How to Get 4.85% 1-year CD at ebank

ebank's latest CD rates are competitive. I've confirmed that these rates do not include the 0.25% extra interest for customers with ePremium checking accounts. The following are the CD rates for ePremium checking customers:

APY     Term
4.40%   3-month
4.60%   6-month
4.85%   12-month
4.90%   18-month
5.00%   30-month

The minimum deposit requirement is $1K. The early withdrawal penalties are 90 days of interest for CDs of one year and under. CDs of over one year have a 180 day interest penalty.

ePremium checking account requires a minimum daily balance of $2.5K or an average daily balance of $5K to avoid a $10/mo fee. However, keeping $2.5K in this account isn't too bad since it currently earns 3.0% interest. There are also some nice checking account perks including no ATM fees for using any other bank's ATM and free ebank custom checks.

Note, there are two limitations on ATMs: Only 6 withdrawals per calendar month at other bank's ATMs are without any transaction fees. There's a $300 maximum daily withdrawal/purchase limit.

The only negative that I see is that there's no mention of ACH linking capability. To make a deposit requires either mailing a check, a wire transfer, or direct deposit. However, you could link an ING Direct account to the ePremium checking account and push/pull money through ING.

ebank may actually be better than EmigrantDirect for savings

Based on current rates at ebank and EmigrantDirect, you would lose 1% on at least $2.5K that's in the ePremium checking account vs. an EmigrantDirect savings account.

However, with ebank, you could gain between 0.40% to 0.85% over EmigrantDirect by having your money in short term CDs rather than a savings account.

Let's assume that the average difference over one year between an ebank CD and an EmigrantDirect savings account is 0.40%. The size of the CD to equal the money lost on ePremium checking would have to be $6250 ($2500 * 0.01 = $25, $25 / 0.004 = $6250).

So if you have the minimum in the ePremium checking account along with at least $6250 in short term ebank CDs, you'll likely come out ahead with ebank over EmigrantDirect. In addtion, you'll have free ATM access and free checks.

If you have over $100K, it's even easier to beat EmigrantDirect. ebank's ePremier Money Market is paying 4.15% APY on balances over $100K. The rates go way down, however, for smaller deposits.