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@Zeiram wrote:
@Aim_High wrote:
@Zeiram wrote:I wish we had gotten one of these offers but at the time I needed an account that was easy to avoid fees on and didn't really have much money.
I'm getting ready to shut down the account as soon as my last paycheck goes in it and they start moving direct deposit to the new bank but I have another year until the fees start so I may just leave it open a while.
There was really no way to grow our money at PNC once it started coming in. The interest rates on their savings accounts are not great, the CD rates suck. (It's like the checking account, almost no interest, with the added bonus that you can't do anything with it for months or years. Why does PNC even have CDs?)
It looks like there are some good options for a large bank, @Zeiram.
- Their High Yield Savings Account earns 4.65% APY with no minimum balance requirement. That is very competitive.
- And the Growth account I mentioned, with the relationship rates, earns 4.00% APY.
- Like many large banks, their CD rates overall are unimpressive, but the first rate it showed me when I went to the CD rates page was 4.75% with a $1K minimum and no maximum limit on a four-month CD.
PNC doesn't offer the High Yield Savings in my ZIP code.
4% on Growth is at least 25 basis points below an online savings account at most banks.
CD rate of 4.75% is a promotional CD. I think you only get it once and can't renew into it. That makes it useless as a CD ladder and only useful for EXTREMELY short term savings. I got 5% as recently as a month ago on 6 and 8 month terms, and 5.15% on some 9 month terms and 5% on some 14 and 18 month terms a few months ago. While rates are falling, the 6 month has only fallen to 4.9% right now.
The short duration CDs are a risk in that you may not be able to get respectable interest rates again once they mature, which is why the banks are offering better yield.
Well, sorry to hear that the HYSA isn't available in your area, @Zeiram. 
I did see it was not available nationwide.
Unfortunately, for some reason, it seems the big national banks tend not to have the best CD rates as a whole. They sometimes offer these teaser rates to get deposits, perhaps hoping someone not paying attention will just leave it there. But what I've found with laddering is that often the top rate at one term, such as 12 months, is not at same lender where I can find the top rate at another term such as 36 months. And of course, rates are a moving target. So chasing the best package of rates often requires a compromise to keep from continually having to move money around. It's much easier to have the best ladder set up at one institution, even if that means some small sacrifice of return.
Similarly, if 25 basis points on an account is that big of a deal, of course go elsewhere. But 25 basis points or 0.0025% works out to $2.50 per year on a $1,000 deposit, or even at $100K deposit it's just $250. (You also said your deposits were not that high, so how much money were you losing out on?) Again, the problem with rate chasing is that someone is always going to have a "new" and "better" rate but ... are they offering a teaser rate just to get you to move your money, and then they will lower it? Some HYSAs are known to do something akin to this where they open a new "type" of account offering a higher yield while lowering the yield on the older accounts. It's all games. And sometimes, the highest yields are with some upstart unknown institution on the other side of the country with poor customer service, fees, or cumbersome policies for accessing your deposit. I prefer to work with stable large lenders who don't play these games, but who offer a competitive rate.
So I thought "no way to grow our money at PNC" was a little extreme, since 4% on a basic savings account is actually quite high and nearly competitive with average HYSA rates. True, not quite as high as some of the online HYSAs, but quite high for a large national brick-and-mortar bank where you can also have checking accounts and the ability to bank in-person. There is something to be said for consolidating accounts at fewer institutions. PNC's 4% beats the rates at some of the large credit unions like PenFed's premium online savings (3%) and Navy FCU's Jumbo Money Market Savings Account (2.25%). And all of those tower over the piddly "savings" rates at most of the large banks of 0.01 to 0.02 percent. A savings account paying 4% that is tied with easy instanteous transfer access to a related checking account is a great place to keep some funds for contingencies. Larger invested funds could be kept in the HYSA, CDs, or other investments elsewhere. So I see a place for these "lesser" savings accounts that pay 2% to 4%. I can move money immediately into my checking at any of these but moving from a non-related HYSA may take a few days or longer to post. Is there a minor loss of interest? Sure. But the trade-off in access to my money if I need it is worth a small sacrifice.
I agree that it sounds like PNC is not a good fit for you, so maybe you need to have a checking account at a small local credit union where you bypass fees on it with a smaller balance and then keep most of your savings in a HYSA tied to that. For me, the point of this posting and new accounts wasn't finding a new home bank; it was about taking advantage of a great SUB and greasing the wheels for a card application. But IMO, PNC seems to be a pretty good place to bank between the large nationals.
@BearsCubsOtters wrote:I am sure as #1 Credit Dad you know the ins and outs of the sign-up bonuses; but:
I attempted a $400 sign up bonus for PNC Virtual Wallet back in 2020 using my tried and true NFCU ACH transfers into PNC. Coded as direct deposit but they did not count towards what PNC considered qualifying direct deposits and as such, I did not earn the bonus. NFCU ACH worked for Wells Fargo x2; Capital One 360; US Bank, KeyBank and Bank of The West but not PNC. At the time, Chase and Capital One 360 ACH were working. That link that someone else provided to Doctor of Credit is a great resource if attempting checking sign up bonuses and even includes a list of What Counts as a Direct Deposit. With PNC, I would ensure the method you use has verified success.
Thanks for the reminder, @BearsCubsOtters. Good to see you back on the forums. 
Yes, I plan to set up a payroll direct deposit from my employer to make sure it satisfies PNC's requirements. But probably only let it run one or two cycles before I redirect it.
@Aim_High wrote:Well, sorry to hear that the HYSA isn't available in your area, @Zeiram.
Unfortunately, for some reason, it seems the big national banks tend not to have the best CD rates as a whole. They sometimes offer these teaser rates to get deposits, perhaps hoping someone not paying attention will just leave it there. But what I've found with laddering is that often the top rate at one term, such as 12 months, is not at same lender where I can find the top rate at another term such as 36 months. And of course, rates are a moving target. So chasing the best package of rates often requires a compromise to keep from continually having to move money around. It's much easier to have the best ladder set up at one institution, even if that means some small sacrifice of return.
Similarly, if 25 basis points on an account is that big of a deal, of course go elsewhere. But 25 basis points or 0.0025% works out to $2.50 per year on a $1,000 deposit, or even at $100K deposit it's just $250. (You also said your deposits were not that high, so how much money were you losing out on?) Again, the problem with rate chasing is that someone is always going to have a "new" and "better" rate but ... are they offering a teaser rate just to get you to move your money, and then they will lower it? Some HYSAs are known to do something akin to this where they open a new "type" of account offering a higher yield while lowering the yield on the older accounts. It's all games. And sometimes, the highest yields are with some upstart unknown institution on the other side of the country with poor customer service, fees, or cumbersome policies for accessing your deposit. I prefer to work with stable large lenders who don't play these games, but who offer a competitive rate.
So I thought "no way to grow our money at PNC" was a little extreme, since 4% on a basic savings account is actually quite high and nearly competitive with average HYSA rates. True, not quite as high as some of the online HYSAs, but quite high for a large national brick-and-mortar bank where you can also have checking accounts and the ability to bank in-person. There is something to be said for consolidating accounts at fewer institutions. PNC's 4% beats the rates at some of the large credit unions like PenFed's premium online savings (3%) and Navy FCU's Jumbo Money Market Savings Account (2.25%). And all of those tower over the piddly "savings" rates at most of the large banks of 0.01 to 0.02 percent. A savings account paying 4% that is tied with easy instanteous transfer access to a related checking account is a great place to keep some funds for contingencies. Larger invested funds could be kept in the HYSA, CDs, or other investments elsewhere. So I see a place for these "lesser" savings accounts that pay 2% to 4%. I can move money immediately into my checking at any of these but moving from a non-related HYSA may take a few days or longer to post. Is there a minor loss of interest? Sure. But the trade-off in access to my money if I need it is worth a small sacrifice.
I agree that it sounds like PNC is not a good fit for you, so maybe you need to have a checking account at a small local credit union where you bypass fees on it with a smaller balance and then keep most of your savings in a HYSA tied to that. For me, the point of this posting and new accounts wasn't finding a new home bank; it was about taking advantage of a great SUB and greasing the wheels for a card application. But IMO, PNC seems to be a pretty good place to bank between the large nationals.
Our situation has improved a lot since 2019. At the time we were not missing much but when interest rates started going up, we had savings piling up at PNC that weren't doing much, so we moved it all out.
