High-Yield Reward Checking Account at Florida Central Credit Union

Update 4/8/2011: The top rate now requires a loan balance

Florida Central Credit Union has started a reward checking account called Ultimate Checking. It pays 4.50% APY on balances up to $15K (1% over) and refunds ATM fees if the following monthly requirements are met: 1) 12 check card transactions, 2) one direct deposit or ACH auto debit, 3) receive electronic statements and 4) Have a loan balance of at least $5,000. If all but the loan requirement is not met, the rate falls to 3.51% APY. If other requirements are not met, the rate falls to 0.10%. There are no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements.

Membership is open to anyone who lives or works in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Polk, Manatee, Sarasota, DeSoto, or Charlotte counties. Update 11/09/10: Also included are the counties of Orange and Lake. Please refer to the credit union's membership page for more details. Membership requires a minimum deposit of $5 into your share savings account.

Branches are located in the Florida cities of Tampa, Brandon, Lakeland, Largo, Port Charlotte and St. Petersburg. The credit union is federally insured by the NCUA (Charter # 67668). It has $204.5 million in assets and 34,332 members.

Other Reward Checking Accounts

To learn more about reward checking accounts, please refer to my High Yield Reward Checking Reviews post. For other reward checking accounts in other parts of the country, please see my reward checking account page and my best checking account post.

Rate History:

• 04/08/11: 4.50% APY up to $15K (with loan balance); 3.51% (w/o loan balance); 1% over; 0.10% base (not sure when these changes happened)
• 11/30/09: 4.50% APY up to $15K
• 08/31/09: 4.50% APY
• 04/05/09: 5.01% APY
• 11/08/07: 6.01% APY up to $25K