Bank of America now has their own high-yield savings account, though with a minimum balance. You won’t find it advertised though, it’s tucked away in their new My Expressions banking section. If you click around the various organizations, you’ll see a variety of checking/savings combos with different interest rates. The two highest I found were the Humane Society and the Defenders of Wildlife. Here are the current rates for those two groups as of 9/17 for Oregon:
You need $1,000 to open, and a minimum daily balance of $2,500 to avoid a $12 monthly maintenance fee. If you already bank with BofA and can always keep $2,500 in savings, this looks like a great way to boost your interest rate from the usual piddly 0.20%. Be sure to look at the ‘Money Market Savings’ account, not the ‘Regular Savings’ account. Can’t find it? It took me a while too, so I went ahead and made a video showing how to locate the account online.
If you are already have a BofA account you can login at the bottom and have the application pre-filled for you. New customers will experience a hard credit pull. Per a phone call, you don’t need to be a member of the actual association to apply for the account. I just hope these high rates don’t disappear once everyone finds out about them! (Though I’m not helping…) Thanks goes to Trice and BankDeals.
Update on 9/21: The rates have dropped to a range of 4.65% for $2,500+ to 5.01% APY for $50,000+.
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I wonder if $25K in this account qualifies you for free trades in their brokerage. It was their low rates that made that deal worthless in the past.
I’m pretty sure it would, but what happens if they lower the rates substantially in the future? Seems like too much of a gamble for me.
If you have 25k and want free trades I’d much rather go with Wells Fargo, since you can hold 25k in anything including money market funds, ETFs, and index funds. Wells also includes free mutual fund trades so you could hold money market funds from Vanguard which have a decent yield.
I would agree that it is more likely that BofA changes their yield before WellsFargo changes their terms. Of course you could always liquidate your positions and transfer the proceeds out if that happens. And with both Wells and BofA’s offers, I believe you only need $25K in there when you actually make a trade, not to maintain the account. Anyone use BofA’s brokerage that can tell me if you can specify which shares to sell (tax lots)?
Nonetheless, the timing (coinciding with FNBO’s rate change) as well as the way they are hiding the offer makes me think that BofA is trying to court us rate chasers. Similar to how FNBO’s offer coincided with the end of HSBC’s.
Is the account FDIC insured?
So if we’re a current customer, opening this won’t result in a hard credit pull?
Mike, BofAI sure does offer the option to sell tax lots / specific shares, although I have never actually sold specific shares myself.
The affinity money market account on the BoA, N.A. side definitely counts toward the 25k for free trades on the BofAI side. But, you have to make sure that the account is “linked”. BoA is not easy about this; I couldn’t figure out how to link it myself online, so I had someone do it either in person or via a phonecon.
I haven’t ever looked into Wells Fargo; any comments on their brokerage service? BofAI restricts fee-free mutual funds trading to a universe of about 5000 funds; not bad, but of course all the best money market funds are not present in that list of 5000.
Since the rates are in tiers, they only look good if you plan to put in 30+k…
Steve-thanks for the info. What is your experience with bank-to-bank transfers with BofA? How many days lost interest?
aa- Sure the interest rate is tiered, but let’s give credit where credit is due. A 5.33+APY with a $2500 minimum balance is extremely competitive, especially coming from a trusted (not likely to fail) name like BofA. The higher yield on larger balances is a bonus.
“The two highest I found” i know you credit bankdeals and all, but come on, all the sites like fatwallet have outed these two groups
plus it’s 5.71% for some states
Re: ACH transfers involving BoA. I use USAA for my central/hub account, and they immediately credit ACH transfers pulled (initiated via their site) from BoA (or any other bank) to USAA. As for my ACH transfers pushed from USAA to BoA, I have seen the credit show at BoA occasionally 2, usually 3, business days later. (What I haven’t tried is linking my USAA account to my BoA profile, and attempting a USAA->BoA ACH transfer, initated from BoA.)
This is great info Jonathan, keep up the good work
Hmmm………..I think I saw $50K layin’ around the other day.
It was either under the cushions on the loveseat or maybe I saw it between the seat & center console in the car.
I dunno…….I’ll see what I can dig up. There’s always a few K layin’ around here somewhere……;)
I just called BofA re the money market savings and a free checking acct (“MyAccess”). The lady w/ whom I spoke said there is no hard credit pull for any checking or savings acct. Only for credit cards, home mortgages, etc. I asked if the reason there was no hard pull was b/c I am an existing credit card holder w/ BoA and she said ‘No. No hard pull is performed’. So if you are opening one of these you may want to check yourself.
She also recommended that if I do free checking and savings (savings can be regular or money market) that I sign up for the “keep the change” deal. In a nutshell, you can get up to $250 free money after 1 year by using your acct’s check card extensively. (Details are on the site on the Money Market Savings page at the bottom.) $250 free sounds good but I think I’d only achieve something like $30-45 based on how they match your funds. Anyway, a possibility for people who do large #’s of txns and who also want checking and savings w/ BofA.
The way that the hard pull was explained to me by BofA is this – If you open it up an additional account in branch and have all your ID for them to verify, then there is no hard pull. Buy if you open it up online, they will do a credit check to prove your identity, unless you sign in. Not sure if that made sense… basically they want some form of ID verification.
I definitely got a hard pull when I opened up a new account online but without signing in about a year ago. I was mad because I already even had a previous account with them. They might have changed things, but I am always wary of what one CSR said, especially when it conflicts with another one, and my own direct experience. Just my opinion.
Keep the Change has been around for a while, some people did a lot of gas pumping at $1.01 to get all $250!
Peform 256 one cent transactions from one paypal account (set up with zero funds and your BOA debit card as backup) to another paypal account. You lose the pennies, but you will get credit for 99 cents for “keep the change”.
After you finish with one, sign up for another checking and savings accounts and do it again.
I’m looking at about a grand coming to me next year.
Jonathan, not to be a dick but thanks for this “finding” should really go to Hustlermoneyblog. You recently had a post about Where to move your money after FNBO 6%. On 9/11 I commented on that recent post, in my comments I mentioned that Hustler had posted about an BOA MM Savings account which was yeilding 5.71. Looks like their rates are already trickleing downward. You do read the replies/comments to your posts right?
goldsink – I did see your comment. What you don’t see is that I get tips about new rates and products every single day, usually via e-mail. Sometimes I post about it right away, but most of the times I’m busy and can’t. Sometimes I write a draft and don’t finish it for a couple of days, sometimes I want to do some of my own research first to confirm a couple of things before posting. Sometimes I just forget! In this case, I wanted to wait to see if it would disappear after a couple of days or have a “catch” (misprint, must have special membership, etc.), and then on Monday morning I called to confirm some details with my own BofA branch. Previous versions of this money market account have had both specific membership requirements and the existence had not been communicated to branches, so people have had a lot of trouble getting the actual interest paid to their accounts.
I can assure you that I saw this deal on BankDeals before receiving your comment. Ken’s post was on 9/7, four days before your comment, although I didn’t see it until writing the post you mention. I didn’t include it because the rates were not higher than Everbank or IndyMac, and the minimum was $50k. There are lots of other banks with rates better than BofA and lower than IndyMac that I didn’t include. I do not claim to be the very first person to happen on this deal, and I doubt neither does Hustler. This deal is on SD, FW, DC, BS, all the deals sites that nobody can keep track of who ripped who. Finding the original source for anything is nearly impossible. I credited where I found it first. Where did H find out about this? Did he stumble upon this all on his own? Did he credit anybody in his post? Nope. Does he credit sometimes? Yep. Chances are he found it in multiple places, as is often the case. We all credit what we can, nobody’s perfect, and in the end, the important thing is that the deal is shared to people who can benefit from it.
Case in point – I recently got an e-mail from a anonymous person claiming to be an FNBO employee with details of the new upcoming rate after 9/28. The IP address checks out as coming from the bank’s IP range. Is this a true statement or misinformation? I don’t know, so I decided not to post it. If this person also decides to leak it to another blogger, how do I know who he/she contacted first? Who gets the “scoop”?
Just my two cents — I don’t care who found what first – I’m just vry thankful for the hard work that goes into researching the information and sharing it for those like me who are new to all of this but want to get ahead.
I am also thankful for your post. Even though I also saw the same information on FW but I always have to do a little digging through the long reply in the post over there. But if I see it posted here by Jonathan, I know every single little detail I will need to know has already been verified by Jonathan and feel confident and no doubt about the deal. Again, thank you so much for your good work!
Hmm, I wonder how fast our savings rates will drop with the new (and excessive) 50 basis point cut from the Feds today…
“This deal is on SD, FW, DC, BS,…” Can you please define these acronyms for me please!?
There is a place for an Offer code. Does anyone have a code to put in there and what is the deal?
Money Market Savings not available for CA residents it looks like.
Thanks for the tip. I just opened a Penn State Alumni Money Market Savings account… goodbye HSBC, hello extra $30 a month!. I am surprised they buried this account behind the normal savings. Just last week I signed up for the My Expressions Penn State Checking Account and never noticed there were two types of savings accounts listed. The CSR even asked if I wanted to add savings as well and I said no, thinking they only had the measly 0.51% savings rate. I?ll let you know if I had any problems!
Thanks for the info on this account but everyone has dropped the ball on a very important point. You can fund this with any Mastercard or Visa when you open the account. With that you earn points and if the rate is low you can earn over 5% while you pay it back. I have a new BOA Visa with a rate of 1.9% for a year, do the math! Oh, I almost forgot there is no cash advance fee on this, talk about a money maker!
This may not be new, but the BOA Money Market savings account has a minimum daily balance requirement of $2500 to avoid $12 monthly fee. You need some real money to get a good APY on your money, and yet, rates can change at any time without prior notice. I’m not sure how long they were offering these rates, but now with Fed Funds Rate dropped by 50-basis points, who knows? So, if you have a love for BOA, and you dont have 50k or more, but more than $5k, it may pay to consider their high yield CD (a 4-month term at a promotional online APY of 5.45% (depending on your state residence).?
Their rates just dropped
As of today, the $50k APY is 5.01
In the money market savings under Pricing (not regular one) for BoA going through My Expression Banking through Charitable Causes it says: Keep $2,500 in your account and avoid the $0 monthly service charge. WTF?!! Avoid the $0 monthly service charge??? So is there no monthly service charge?
Hey, thats kinda annoying to set up the account on a friday & watch the rates drop once the account’s finalized on a monday, but thats what apparently happened to me. Rates dropped from 5.2% to 4.55% for the $2500 minimum (TX). I got on the phone and talked to their customer service folks & they tell me that interest rates are changed on a weekly basis based on key financial indicators. Back to my main question: is this a form of false advertising? If so, what recourses are available.
BofA has never impressed me. I guess I’ll just need to keep watching.
E Perez,
No, it’s not false advertising. It would be false advertising if they said “5.69% through Monday”. It is unreasonable to assume that a money market return lasts forever.
Interesting.
DEAD deal
I applied for the account and talked to a sales rep and they said you have to qualify for the accounts by being a member of the orgainization. You can’t not get the deal unless you are a member of the defenders of wildlife, ETC
that is what the sales rep told me after being on the phone for almost 2 hours
Some caution in dealing with BofA. They constantly use the shell game approach to there products to get new business while treating existing customers poorly. They also try to find creative ways to drive service fee revenue higher. I’ve been a long time customer and last year I saw that their Money Market rate was 5.18% which was higher than there CDs so I went into my bank and had my account updated. About a month later the rate dropped significantly and today it’s 2.75%. This is not their Balance Rewards MMS which is a scam since it pays lower base interest and a low bonus based on the minimum 12 month balance, not average (and no compounding either since it’s paid annually).
Today I can’t get the tiered rate info on my existing account because the account is no longer being offered t onew customers. The only way to get the rate info is to go into my bank since phone or online banking personnel cannot find this info (I’ve tried several times). You would think I need that info to make banking decisions. I can find numerous rates on all these other accounts like My Expressions but they won’t make it available for mine.
When I saw this My Expressions rate I went into my bank this week and asked to get it. She couldn’t pull it up and it kept trying to switch me to the inferior Balance Rewards account so she called her support line. The response was the typical “That rate is only for New Accounts opened Online”. That’s the same response I get when I ask for the offered CD rates on their website.
BTW, I’m a Premier client which means they want me to put more of my assets with them for things like brokerage accounts, etc. yet they won’t give me the same rates that they offer to anyone off the street. I’ve actually moved most of my money out of the bank at this point because I’m tired of this shell game.
If you get one of these accounts watch it closely because I’ll bet the rate will drop like a rock without notice.
Hi Brent,
Based on your story, I just talked to a BOA rep about the status of my account with them & whether I qualify or not for their APY and Interest rates. In the eventuality that I didnt qualify, I became a member of the Defenders of Wildlife org ($20 is cheap if the interest rates are good) so that I could make sure that they gave me what I paid for. I was told by the rep (and told to tell you and others) that you dont need to be a D of W member in order to qualify for the rates. The relationship between BOA and sponsor orgs is fostered in such a way that when you use your debit cards to make purchases, a certain percentage of your purchase will be matched by BOA and donated to the org of your choice. Short answer-the lady told you wrong. All you have to do is get the debit card that’ll tie you to your MMA & whether you make purchases on it or not, you’ll have access to the rates youre supposed to.
Perez, E
Question, if this account was opened before the interest rates drop, shouldn’t I still be able to have the 5.2% or so as my rate? I opened it online and went through the steps but it looks like my account was not set up like the Defenders of Wildlife and is just the regular money market account. I am correct in saying that you don’t have to be a member of DoW right? If so, what steps should I take to make this account the right one?
signed up 9/20 for Defenders of Wildlife account at BOA center. Showed them on line which account I wanted and gave them a tier rate print out of the above account. Statement shows Balance Rewards MMA. Does anyone know how the Defenders of Wildlife account is supposed to read on the statement? On line rep says Defender of Wildlife is a Balance Rewards account. Doesn’t seem to know rates, accounts, or the wisdom to know the difference.
I posted on 10/4 above about my experience trying to get this MMS account. Well I called my bank rep yesterday on a separate issue regarding my current MMS account – the interest rate on my latest statement (1.78%) was below what that account should be getting (2.75%). She gave me the number of BoA Customer Solutions to get expedited assistance: 866-275-3074 option 6.
After discussing my immediate issue and getting on the topic of general customer service problems, the topic of these Affinity accounts came up and I told her I was unable to get this special account rate when I tried 2 weeks ago. She told me she could do it. I chose the Humane Society MMS account (the same rates as DoW) which offers 4.61% APY at $10K+. She called me back 10 minutes later and confirmed that my MMS account has been switched to that Affinity product with no other changes, i.e. no new ATM card, no new checking account, no new account numbers, etc.
If you’re having problems getting this product call the Customer Solutions number above – they seem to be the most effective at addressing customer issues.
sorry but two calls to BOA using that number resulted in them telling me the rate was 3%. Then the second said he really didn’t have access to the screen of Defender of Wildlife MMA that I was looking at.
Told me to call internet banking at 1-800-933-6262 and she was able to access the website and my statement and confirmed I was getting the 4.61%APY today. I did call early in the week and put a formal request in to BOA to see if I was getting that rate because my statement says 3%.
No one at the banking centers or branches has this account on their main sheets and they haven’t been trained to recognize this type of account.
You’re just lucky if you get what you ask for.
THIS IS NO LONGER VALID…1.29% NOW!
Are My Expression money market accounts with BOA
still earning high interest? If so how does one access them?
No one there will acknowledge these accounts exist.
Are there any other money market programs out there paying high interest today?
Best wishes.
This should be taken down. Incredibly outdated.