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High-Yield Reward Checking Account at PriorityOne Bank in MS - Local Only - 3/12/2010
Savings Accounts Remain Competitive at Redneck Bank and its Two Sister Banks - 3/11/2010
Last Remaining 6% Reward Checking Account - Kansas Only - 2/21/2010

5.51% Reward Checking Account at The Farmers State Bank in Kansas - Local Only

Monday, January 4, 2010 - 8:30 AM CT by Ken - Bank Deals Guy

View current rates for The Farmers State Bank

The Farmers State Bank is offering a high-yield reward checking account called Go Green Rewards Checking. It has the following rates and features if certain monthly requirements are met:

5.51% APY on balances up to $25,000
0.25% base rate if requirements are not met

Note, the bank's rates page only lists the rates for balances under $25,000. To qualify for the high rate, you must sign up for email statements and meet at least four of the following requirements:

10 Visa debit card purchases
1 direct deposit
5 direct deposits (utility bills, cell phone bills)
2 ATM transactions
1 Bill Payment through FSB Bill Pay

Additional features of the account include:

$100 minimum opening deposit
No monthly service charge
No minimum balance requirement
Not be charged the $1 ATM access fee at foreign ATMs (but don't see any mention of surcharge reimbursement)

It appears that a branch visit is required to open the account. It's a small bank with branches at Circleville and Holton, Kansas.

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 1935 (FDIC Certificate # 15258).

Other Reward Checking Accounts

This is one of the highest rates for reward checking accounts in the nation. Unfortunately, it's a local deal in a very small region of the nation. The reward checking account with the highest rate in the nation is also in Kansas. It's at the Golden Plains Credit Union which continues to offer a 6.01% APY for balances up to $25K as of 1/04/2010 (see review).

To find reward checking accounts in other areas of the nation, please refer to the reward checking section of DepositAccounts.com. To learn more about reward checking, please refer to this reward checking overview.

Tags: rc25k, The Farmers State Bank, Kansas, banks, checking accounts, rewards checking accounts

Post a CommentFeatured Comments

In order by popularity, then date posted.

Anonymous - #1, Monday, January 4, 2010 - 8:46 AM CT

Assume the first direct deposit is payroll only?

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Anonymous - #2, Monday, January 4, 2010 - 9:59 AM CT

Payroll/social security checks direct deposit...

Other than FSB can't count (five requirements, not four), there are a lot of requirements to fulfill within the month.

5.51% APY is the second best, and it is outside the reach of most RCA customers. Most RCA offerors are now staying within their safety boundary to avoid massive applicants.

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Anonymous - #3, Monday, January 4, 2010 - 10:05 AM CT

Rio Bank (TX): 5.5% APY.

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Anonymous - #4, Monday, January 4, 2010 - 2:50 PM CT

With all of those requirements, they may as well add "do ten push-ups daily and stand on your head for 30 seconds." With so many requirements they are undoubtedly counting on people missing ALL of the requirements and thus paying them a low interest rate.

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Anonymous - #5, Monday, January 4, 2010 - 8:24 PM CT

12:50 PM: LOL. And they can make these multiple requirements as vague as possible (e.g., PIN or non-PIN, e-statement has a secret door for signing up, ACH or payroll, initiated from biller or RCA account, date debit posted, monthly cycle, plus all the pitfalls Ken already listed in his article...). It will be a red-team blue-team war game to see whether banks win or RCA customers win every month.

That said, just take a look at how people fight for 0.25% CD rate and how people line up for Alliant/Incredible 2% rate; the RCAs are still the "best game" in town!!

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5.51% Reward Checking Account at The Farmers State Bank in Kansas - Local Only

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