Elements Financial Guarantees Helium Savings 3.25% APY For One Year
Three years ago, Elements Financial offered a promotional 2.10% APY on the Helium Savings that was guaranteed for a year. Elements Financial has revived the Helium Savings promotion (Promo Helium), with a very competitive 3.25% APY that is guaranteed for 12 months following account opening.
The minimum opening deposit is $2.5k of new money, which is defined as funds not on deposit at Elements Financial within 90 days of account opening. Current Helium Savings account holders are not eligible for this promotion, as are those who have closed a Helium Savings account in the previous 90 days. An average daily balance of $2.5k is required to earn the 3.25% APY; balances below $2.5k earn 0.10% APY. Following the one-year promotional period, the rate will "automatically convert to the then current non-promotional Helium Savings account APY which is variable and may change at any time without notice."
There is a limit of one Promo Helium account per member and at least one account holder must be 18 years or older. While there is no monthly maintenance/service fee, there is a monthly $5 Inactive Relationship fee “if no activity has occurred for at least 12 months.” The Promo Helium account has no debit card or check writing privileges. There is no excessive transaction fee for withdrawals and/or transfers beyond the six allowed per statement cycle, but according to CSR, a Promo Helium “could be subject to closure if you exceed the transfer limit in any statement cycle.
DA reader, Striker, posted in the Forum what I thought when I read about the Promo Helium.
The Helium Savings Account sounds like a great option for a 12 month, no penalty, add-on CD paying 3.25% - with no fees or any limits on transfers in and out. Maybe I'm missing something - but at first glance it looks like a great savings account opportunity to park funds in while waiting on higher CD rates to lock in to long term. If rates rise over the next couple months elsewhere and this one remains stagnant - just shift to the higher payer.
DA reader, Rickny, posted a cautionary comment in response to the Forum post about the Promo Helium.
Just be careful as they will probably drop that rate like a rock after 12 months if rates go down.
I had a savings account with them when they guaranteed 2.1% for 1 year. When the year was up they dropped the rate to .3%.
High Interest Checking Promo
Elements Financial is also offering a 4.00% APY promotional rate on its rewards checking account, High Interest Checking. Like the Promo Helium, the High Interest Checking 4.00% APY is guaranteed for 12 months following account opening. The 4.00% APY applies to qualifying balances up to $20k; qualifying balances over $20k earn 0.10% APY, with non-qualifying balances earning 0.05% APY.
There are only one qualifying requirement:
- 15 qualifying transactions per statement cycle, including all debit card purchases, checks, bill payments, ATM withdrawals, and ACH withdrawals.
The High Interest Checking account has no minimum opening deposit requirement. The first 50 checks are provided for free and there is unlimited check writing. The $5 monthly maintenance fee will be waived if eStatements are received.
There is a limit of one Promo High Interest Checking account per member and at least one account holder must be 18 years or older. Current High Interest Checking account holders are not eligible for this promotion, as are those who have closed a Helium Savings account in the previous 180 days.
Availability
Headquartered in Indianapolis, Elements Financial offers a way for almost any U.S. citizen/resident alien to join through Tru Direction, Inc., a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving financial literacy. Joining Tru Direction, Inc., with a one-time $5 membership fee, qualifies for membership in Elements Financial.
Employees, students, retirees or members of Eli Lilly & Company, Roche, and more than 150 other organizations are eligible for membership.
Immediate family members (spouse, child, sibling, parent, grandparent, grandchild, step- and adoptive relationships) and household members (shared residence and income) of membership-eligible individuals also qualify for membership.
Joining Elements Financial and opening a Helium Savings Promo account can be done online, by phone (800.621.2105), or at either of two Indiana branches located on W. Washington Street and S. East Street in Indianapolis.
Note: the Lilly Technology Center North branch is temporarily closed. Both the Lilly Corporate Center and the Lilly Technology Center South branches have restricted access and are not open to the public.
The Membership Application is also available as a download, and can be returned by mail or in person at any of the above mentioned branch locations.
During the application process, we will open you an Elements savings account (that’s the part that makes your membership official). We’ll even put $5 in to get you started — no need to transfer funds from an existing account!.
Elements Financial is a part of both the CO-OP Shared Branch and ATM networks.
We have a global footprint. We serve members in all 50 states and 50 countries. Through the credit union shared branch and ATM network, we provide access to 5,000+ shared branches nationwide and 78,000+ surcharge-free ATMs globally.
Credit Union Overview
Elements Financial has an overall health grade of "B+" at DepositAccounts.com, with a Texas Ratio of 1.46% (excellent) based on June 30, 2022 data. In the past year, Elements Financial has increased its total non-brokered deposits by $31.75 million, an above average annual growth rate of 1.84%. Please refer to our financial overview of Elements Financial (NCUA Charter # 22468) for more details.
Elements Financial was established in 1976 as the Eli Lilly Credit Union, for the benefit for the employees of Eli Lilly & Company. (Known today as Lilly, it was the first company to mass-produce penicillin, insulin, and the Salk polio vaccine.) It’s been more than seven years since the Elements Financial re-brand, which was done “to embrace the growth and diversification of our membership.” Elements Financial is currently the fourth largest credit union headquartered in Indiana, with more than 100,000 members and assets in excess of $2.2 billion.
How the Helium Savings Compares
When compared to nationally available Money Market Accounts and Savings Accounts tracked by DepositAccounts.com, that do not require large balances or direct deposit and do not have small balance caps, the Elements Financial Helium Savings APY currently ranks first.
| APY | Account Name | Credit Union/Bank |
|---|---|---|
| 3.25% | Helium Savings Promo ($2.5k min/no max) | Elements Financial |
| 3.05% | Money Market Savings (no min/no max) | Merchants Bank of Indiana |
| 3.00% | Dollar Savings Account (no min/no max) | DollarSavingsDirect |
| 2.75% | Bask Interest Savings Account (no min/no max) | Bask Bank |
| 2.75% | Money Market Account via SaveBetter ($1 min/no max) | mph.bank |
The above information and rates are accurate as of 9/27/2022.
To look for the best rates on liquid bank accounts, both nationwide and state specific, please refer to our Money Market Accounts Table and Savings Accounts Table.
"Thanks for submitting your application! We'll be in touch after completing our review (typically 1–2 business days). Your application ID#: xxxxxx"
Not "immediate approval" for him . . . Bad news?
Was told two days ago via CSR email that a ChexSystems freeze needed to be lifted. After doing so, reapplied. And was then told today that Elements Financial could still not access ChexSystems, and was advised to verify . . .
Just sent a third application in to Elements tonight, after emaling customer service a screenshot which clearly shows that a temporary lift at ChexSystems began yesterday!
What's going on here? Three applications, two strikes.
Elements pitches once more . . . Home run, anyone?
Is it correct to assume that in one year when the average saving account is yielding above 4% that they are guaranteeing the Helium account will still be at 3.25%?
One impact of that is that many rates beyond 3-4 years out are inverted, or nearly so, compared with their shorter brethren - in any case much more so than in the last “rate peak” in 2018-early 2019. So yeah, this constrains any “5yr CD” yields, and any questions like the one you asked are going to be impacted by the Fed's massive attempt to beat inflation. In the near future, we may never see the same ratio of liquid rates, to 3-year CD rates, to 4-year rates, to 5-year rates, etc., as we did even in 2018-early 2019.
So other than guesses, some which will ultimately turn out right just because someone has to be lucky, I think this may be one of the most difficult rate cycles to forecast in US history. The economy is a hot mess.
It seems difficult to find historical CD data with respect to 5yr CDs, especially prior to 1984, although I did find 6-month CD data going back to 1964 (but this site no longer appears available). The 5yr CD numbers are based on averages for a particular month during the year (I used the max value), whereas the 6-m CD was given just as the average for the year. So, some apples and oranges. For example, the max average/month rate for 5yr CDs in 2018 was 1.43% and 1.5% for 2019, and we know that many FIs had higher rates.
https://www.bankrate.com/banking/cds/historical-cd-interest-rates/
Not sure what your point is here, but if you are saying that even with those CD rates that were in effect when Trump was president-- that were much lower than they are now -- you were getting a far better real after inflation return on your deposits than the giant negative return you are getting now, I agree.
1. It's FDIC insured so as long as I stay under those limits I'm not too worried about bank strength.
2. It needs to be a better than average rate to lock up liquid cash long term due to lost opportunity cost.
There have been times I missed out on a really good bank bonus because I had little liquid cash available. Also like now liquid rates are nearing or even beating some of my old CD rates.
I dont see a way to bypass this with an existing member account opening process. Most banks and CU's have this .
I guess its not a big deal, just wondering.
"Minimum Balance to Earn Dividends" I guess some CU's offer dividends?
I am not chasing rates with small unknown FIs this cycle like I did in the past, UNLESS it’s a nice juicy deal that brokerages don’t offer.
I saw that E*Trade had a 7 year callable 5.5% CD for a short time today.
Example, today I purchased a 1 month CD @ 3.05%. A one month treasury closed at 2.73% today.
I guess if you are talking about large amounts of money that might make a difference. Maybe I will make an excel spreadsheet for comparison.
If we get a severe recession rates could collapse....
As to the capitalization rating. I think the financial health of the institution is more important to people who have certain kinds of accounts. If you have an individual or joint account, in the event of insolvency, you will probably get your money back pretty quickly as long as you were within the insurance limits. If you have a private trust however, it may take considerably longer for you to receive those funds especially if your account exceeds $250,000
So while it's never good to have a financial institution go out of business if you have an account there, and I do think there are serious problems with NCUA and FDIC insurance so that it is difficult to know in some circumstances if you are covered, the relative importance of the financials of that institution depends to some degree on the depositors circumstances.
In addition I think the letter grade rating of various factors is a poor way to quantify the risk. You will find that these letter grades vary widely from site to site for the same institutions meaning that there is a subjectivity involved or a different methodology being used which in my view renders them all useless to the average reader who cannot decipher the financials for themselves or determine which sites offer a better analysis.
If you read their "Consent to Use Electronic Signatures" disclosure, it's bit much. Especially, the inclusion of a third party called Blend Labs, Inc. Any financial account disclosures that includes third parties ain't for me.
Here's a snippet.
"Please note these additional definitions: We, our, and us means your financial institution and its current and future affiliates, successors, and assignees as well as Blend Labs, Inc. (“Blend”) and its current and future affiliates; Blend is the provider of this Platform. You and your means the person providing this eConsent, including any authorized signer, user, representative, delegate, and/or service user."
If you read their "Consent to Use Electronic Signatures" disclosure, it's bit much. Especially, the inclusion of a third party called Blend Labs, Inc. Any financial account disclosures that includes third parties ain't for me."
You would be hard pressed to find a financial institution that does not use third parties to process your data or share your data with third parties. If you limit your banking to such institutions, you will have few if any options.
The particular one mentioned, Blend Labs, is used by a number of major financial institutions to process various kind of applications and information.
Particularly chilling is the following section:
"We, our, and us means your financial institution and its current and future affiliates, successors, and assignees as well as Blend Labs, Inc. (“Blend”) and its current and future affiliates."
Nope "we" to "me" means Elements Financial and "me" in the form of an actual signature on an application form submitted by either regular mail - or, a scanned and uploaded version via secure email. This limits your legal liability considerably.
Nearly all financial institutions support this "old fashioned" way of doing things. By "old fashioned", I mean covered by current law. They're using these third-parties so that they can use them later for loan applications. There's absolutely no reason for them just to open a savings account.
Aren't you the guy who gets upset with CU's that use hard pulls to vet your identity? And, you don't have a problem with this? One of the major esignature firms recently has had problems with criminals phishing loan applications using an identical process to theirs.
I suppose that I could just open the account and then rescind the esignature process before funding the account. However, if I don't like the way that someone does business, I tend to just avoid them like the plague.
I was an IT consultant for over 30 years and had to continually warn customers of the legal implications of some of their web projects. Even though I had errors and omissions insurance, I'd just pass on being involved in dubious web schemes.
Nowadays, it's the wild west with all of these third parties out there. It's an alphabet soup of companies with disclaimers up the wazoo. If something goes south with one of my accounts, I don't want to have to deal with the fingerpointing that will be going-on, let alone knowing if I'm legally protected.
Oh, but then if I sign this esignature consent form, I've given-up most of my legal protections. Which, of course, is the whole point of the form!
Each POD, beyond the first, increases coverage by an additional $250k, e.g.,
two POD beneficiaries = coverage to $500k; three = coverage to $750k.
Also, adding different "types" of accounts (e.g., joint ownership) is another strategy.
But trusts, retirement accounts, etc., seem to be handled differently.
More info — lots! — can be found here:
https://www.mycreditunion.gov/share-insurance-estimator-faq
Also, unlike banks, CUs typically want all kinds of additional sensitive private information including information about beneficiaries that the trustee(s) may not want to reveal. And if there are many beneficiaries, it compounds the issue.
Also, the NCUA rules regarding coverage for trusts can be quite complex although the same is true for FDIC rules with banks. This is especially important for trust accounts with large balances.
I don't use CUs for the trusts I manage because of the privacy issue.
Something is evidently FUBAR here. Getting a very bad feeling about this FI :-(
Did you call Elements, and speak with someone in person?
After the first email, I lifted the ChexSystems freeze, and reapplied. But then got the same letter from ChexSystems. After which I verified that, indeed, the freeze was still lifted. Applied a third time. And yet again got the same letter — that an account could not be opened, due to a freeze on ChexSystems' end.
10 minutes? No, more like several hours, over several days. And, per their email. Elements has yet to even see the ChexSystems report. Go figure!
My personal experience is that "trial deposits" usually only take 1 or 2 business days to hit the target account. If I were you I would contact the external bank and see what the holdup is.