Top Long-Term CD Rates at Air Academy Federal Credit Union
Air Academy Federal Credit Union has some competitive long-term CD and IRA CD rates. The two best ones are a 2.45% APY 5-year CD and a 2.00% APY 4-year CD. Minimum deposit is $10,000. The rates are 10 basis points lower for a $500 minimum deposit. These rates are listed in the credit union's share certificates rates page as of 3/21/2012.
One downside with these long-term CDs is a harsh early withdrawal penalty. According to the credit union's account agreement, "for accounts having a term greater than 47 months, the penalty imposed will equal the lesser of 365 days of dividends on the amount withdrawn or all accrued dividends." Another downside is that the account agreement gives the credit union the right to refuse an early withdrawal. In the transaction limitations section, it states that "once your account is established, you may not make withdrawals of principal until the maturity of your account." This limitation doesn't make much sense since they list early withdrawal penalties. Nevertheless, it could be used to prevent a member from making an early withdrawal.
AAFCU also offers a reward checking account called Maaximum Checking. The rate and balance cap has fallen quite a bit since I first reported on it in 2007. The top rate is now 1.50% APY on balances up to $25K as of 3/21/2012.
Eligibility
Credit union membership is open to all military (active and retired) and their family members. Employees, students and their families of several Colorado school districts are also eligible to join. Please refer to the credit union's eligibility page for the details.
AAFCU has an online application. On the second page of the application, you have to select how you qualify for membership. If you click on "Military", it gives you several options of how one can qualify via the military. One option is "One of my family members is active duty military", and another one is "One of my family members is retired military". This gives you more options to qualify than Navy Federal Credit Union which requires a family member to be a Navy Fed member before you can qualify.
If you can qualify for membership, you can select the accounts you want to open in the next application page. The account choices include all of the CDs. Accounts can be funded by an ACH transfer.
Credit Union Overview
Air Academy FCU branches are located in Colorado Springs and in a few other Colorado cities. The credit union is also part of the shared branch network, the CU Service Center, which allows members to conduct many banking transactions at branches of other credit unions around the nation.
AAFCU has an overall health score at DepositAccounts.com of 3 stars (out of 5) with a Texas Ratio of 23.74% (average) based on December 2011 data. Please refer to our financial overview of AAFCU for more details. The credit union is federally insured by the NCUA (Charter # 10600).
How These CD Rates Compare
This 5-year CD rate just tops the best 5-year CD rate that's nationally available. That rate is 2.35% APY at Justice Federal Credit Union for a $100K minimum (2.25% APY for a $500 minimum). The best 4-year CD rate is 2.07% APY at Melrose Credit Union. These rates are accurate as of 3/21/2012.
Searching for Top CD Rates
To search for nationwide CD rates and CD rates in your state, please refer to the best CD rates section of DepositAccounts.com.
Tammy
According to DA: the 10 yr rate indeed dropped from 2.45% to 2.25% as of 3/20. However, the 7 yr rate (2%) has not changed since 1/25 (changed from 2.05% to 2%) and the 5 yr rate has held at 1.75% since 1/25.
HTH
You are right about the 7-year, but the 10-year just dropped by a lot (from 2.50% for AAA members to 2.30%). This wasn't reflected in Ken's weekly CD re-cap from the other day so I was pointing it out. It's a shame that Discover's rates have dropped so much. I was surprised about the latest 10-year drop since the trend very recently has been for the rates to be steady to slightly rising.