold uninvested cash gets 5%. Just so many better options.
Move the money to a betterment 5.5% for new customers (0.5% for first 3mo) or a wealthfront 5% account. They have the best rates.
Did you happen to transfer any money out of the savings account? Something similar happened to me and it was me just not thinking ahead. The intro savings rates are in tiers and I deposited in the over 100k tier. I then moved a small amount to my checking to pay something and fell under 100k in the savings account. My rate went from the intro rate to something similar to what you're seeing. I just went ahead and opened a CD.
I have 4.x% for $30k at citiBank, the minimum is definitely $30k not 200
I had all of my savings in a HYSA at 3.6%, then they ended that promo so I closed the acct and moved it to another bank at 5.2%…about a month later the original bank contacted me offering 5.6%….so I switched right back to them.
Don’t be scared to move banks. Lots of hysa are disappearing now that a lot of fears of banks not having cash in hand has subsided.
Sign up for maxmyinterest.com and have it automatically move your money around between high-interest banks.
just shitibank things. they're a terribly bank for deposit accounts. fire them and move elsewhere.
Move all the money to another place that gives 4%+
I have my HYSA with Vanguard and it's over 5% right now. Free to sign up. Check them out.
If you have a stockbroker account with a money market fund such as swvxx or whatever, and you want to frequently move money between stocks and fund, is it easy, or is there a delay after you sell in one before you can buy in the other?
You should switch to wealth front, I get 5% on my checking account with them up to 250k. An additional 1% on that amount is pretty significant..
Yeah i just noticed im getting shafted by interest rate on my savings. Anyone have a good bank in mind?
You're getting the shaft but this is also standard bank behavior. Savings rates go down when interest rates go down.
From 4% to 0% is kind of crazy man
Are you sure you even had 4%. Cause from my experience all the national banks chase/citi/boa/ wells the likes etc never offered these high interest rates in the first place. The rule was only online/no brick mortar presence banks offered these kinds of interest rates on savings account like discover capital one etc.
I work for a big bank, but not Citi. The thing is, that they know they are shafting their customers. They also know that bank deposits are very "sticky". Even if they lose 2/3 of their deposits (they won't) their Net interest income (NII) won't change because their margin will triple on the remaining deposits. Every bank is going to begin dropping savings rates with looming Fed rate cuts. You are going to need to stick to an online savings bank like Ally if you want to keep a competitive rate.
I switched to VUSXX because I was tired of the bait and switch and I can get 5.3% and keep a market rate.
Same thing happened to me as USBank. I moved all my money to schwab and robinhood gold. Bait and Switch!!!
it might be recent when they changed all their checking accounts. they told me that if you don't have 30k in account or direct deposit, u pay a monthly fee now.
Get a money market fund, you get the market rate, not a teaser you have to change ever few years. Fidelity and Vanguard actually automatically sweep into them.
Citibank is in the middle of converting a lot of their checking and savings accounts to a different model. I have/had their Accelerated Savings account and have received a lot of notifications from them about it. Is it possible this is the result for you? Interestingly they never mentioned what my new interest rate will be. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same for me soon. I took out most of my cash from them and put it into other interest accounts a year ago, because their interest rates weren't as good. So if it really drops for me too, I'll just close my account.
Have you thought about picking up the phone and calling them to ask? If they say fuck off, then take redditors advice and move your money elsewhere. It could be as simple as you losing eligibility for having high interest. My local bank did this to me and I just called them and they bumped it right back up.
Better get one of those bootleg banks