Review of Beam

POSTED ON BY

Written by Lindsay VanSomeren | Published on 10/17/2019

Beam doesn’t offer your everyday, run-of-the-mill savings account. Its mobile-only account is technically a cash management account as opposed to a traditional checking or savings account, and Beam itself isn’t a bank. Rather, Beam is a fintech company that partners with a network of nearly 200 FDIC-insured banks, where your funds are placed.

With a Beam account, you can earn at least 1.70% APY. There is the opportunity to increase your rate temporarily by collecting and spending interest rate boosts that Beam calls “Billies,” which are essentially tokens that you can earn from activities such as signing up for an account or inviting a friend to subscribe to Beam’s mailing list.

Beam only recently launched to the public, though, and it’s not yet clear what changes this company will make going forward. There are limitations of the account, too. For instance, Beam can’t serve as your only bank because it doesn’t offer a checking account. You also can’t deposit more than $15,000 in the account currently, although Beam is working to increase this limit in the future.

Still, if you’re aware of the limitations and are a tech-savvy person enticed by the potentially high interest rate, Beam might be worth looking into.

In this article we will cover:

Beam account features

Because Beam isn’t a bank, your deposit is held in accounts with a network of banks that includes behemoths like US Bank, Citibank and Wells Fargo to gain coverage by FDIC insurance up to the legal limit. You can be assured that your funds will be covered up to $500,000. That’s double the standard $250,000 of coverage that most banks offer, and Beam is able to do this because it divides your funds among multiple FDIC-insured banks.

That’s a bit of a moot point, though, considering Beam only lets you deposit a maximum of $15,000 in the account as of writing. It has plans to increase the limit to $50,000 and upwards in the future, but for now, that’s a big limitation.

There are a few other things that might dissuade you from opening an account with Beam. First off, Beam only recently opened to the general public, which means it might still be working out some kinks. Beam also doesn’t offer a checking account or other types of deposit accounts, so you can only use Beam as a supplementary strategy to earn more on your savings.

Finally, you can only access your money by transferring it back into your normal bank account rather than with a wire transfer, ATM withdrawal, check or other method. Beam may enable wire transfers in the future, but for now that is not an option.

You can withdraw as much money as you want at any time with no monthly withdrawal limits, however, which may be handy because traditional banks often limit you to six withdrawals per month. However, you currently can only deposit $5,000 per week into your Beam account, so if you want to take advantage of the full $15,000 maximum deposit, you’ll need to stagger your deposits over the course of three weeks.

Earning interest rate boosts with Beam

One major plus of Beam is that it offers the potential to earn a high interest rate, if only temporarily, and it does so in a unique way. You’re guaranteed to get a base rate of 1.70% APY on your deposit, but you can temporarily increase that rate by collecting and spending the interest rate boosts that Beam calls Billies. You will automatically collect one free Billie every evening, and you will earn five Billies for every friend that you invite to subscribe to Beam’s mailing list.

The APY boost you’ll receive from using each Billie will vary, but it will only apply for one day before your rate reverts back to the base rate at the beginning of the following day. The interest payment you earned will be tallied up and credited to your account on a daily basis.

If any of the people you invite to Beam’s mailing list actually start using their account, you can unlock higher interest rates that are fixed (aside from any fluctuations due to Fed rate changes). This means that if you have a large network of financially-savvy friends, you could earn a solid interest rate boost with Beam. Currently, you can boost your rate permanently to 2.00% APY for referring two friends, 2.50% APY for referring four friends and 3.00% APY for referring nine friends. This campaign will last until December 1, 2019, and Beam may offer other campaigns like this in the future.

Beam fees and fine print

Beam charges no fees. Instead, Beam claims to make money “through software subscription service revenues from financial institutions.” Notably, Beam also does not charge ATM fees because you cannot withdraw money from your account by using an ATM.

There are also no minimum deposit or minimum balance requirements associated with Beam, making this account accessible for all.

Beam Fees
Monthly fee $0
Maintenance fee $0
Overdraft fee $0
ATM fees N/A

Using the Beam mobile app

Beam is entirely mobile-based, as there is no online platform that you can log into through your desktop browser. On the app, you can earn Billies to boost your rate and view your current interest rate. You can also set up 24/7 alerts, which can help you track another account.

The Beam app is encrypted and has other security standards in place, which will offer protection against potential cybersecurity risks.

Opening a Beam account

Beam is only available to U.S. citizens or legal U.S. residents who are at least 18 years old. To apply for a Beam account, you must provide information about your external bank account as well as personally identifying information, such as a copy of a government-issued photo ID.

You can open an account by entering your email address on Beam’s website to sign up for the mailing list. You will then receive a download link, which you can open to start the application process.

Beam claims to have over 140,000 members as of October 2019, shortly after it launched to the public at the end of September 2019. Now that it’s open to anyone, people who joined the waiting list when the app was still in beta have been added to the mailing list and will receive a notification that they now can open a Beam account.

What else you should know about Beam

While Beam offers the potential to earn a high interest rate with no fees and no minimum deposit requirements, there are a number of downsides worth reiterating.

For one, this is only a supplementary account to your main banking strategy, and the interest rate boosts that you can earn to drive the APY over 1.70% only apply for one day. Additionally, you can currently only keep a maximum of $15,000 in your account, though Beam is planning on bumping that limit up to $50,000 in the future. While $15,000 may be enough for many people, if you’re working on building a robust emergency fund or saving up for a down payment on a house, it may not be enough.

It is handy that you can make an unlimited number of withdrawals from your Beam account, as compared to the standard monthly limit of six withdrawals that applies to most traditional savings accounts. However, if you’re still living paycheck to paycheck and you have difficulty keeping a budget, this feature might tempt you to raid your savings account to make ends meet.

Overall review of Beam

Beam offers a truly unique approach, and there’s a lot to like about it, though it’s still in early stages. We’d recommend Beam to people who are obsessed with optimizing their interest rate and are willing to log into their account on a daily basis to do so. If you think you have friends who will likely use the app it’s an even better opportunity, given the only way to permanently boost your interest rate is by referring friends who open and use a Beam account.

We wouldn’t recommend Beam to people who aren’t as interested in micro-managing their account to get the best rate. People who anticipate having a balance higher than $15,000 should probably pass on Beam, at least until that cap increases in the future.

But for what it does currently, Beam does offer a high earnings potential. You’ll have to work for it and deal with account limitations, of course, but for some it may be worth the extra hassle.

All APYs confirmed as of 10/17/2019

Comments
bankingar
  |     |   Comment #1
Beam is garbage that has had false, or at best, overtly intentionally misleading promises since day 1 when they were advertising their sign up waitlist on Facebook. When they're not lying to your face in emails their busy breaking their app or making it insufferably unusable.

Do yourself a favor and avoid their gimmicks. This site has a handy link at the top of the page that will show you savings accounts that offer more than 1.70% APY without deposit limits and stupid games. Any of them will be more competent and have better banking/digital offerings than this joke of a FinTech app.
Chris
  |     |   Comment #9
Where do you get a better deal especially for those with larger accounts? What website for large money market
bankingar
  |     |   Comment #10
@Chris unfortunately since I wrote the review back in October of last year rates have really suffered. I'd still use this site to see what's the best you can do w/ Savings, MM, or No Penalty CDs. After that there's really only riskier choices like a CD for locking the money up or short term bond funds like NEAR which has had some volatility in price recently.
Nothanksbeam
  |     |   Comment #2
A couple months ago the agreement between Beam and one of their partner banks ended. So everyone that had money in Beam had to withdraw it, and if they didn't by a certain date, it was withdrawn for them. Then, of course, Beam wanted everyone that had money deposited with them to deposit again since they had a new agreement with a different partner bank. Stay away from this broken app and their MLM style of interest rates.
bankingar
  |     |   Comment #3
Even their partner banks don't want to deal with these jokers. Read some of their reviews on https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.meetbeam.beamapp for a laugh. I've never seen such tone deaf responses.
steve
  |     |   Comment #4
What are some example interest rate boosts you get from using Billies? e.g., what rate did you get after using 1 Billie? And after using 6?

Are there other ways of getting Billies besides the 1+5 mentioned here?

For withdrawals, is there a maximum dollar amount you can withdraw per day or per month?

Do they give you account & routing numbers so that you can link it to other banks for ACH pushes/pulls (initiated at the other bank), or for paying a credit card, etc?
bankingar
  |     |   Comment #5
I think there is more information out on the internet from people's experiences and there's probably some exaggerative misleading statements on Beam's. In my experience you'd get anywhere from 10-60 bps per billie. Unless there's an open source formula that shows the pseudorandom nature of it, don't expect it to be "fair" or in your favor at all.

You are NOT given actual banking information like routing number and account number so that they can maintain the limited amount you can deposit.

While it's been a while and I cannot remember the exact figures, I DO remember having a tough time getting every last cent out of Beam when I determined their app was garbage, I was tired of being lied to, and they were simply not worth the effort.
rohith
  |     |   Comment #6
Beam is fraud company , dont fall into there trap.once they got money u r screed..it taking more then 3 weeks or months.. to get money when u request withdraw money back...you hear all story from them , the other banks not giving money to them so they cant give you....stay away..dont fall into there trap.
Dan
  |     |   Comment #8
Where to start? First of all, they advertised interest rates starting at 1.5% then it dropped to .5% or lower. I understand interest rates across the board are low right now, but my Ally account is still at 1.6%. THAT is not my main problem however. Once the interest rates dropped so dramatically, I initiated the transfer of all my Beam funds to my Ally account on April 2. They advertised 3-5 days for transfers to complete. After 6 business days, I still hadn't seen it go through, so I reached out, and was told that "technology issues" were preventing the transfer from completing. That was now two weeks ago. It's been over 3 weeks without access to MY money, and they still say they are "working through the issues, and it should be resolved by next week." The fact that a Bank/institution can have such serious issues that a simple transfer takes a month is completely unacceptable and possibly illegal as I haven't had access to my own money throughout the process. Do NOT use Beam bank.
Baywolf
  |     |   Comment #11
I cannot get BEAM to transfer my fund to my bank. I requested a transfer June 28 and I have not one cent has been transferred July 16, All I receive is excuses " Apologies for the delay in writing back! We're very much backlogged on customer tickets right now due to the pandemic; really appreciate your patience.
Thanks for reaching out.
Transactions typically take 3-5 days. However, as you may imagine, given the current environment where our technology partners are facing higher than average transaction volumes, we are seeing some small subset of transactions take as long as 8-10 business days. Please let us know if your transaction is taking longer than that.
Apologies for the delay, we appreciate your understanding and patience. Thank you for bearing with us during this unusual time.
We kindly ask that you do not to send in multiple responses, as this may increase your wait time.
Best wishes,
Beam Team.
Don't get involved with this crap company.
Choice
  |     |   Comment #13
Looking at prior reviews on DA seems like it is a pre-coronavirus issue (did/have you looked at them?) AND your filing with their auditors, regulators, etc is?  Can you go in person?  If the doors are locked....
Baywolf
  |     |   Comment #12
Beam will not transfer my funds I requested a transfer June 28 and now it is July 16. BEAM was only paying .o4% nothing like the 4% they were touting when I set up the account. Keep your money were you can get to it BEAM is a scam.
juiceberry
  |     |   Comment #15
Did you get your money back ? Mine have been 4 weeks so far
Devotiontheone
  |     |   Comment #16
Beam app is completely unreliable. I have It and I tried To withdraw my money and it has been over a month already and the company takes super long to get back to me and keep giving me the run around with my money telling me they are working on it but due to covid they are back logged which to me sounds like nothing more than an excuse, it doesn’t take any other financial institution a month+ to withdraw your own money. Ally was ASAP. So was acorn and a couple other online banks I tried before being lured in with the fake interest to which is not true nor accurate at all.
bankingar
  |     |   Comment #17
Sorry you got entangled with these crooks. These comments are valuable to warn others but they're not as strong as bad reviews which you can post at https://www.depositaccounts.com/banks/beam.html#reviews
BeamISaSCAM
  |     |   Comment #18
Hello, same here, requested a withdraw over a month ago, interest is BS. The FDIC should get involved, has anyone any success filing a complaint with them?
kimtillman
  |     |   Comment #19
Extremely disappointed with BEAM,I requested the money I deposited be transferred back to my bank account over a month ago and it is still pending. I send them emails asking for help every day for a month and fix the issue but I just get the same generic email back every time and am waiting on my money. There is no phone # to call for help. APP is not user friendly at all. I will be escalating this issue still not resolved.
bankingar
  |     |   Comment #20
Help protect other folks by posting this information in a review at https://www.depositaccounts.com/banks/beam.html#reviews
bankingar
  |     |   Comment #21
Apparently lots of people are having trouble with them https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/beam-promised-higher-interest-rates-now-customers-want-their-money-back.html

The financial institution, product, and APY (Annual Percentage Yield) data displayed on this website is gathered from various sources and may not reflect all of the offers available in your region. Although we strive to provide the most accurate data possible, we cannot guarantee its accuracy. The content displayed is for general information purposes only; always verify account details and availability with the financial institution before opening an account. Contact [email protected] to report inaccurate info or to request offers be included in this website. We are not affiliated with the financial institutions included in this website.