cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

5% Savings Account through NetSpend

tag
lameanda
Member

5% Savings Account through NetSpend

Hello all! I apologize if this is out of place but I wanted to share in case anyone else wanted an opportunity to make more than 1% on their savings. 

 

NetSpend has some pre-paid cards that will pay 5% (interest pays out quarterly) on funds up to $5,000. 

 

The details (taken from http://www.doctorofcredit.com/netspend-5-savings-accounts-on-up-to-5000)

 

  • Interest Rate: 5% APY
  • Minimum Balance: None
  • Maximum Balance: $5,000 (any portion of the balance above $5k will get .50% APY)
  • Payments: Issued quarterly
  • Availability: Nationwide
  • Direct deposit required: No
  • Additional Requirements: Initial $500 ACH transfer (see below)
  • Hard/soft pull: Soft
  • Credit card funding: No
  • Monthly fees: None
  • Insured: FDIC
  • Length of promotion: Unknown

In order to be eligible for the 5%, you need to make a direct deposit (I just opened mine and did a regular ACH from my credit union and it qualified) of $500 or more to  initiate "premier" status. 

 

As far as monthly fees go, there are two plans available:

  1. Pay-as-you-go plan. Under this plan, you pay $1 per signature transaction and $2 per PIN transaction. You pay no fees if you don’t make any purchases with the card.
  2. Monthly fee plan. It’s $5 for Premier cardholders (more on being Premier below), and $9.95 for non-Premier cardholders. There are then no fees per transaction at all.

For those of us who just want the prepaid card for the 5% savings account benefit, the best option is to go with the pay-as-you-go plan. You’ll end up with no fees whatsoever, no signup/activation/monthly fees at all.

Other possible fees:

  • $.50 fee for checking the card balance with a CSR or at an ATM. (All online services are free.)
  • $3.95 card replacement fee.

Inactivity Fee

The one fee to be aware of is a 90-day inactivity fee of $5.95. To remedy this, you need to make sure there is some sort of activity on the debit card every 90-days. You can buy a $.50 Amazon gift card every 90-days or you can set up an ACH pull/push of $1 from your checking account into the prepaid every 90-days.

It’s likely that transferring money from the saving to the prepaid or vice versa will satisfy the inactivity requirement. Similarly, it’s likely that if there is no money in the prepaid account, the inactivity fee doesn’t apply and they won’t put your account into a negative balance. [Prepaid cards often have inactivity fees as a means of draining unused cards, not as a penalty for inactivity.]

 

(Mod Cut-Im sorry referral links are taboo on myFico thanks for your understanding on this.)

 

Non-referral link: https://www.wunetspendprepaid.com/

2 REPLIES 2
RonM21
Valued Contributor

Re: 5% Savings Account through NetSpend

Thanks for the info!


Total CL: $321.7kUTL: 2%AAoA: 7.0yrsBaddies: 0Other: Lease, Loan, *No Mortgage, All Inq's from Jun '20 Car Shopping

BoA-55k | NFCU-45k | AMEX-42k | DISC-40.6k | PENFED-38.4k | LOWES-35k | ALLIANT-25k | CITI-15.7k | BARCLAYS-15k | CHASE-10k

Message 2 of 3
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: 5% Savings Account through NetSpend

Thank you for this info - I had no idea!

Message 3 of 3
Advertiser Disclosure: The offers that appear on this site are from third party advertisers from whom FICO receives compensation.