Checking Account Offers

If you’re looking for checking account offers, this hub provides up to the minute details on some of the offers you can expect to find in the current marketplace.  In this time of ultra-low interest rates, it’s hard to find any type of bank account, not less a checking account, that offers significant interest producing opportunities.  That said there are often certain perks that banks, credit unions, and financial institutions offer to entice you to do your checking at their location, and those types of checking account offers can be significant. 

Gone are the days where you might have received a free toaster, or something as corny as that, for opening a checking account.  Nowadays, customers are looking for completely free checking with no fees associated, online banking and bill pay, quick and efficient customer service, and much more.  Here is a sampling of a few current types of checking account offers and what specific banks are offering:

Reward checking accounts are those that offer you incredible interest rates and big incentives to open an account (often around $150 in cash).  The catch is that there are often about a dozen “small print” terms such as a minimum number of debit card transactions you must pay each month and a minimum number of automatic bill payments and direct deposits you must have coming into and out of the account. 

From the banks perspective, these accounts are huge money makers, as most banks make large sums of money off the fees that these types of transactions incur.  But they must be certain that they are going to get these minimum monthly fees, or it isn’t worth the investment to the banks to give you 10 times the normal interest rates offered to a checking account customer.  It is ultimately a mutually beneficial situation for the bank and the customer, especially if the customer was going to complete those monthly transactions anyway. 

An example currently (as of 9/19/2010) is Sovereign Bank is offering a $150 bonus, in cash, for any customer who opens a checking account and a money market account.  Their “fine print” is that it must be with a $100 minimum deposit to open both the checking and money market accounts, you have to enroll in online banking when you open the account, and you must make either 5 debit card transactions or enroll in direct deposit for your paychecks within 60 days of opening the account. 

There are dozens of current banks throughout the country offering over 3% interest rate on rewards checking accounts, generally up to a $25,000 balance, but in some cases only up to a $10,000 balance.  You can find many of them at depositaccounts.com, where they list the top rated checking account offers, which they update on a daily basis.  Another essential site to determine the best checking account offers is ratenerd.com.  These sites will give you direct links to the banks’ websites with specific information on the latest offers.