Update: Rate has since dropped to 3.75% APY as of 8/16/22, and they have also stopped accepting application from people joining via a membership in the EFCU Financial Foundation or the Louisiana Wildlife Federation. Hope some folks got in that were interested. Thanks to reader Hugo for the heads up.
Original post:
EFCU Financial Federal Credit Union has some top certificate rates effective 8/11/22. NCUA-insured. Found via DepositAccounts. Here are the rate highlights:
- Regular 60-month certificate 4.00% APY ($500 minimum)
- Regular 60-month certificate 4.10% APY (Jumbo $100k minimum)
- IRA 60-month certificate 4.10% APY ($500 minimum)
- IRA 60-month certificate 4.20% APY (Jumbo $100k minimum)
- Also available: 12-month, 18-month, and 24-month at 3.00% APY, 30-month CD at 3.25% with one-time rate bump allowed.
More details:
- Early withdrawal penalty for 60-month certificate is 180 days of dividends.
- Hard credit pull with a new membership application.
- Must keep $5 minimum in Share Savings account as long as you are a credit union member.
Membership eligibility. Their eligibility criteria is open to anyone nationwide. Persons who live, work, worship, or attend school in these nine Louisiana Parishes can join for free: East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Ascension, East Feliciana, West Feliciana, Iberville, Livingston, Point Coupee, St. Helena. Anyone nationwide can join EFCU Financial with a membership in the EFCU Financial Foundation or the Louisiana Wildlife Federation. The cost is $35 for an annual membership.
Good deal? This is a very competitive CD rate for a 5-year CD, approximately 35 basis points higher than the next best rate. For comparison, as of 8/12/22, the 5-year Treasury bond rate is 2.97%. The hard credit pull and $35 entry fee make it better for high balances to make it worth the trouble.
Based on their website and mobile app, they appear to be using the same backend software as many other credit unions.
As with past credit union certificate deals, I would still recommend acting fast if you are interested. It’s a good enough deal that it is quite possible that there will be enough new applications to overwhelm their limited staff (and deposit needs). You might pony up $35, start the application process, take the credit pull hit, and have the deal fall apart before you can fund the certificate. I’m not saying this will happen, but it is possible. Of course, it is also possible that this is only the start of multiple places offering 4% APY CDs.
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Thank you, is it worth breaking a 3% CD /60months with Andrews, signed up pre-covid?
Assuming a 180-day dividends penalty, breaking a 3% CD would be worth it for a 4% CD. Using $10,000 as an example. You’d lose somewhere in the range of $175 for a year 3 penalty.
You’d make $1,616 at 3% and $2,210 at 4%, so the increased interest of $594 would be more than the penalty.
Thank you, Mike.
I’d rather get some blue chip dividend growth stocks with 5 years.
Checkedrate today 16 Aug 2022, and it as already gone down to 3.75%. Not bad but they don’t garantee rate after acccount is opened.
Thanks Hugo, I was hoping it would last through the end of the week but they probably got bombarded.
I have opened a few CDs online with ETFCU and it is not a smooth process. They are not really an online bank and their technology is pretty lacking. Be forewarned that you may end up never getting your account opened. Of the 4 CDs I have tried to open, only 2 were ever funded due to failures on their side.
Have they now removed the nationwide eligibility for the new membership?