Ohio Deposit Account Rates and Deals

KeyBank is offering a decent checking account promotion. Here's the link to the promotion. The $150 bonus is for opening its free checking account. The $200 bonus requires one of their checking accounts that has monthly fees. Both bonuses require the same activities:

• Open the checking account by April 30, 2010
• Make one KeyBank Rewards debit card transaction (ATMs excluded)
• Make a combination of two direct deposits and/or automated payments each of $100 or more by July 2, 2010

Some important small print:

• You must have or request a KeyBank Rewards debit card and enroll in the KeyBank Rewards points program. ... There is a $20 annual fee for the KeyBank Rewards program that will be waived for the first year.
• Offer not available to individuals who have opened a KeyBank checking account in the last 12 months.
• If you close your account within 180 days of account opening, you will be charged a $25 account early closure fee.

The promotion FAQs has some important points including who's eligible:

The offer is not available in all areas. Individuals and businesses will only be eligible in the following districts: Cleveland, Eastern OH, Idaho, Western NY, Oregon, Seattle Cascades, South Puget Sound, Central NY, Rochester, Maine, Northwest OH, Michigan, and Capital Region NY.

There's also a business checking account promotion that offers up to $275.

When I had contacted KeyBank in previous years, I've been told by their customer service reps that they don't do a hard credit inquiry. They only use ChexSystem in the application approval process.

KeyBank has been a FDIC member since 1956.

Credit for this find goes to FW member DreamKrusher who posted on it in this FW thread.

Other Bank Bonuses

To find other bonus deals, please refer to my bank bonus page which has all of my recent bank bonus posts.

Citizens Bank has a checking account promotion in which you can earn $100. The details of the checking account bonus are listed at www.citizensbank.com/220. Offer ends 3/26/2010. The requirements to earn the $100 include:

• $50 for setting up direct deposit of $250 or more
• $25 for making 5 online bill payments
• $25 for making 5 signature-based debit card or credit card purchases

Some important details mentioned in the small print includes:

Requirements must be met by 4/30/2010. Bonus will be deposited into the checking account by 6/30/2010 and reported to the IRS. Checking account must remain open for at least 6 months or the amount of the banking bonus will be debited from the account at closing.

The Green Checking qualifies for this bonus, and it's a free checking account with no monthly fees. Minimum opening balance is $50.

The Green Checking also qualifies for the Green$sense program. Citizens Bank says you can get paid up to $120 per year in Green$ense. However, this would require 100 debit card purchases, online bill payments or automatic payments per month for 12 months. For each of these non-paper transactions, Citizens Bank pays you 10 cents. Since this is considerable work, I'm not including this $120 in the bonus amount.

This is very similar to the promotion the bank was running late last year. One small change is that they now require a minimum direct deposit of $250 instead of $50. In that post, a reader mentioned that there's a hard pull in the application.

There's an online application at the promotions page. However, it only accepts zip codes in their market area. Their market area includes Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Citizens Bank operates under two FDIC charters: Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania (FDIC Certificate # 57282) and RBS Citizens, N.A. which has branches in several states outside of PA and NJ (FDIC Certificate # 57957).

Other Bank Bonuses

To find other bonus deals, please refer to my bank bonus page which has all of my recent bank bonus posts.

Republic Bank is offering a high-yield reward checking account called BreakFree Checking. It offers the following rates if certain monthly requirements are met:

• 2.00% APY for balances up to $500,000
• 0.05% APY for portion of balances over $500,000
• 0.01% APY base rate if monthly requirements are not met

The monthly requirements include:

• 12 debit card purchases
• 1 direct deposit or automatic payment
• receive online statements

Some additional important features of this account include:

• $10 account setup fee
• $10 annual fee
• $50 minimum initial deposit
• No minimum balance requirement
• Free ATM transactions everywhere (All ATM fees assessed are refunded to the account on the next business day.)

This is the first time I've seen an account setup fee and an annual fee. They're small, so the account could still be worthwhile for large balances.

There's an online application link at the BreakFree Checking page. However, the first page of the application lists the areas of the country that are eligible to apply. Areas include:

Kentucky market areas: Boone, Bullitt, Daviess, Fayette, Franklin, Hardin, Jefferson, Kenton, Oldham, Scott, Shelby and Warren County

Indiana market areas: Clark County, Floyd County and Harrison County

Florida market areas: Hillsborough, Hernando, Pasco and Pinellas County

Ohio market areas: Hamilton County

According to the bank customer service rep, they do not run a credit report at a branch during the account opening process. However, if you apply online, they do run a credit report that could be a hard pull.

$100 Bonus Through 4/30/10

A reader mentioned receiving a mail offer about a $100 bonus for opening either the BreakFree checking, the Premier 50 checking or the Absolute Free checking. I inquired about this offer via the bank's online chat. According to the CSR this offer was sent National City clients to move their business over to Republic Bank. However, the CSR also said that new customers who are not National City clients could still be eligible if they are willing to move all of their accounts to Republic Bank. A branch visit would be required for this $100 bonus. Hat tip to the reader for mentioning this promo in the comments.

Bank Overview

The bank has two FDIC charters that are both under one holding company. These two banks are:

• Republic Bank based in Port Richey, FL (FDIC Certificate # 35344) Ratings: 4 stars (sound) at Bankrate.com and 3½ stars (good) at BauerFinancial
• Republic Bank and Trust Company based in Louisville, KY (FDIC Certificate # 23627) Ratings: 4 stars (sound) at Bankrate.com and 3½ stars (good) at BauerFinancial

The above ratings are based on 9/30/09 financial data.

United Community Bank is offering several competitive CD rates. The two best are the 2.00% APY 10-month CD special and the 2.25% APY 18-month CD. Minimum deposit is $500. There's also a 2.50% APY IRA CD. These rates are listed in the bank's rates page as of 1/28/2010.

It appears a branch visit is required to open an account. Branches are located in the southeast Indiana cities of Lawrenceburg, St. Leon and Aurora which are just west of Cincinnati, Ohio.

The bank's ratings for safety and soundness are strong: 4 stars (excellent) at BauerFinancial and 4 stars (sound) at Bankrate.com. Both ratings are based on 9/30/09 financial data. The bank has been a FDIC member since 1936 (FDIC Certificate # 29620).

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:

• 4.01% 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.

• CD rates at DepositAccounts.com (overview of DepositAccounts.com)
• My weekly list of hot nationwide and local CD deals

Offer valid for new Extreme Checking accounts only. Account must be open for at least 60 days to earn cash bonus. One bonus per customer. Maximum bonus of $150. No minimum balance required; however, you must deposit $100 to open account. Miscellaneous income reportable to the IRS.

• CD rates at DepositAccounts.com
• My weekly list of hot nationwide and local CD deals

• CD rates at DepositAccounts.com (overview of DepositAccounts.com)
• My weekly list of hot nationwide and local CD deals

Open a select new PNC Personal Checking Account with qualifying direct deposit and get more than you expected, like $100 deposited in your account

• my last 40 posts on checking and savings account bonuses