Coulee Bank rate cut To 2.55%, Same $25K Cap.

Down from 3.03% APY.

With Farmers & Mercants and Coulee both dropping to the 2.5% range in the past week, this may soon replace 3% as the most we can expect on accounts of at least 25K.

3% is my absolute lower limit for RCAs, below which it is simply not worthwhile to do all these chores with the added fraud risk on debit cards.

Talk about a sneaky "back door" approach instead of just lowering the interest rate.. AGAIN! I'm really getting sick and tired of Coulee Bank. Are they seriously more concerned about putting MORE money in their OWN pockets? Ever since they introduced Rewards Checking (now Kasasa) the interest rate and/or requirements have only gotten worse. And by the way.. what the heck is Kasasa? Weird.

Coulee gave its customers a month's notice, which is up front - "front door" and the antithesis of "sneaky." They're choosing to keep the rate, which they've already maintained for almost a year, so good for them. They may have re-named the product (and "Kasasa" strange as it sounds is familiar to those following reward checking, thanks to KenBDG), but essentially all they did was lower the cap similar to many others places. It is lamentable overall but far from particular to them.  Plus, they added as a convenient option, a 1% attached savings. Any rate or cap drop continues to be maddening, but that's this economy. 

They seem to have handled it showing respect and care for their customers.  A month's notice gives customers time to research and execute moving their money somewhere else in the most efficient way. Though the reality is, it's getting harder to find better products.  At least, any money over the new 15k cap can immediately earn a competitive 1% (up to another 15k).  Customers could arrange in advance to move excess money to the new savings account effective the date of the change, so there'd be no lapse in earnings.

I was impressed seeing Coulee execs respond to posts here, especially inviting direct communication with them. I don't know any of them, had never heard of them, but their actions indicate a regard for their customers that's become rare.  Maybe it's only because this economy has turned so many banks and credit unions into seemingly overwhelmed scrambling fools, that by comparison makes this bank seem quite professional how they handled what are sadly industry-wide changes.

Btw, I also like that they have next-day ACH in or out. Limited to 4 external accts that strangely must be named when acct was opened, then $10 fee to change any later,). Daily ach limits are 3 outbound and 3 inbound, with total daily caps of 10k out and 15k in. But as always, double check for any updated changes.