Top 5-Year CD Rate at Affinity Plus FCU in Minnesota - Easy Membership

It's hard to find CD rates over two percent these days. I'm glad to report a credit union that's offering this and provides an easy way for anyone to join. It's Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union, and it's offering a 2.25% APY 5-year CD and IRA CD. Its 3-year and 4-year CD rates are not quite as competitive, but they're still pretty good. These rates are 1.75% APY for 4 years and 1.50% APY for 3 years. Minimum deposit is $500. These rates are listed in the credit union's savings rates page as of 4/20/2012.

I wasn't able to find the disclosure online with the CD details. The online application provided the truth-in-savings documents, but the links were broken. I've sent an email asking about this.

One nice feature of this credit union is its Participation Rewards Program. You can earn points that can be used to raise CD rates up to 0.50%. It can be used to waive a CD early withdrawal penalty or to add money to a CD. All the details about this program are in this program overview document.

Other Deposit Accounts

In addition to good deals on the long-term CDs, Affinity Plus also has a good deal on its special 1.25% APY 1-year CD called a Wahoo! Certificate of Deposit. Maximum deposit is $25,000 with no minimum deposit. It allows unlimited number of deposits and one no-penalty withdrawal.

The credit union also offers a special reward checking account called Interest Reward Checking Account. This deal isn't as good as the others. Its rate is low for reward checking (1.00% APY for up to $25K) and it has a $15 monthly fee for balances under $5,000. On the plus side, the requirements are a little easier than the typical monthly requirements: direct payroll deposit OR at least 8 debit card purchases per month OR pay 3 bills using online bill pay per month.

Application and Membership

There's an online application provided by Andera. This allows people to join and open accounts including CDs.

Credit union membership is open to Minnesota state employees and many other Minnesota residents. In addition, the credit union allows anyone to join who makes a one-time, $25 life-time dues payment to the Affinity Plus Foundation. Please refer to the credit union's membership page for more details.

The payment to the Affinity Plus Foundation can be done using the credit union's online application. On the page of the application that covers eligibility, the user is allowed to select the option for making a payment to this foundation. This option has the following information:

I would like to pay the $25 life-time dues to become a member of the Affinity Plus Foundation.

Click here that you agree that an additional $25 will be added to your $10 minimum balance in your S1 shares account.

Credit Union Overview

The credit union has branches throughout Minnesota. Some of the major cities include Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Grand Rapids, and Saint Cloud.

It's a large credit union with $1.46 billion in assets. The credit union has an overall health score at DepositAccounts.com of 4 stars (out of 5) with a Texas Ratio of 15.04% (average) based on December 2011 data. Please refer to our financial overview of Affinity Plus Credit Union for more details. The credit union is federally insured by the NCUA (Charter # 24362).

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