$50 Checking Account Bonus at Patelco Credit Union

Patelco Credit Union has a $50 checking account promotion for new Patelco Checking accounts opened with $100 minimum monthly direct deposit. Bonus will be credited to checking account with active direct deposit three months after account opening.

This promo doesn't seem to be listed at Patelco's website. I just received an email from Patelco about this (I'm a Patelco member). I called Patelco (800-358-8228) and was told that any member (new or existing) who doesn't have a checking account qualifies. Any of their three checking accounts qualifies including their Free Checking. The email states that the account can be opened by phone or at one of their branches. The CSR said you can also open it online. It's a limited time offer, but the CSR said that it just started and she expects it to last for at least a month or two. According to the CSR, there's no hard credit inquiry for opening a checking account. They just do ChexSystem verification.

Patelco still has a 7.00% APY 12-month new member certificate special. The maximum deposit for this 7% CD is only $1,000, but it's easy to open when you join. You can look at it like a $30 bonus which is what you would earn over a 4% account. I haven't seen any other Patelco CD promos since they ended the 5.50% 9-month CD special in early January. Their standard CD rates have been competitive, but they've been going down more than some other credit unions since the recent Fed rate cuts. Currently, the top yield is 4.07% APY for terms of 48 to 60 months.

Membership is open to anyone who joins the California Association for Older Americans. This is described at the bottom of their Eligibility page:

Anyone can join this association, regardless of age or geographic location. Just indicate California Association for Older Americans on your application.

There's no cost to join this association. For details about joining Patelco, please refer to my Patelco review post.

Branches are primarily in California with one branch in the Chicago Metro area. At the start of 2008, Patelco officially switched from private insurance to federal insurance, and it's now NCUA insured (Charter # 68579). It's one of the nation's largest credit unions with $4.1 billion in assets and 242,093 members.

Tags: Patelco Credit Union, California, checking account