High-Yield Reward Checking Account at Farmers Citizens Bank in Ohio - Local Only

Farmers Citizens Bank is offering a high-yield reward checking account called Kasasa Cash. It has the following rates and features if certain monthly requirements are met:

• 3.01% APY on balances up to $25,000
• 0.75% on portion of balance over $25,000
• 0.15% base rate if requirements are not met
• Nationwide ATM fee refunds up to 5 per month and up to $25

The monthly requirements include:

• 12 debit card purchases
• 1 direct deposit or ACH auto debit
• Receive e-statements

Additional features of the account regardless of the monthly requirements include:

• $50 minimum initial deposit
• No minimum balance requirement
• No monthly maintenance fee
• Free bill pay

There's an online application link at the bank's Kasasa Cash page. However, the application appears to only accept zip codes from Ohio. It accepted a Cleveland zip code. If you've tried other zip codes, please leave a comment.

Branches are located central Ohio in the cities of Bucyrus, Cardington, Fredericktown, Worthington, Shiloh and Upper Arlington.

The bank's ratings for safety and soundness are above average: 4 stars (excellent) at BauerFinancial (based on 9/30/09 data) and 3 stars (performing) at Bankrate.com (based on 6/30/09 data). The bank has been a FDIC member since (FDIC Certificate # 10267).

Kasasa?

This is annother Kasasa Account which a new marketing term that was developed by BancVue and FIRST ROI, the main companies behind reward checking. I'm still not sure how to pronounce Kasasa. I can understand them wanting a better name than reward checking, but I think they could have done better than Kasasa.

Rate History:

• 07/23/10: 3.01% APY up to $25K
• 01/19/10: 4.01% APY up to $25K; 0.75% over; 0.15% base