No Longer Available: High-Yield Reward Checking and Savings Accounts at CommerceWest Bank in California

Update 4/16/2010: The reward checking and savings accounts are no longer available at CommerceWest Bank.

CommerceWest Bank is offering a high-yield reward checking account with the following rates and features if certain monthly requirements are met:

• 3.00% APY on balances up to $25,000
• 1.01% APY on portion of balance over $25,000
• 0.05% base rate if requirements are not met
• ATM fee refunds nationwide

The monthly requirements include:

• 12 debit card purchases
• 1 recurring Direct Deposit, ACH Auto Debit, or Online Bill Payment
• Receive e-statements

Other features of the account include:

• No minimum balance
• No monthly service charge
• Free NetBanker Online Banking with BillPay

The bank also offers a companion savings account called RealSavings with the following rates if the above RewardChecking requirements are met:

• 2.00% APY on balances up to $25,000
• 1.01% APY on portion of balance over $25,000
• 0.05% base rate if requirements are not met

There's an online application on the micro-website. However, on the first page, I don't see an "open a new account" button as mentioned in the instructions. I've sent an email asking about this. Hopefully, the accounts are still available.

This appears to be a local deal limited to those in the Los Angeles metro area. Here is what is mentioned on the website:

we're expanding our services to personal clients in Irvine, Carson, Corona, and the rest of greater Los Angeles

Branches are located in the California cities of Irvine, Corona, Los Angeles, Newport Beach, Poway, San Marcos and Gardena.

The bank's ratings for safety and soundness are a little mixed: 3½ stars (good) at BauerFinancial and 2 stars (below peer group) at Bankrate.com. Both ratings are based on 9/30/09 financial data. The bank has been a FDIC member since 2001 (FDIC Certificate # 57176).

Reward Checking/Savings Combo

As I mentioned yesterday these companion savings accounts are becoming more popular for banks to offer with their reward checking accounts. It can be useful for those with more than $25K in savings. However, for the case of CommerceWest, it doesn't help too much more since the savings account also has a $25K tier.

Other Reward Checking Accounts

There are still nationwide reward checking accounts paying 4% (see post) and a few local accounts paying over 5% (see post). However, rates under 4% are becoming more common, and anything at 3% or above is a decent deal for reward checking rates.

To find nationwide reward checking accounts and reward checking accounts in your local area, please refer to the reward checking section of DepositAccounts.com.