Goldman Sachs Bank USA Offers $100 Online Savings Account Bonus
Goldman Sachs Bank USA (now operating under the brand Marcus by Goldman Sachs) has recently launched a savings account promotion. You can receive a $100 bonus when you deposit $10k or more in new money into a new or existing Online Savings Account within 10 days of enrollment, and maintain those funds and your current balance for 90 days. Enrollment must be done by either using the enrollment links at this Marcus promotion page or by calling Marcus at 1-855-730-SAVE by 11:59 PM EST on 3/18/19.
It’s nice to see that existing customers can qualify. Ally Bank did the same thing with its Payback promotion last year, but as we learned during the Ally promotion, it’s important for existing customers to understand the details of the rules regarding new money and balance changes during the time when the deposited new money must be maintained. The following is an excerpt from the small print at the Marcus promotion page that explains the details:
To qualify for the $100 bonus, you first need to enroll in the offer. Then, you need to deposit $10,000 or more in new funds (internal transfers won’t count) into a Marcus Online Savings Account within 10 days from enrollment and maintain at least $10,000 of those funds in your account plus your account balance at the time of enrollment for 90 consecutive days from the date of reaching the required dollar amount. Multiple deposits are allowed to reach the required dollar amount and can be made by joint owners for a joint account.
Existing customers should note that it’s your “account balance at the time of enrollment” that will be used to determine if you maintained the required funds for the 90 days. That’s important if you were planning to use the money in the savings account for a CD at another bank or for some other purpose.
Thanks to DA reader, RickZ, for posting on this promotion in the DA Forum.
Online Savings Account Overview
It’s common for banks to offer bonuses on accounts that you will probably not want for the long run. That’s not the case for this one. The Online Savings Account has a history of competitive rates. You can review the rate history of the Account by clicking the “details” arrow of the following table:
In addition to a history of competitive rates, the Online Savings Account has features that do make it a strong contender for one’s primary online savings account. A summary of the important features of the Online Savings Account is listed below:
- No minimum deposit
- Rate applies to all balances of $1 or more (currently 2.25% APY)
- Free ACH bank-to-bank transfer service
- Allows links to up to 4 external accounts
- Maximum outgoing transfer is $125K per transaction if done online (no limit if done by phone)
- No incoming transfer limit (as long as the maximum balance limit is maintained)
- ACH Transfers out take 1 to 3 business days
- Funds received by ACH transfer initiated at Goldman Sachs Bank available on the third business day. Funds received by ACH transfer initiated by another bank available on the next business day (see FAQs for full details)
- Maximum balance of $1 million for individuals (new customers)
- You may add up to six beneficiaries to each account.
- A beneficiary must be an individual; you may not name a trust or other entity as a beneficiary
- Social security numbers for beneficiaries required
- Trust accounts are not offered
- No charge for sending or receiving wire transfers
Availability
Goldman Sachs Bank USA operates the internet bank under the brand Marcus by Goldman Sachs. Savings Accounts and CDs are available nationwide and can be opened using the Bank’s online application. Account owners must be at least 18 years old and must be a U.S. citizen or legal resident.
To be eligible for the $100 bonus, you must enroll for this offer at this Marcus promotion page or by calling Marcus at 1-855-730-SAVE by 11:59 PM EST on 3/18/19.
Bank Overview
In April 2016, Goldman Sachs Bank USA completed the acquisition of the internet bank portion of GE Capital Bank. That’s when the brand name GS Bank was established. The brand name Marcus by Goldman Sachs was established in October 2016 as an online platform offering unsecured personal loans to consumers. As I described in November 2017, Goldman Sachs decided to consolidate savings accounts, CDs and personal loans under the brand Marcus by Goldman Sachs. All loans and deposit products are provided by Goldman Sachs Bank USA.
Goldman Sachs Bank USA is the 14th largest bank in the nation based on assets. As of the latest FDIC data (December 31, 2018), the bank has $192 billion in assets and $138 billion in deposits. The bank has an overall health rating of “A+” on DepositAccounts.com, with a Texas Ratio of 1.54% (excellent), based on September 30, 2018 data. In the past year, the Bank has increased its total non-brokered deposits by $20.46 billion, an excellent annual growth rate of 31.98%. Please refer to our financial overview of Goldman Sachs Bank USA (FDIC Certificate # 33124) for more details.
Value of the Online Savings Account Bonus
Assuming that the Online Savings Account rate remains at 2.25% APY for the next three months, a $10k balance will earn about $56 of interest. When you add the $100 bonus, the total earnings will be about $156. Without a bonus, an account would have to have a yield of 6.24% to earn that much interest in three months.
If you’re are playing it safe and you add some extra time at the start and the end of the 90-day requirement period so that the total time of maintaining a $10k balance is four months, the total interest earned would be about $75, and the total earnings would be $175. The equivalent yield to earn that much interest on a $10k balance for four months is 5.25%.
Instead of participating in this promotion, if you had deposited $10k into PurePoint Financial’s 13-month No-Penalty CD which currently has a 2.60% APY, you would earn a total of about $87 in four months. That’s $88 less than you would earn in this promotion.
In summary, this Marcus promotion is a good deal, but you’ll have to decide if the bonus amount is enough to make it worthwhile.
Be sure to check out our full list of the best savings and checking account bonus offers.
Regardless, I will probably open with the 10k for the bonus.
I need a good deal CD for my Keesler money in 11 days.
Larry # 7. "RJM Comment #4) RJM, I don't see why not as wires normally take 20 mins to half hour."
RJM # 11. "Id like to hear from someone who has done it like that."
RJM #66. "Its more likely your specific situation was the issue more than a company wide policy."
I told you the facts about Marcus's company-wide policies, but you only want confirmation of "what you want to hear or believe are the facts." So if I told you-you could wire money in and out the same day, you would be more inclined to believe a lie than the facts. Goldman Saks has a very long history of stock trading games, where they make money on spreads and churning stocks in mutual funds they offer. They apply similar practices to their banking. They have 137 Billion in deposits. 2.25% interest on JUST 1 Billion is $68,500 a day. They want to hold onto your money and skip a few days of interest because it is very profitable. They have a fraud team who surely has the charter to prevent fraud, but the team is also chartered with delay!
All that said, if you are only depositing $10,000, missing up to 3 days interest will not amount to much vs having to pay maybe a $25 wire fee. The only downside is possibly missing a great Promo because they delayed your wire or transfer.
The free wires in & out sounded good but it's not a deal stopper for me.
No reported hard pull, but I don't know about Chexsystem. They definitely aren't chexsystems sensitive, however, as I've opened a LOT of deposit accounts recently.
I am trying to print out the first page of the bonus information screen. It is scrolling on the print menu and is over several hundred pages and still going. Must be some kind of odd coding information on their webpage.
WheelinDealin | 22 hours ago
Pass. GS/Marcus is more trouble than they are worth. One of the few online banks that has frozen my funds in the past for no apparent reason except that I wanted to make a withdrawal. Also, their website sucks. It is so slow and difficult to navigate. That "M" with the circle around it it makes me want to smash my monitor.
https://www.depositaccounts.com/savings/best-savings-checking-account-bonus-offers/
This $500 bonus looks interesting as well. You get the extra $100 for meeting a direct deposit requirement for just 2 months. If ACH counts this is a good deal:
https://banking.citi.com/cbol/checking-500/default.htm?
This Doctor of credit post does a better job at explaining the details of ALL Citibank bonuses in one place with comments:
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/citi-400-600-personal-checking-savings-bonus-available-nationwide-direct-deposit-not-required/
I know what ACH stands for, but a lot of times I have no idea what you are talking about with all these other acronyms. What is OPP and OPM?
I see acronyms all the time now, I wonder why that is? Is it because nobody wants to spell out the words? ….. In any case, I am sure there are many others like myself that do not know what these are. I noticed in the last 2 weeks someone from the media started using "AOC" for Casio-Cortez, why not just say "Cortez?"
Dumb ideas? Dizzy? deplorable 1 we like some of your financial ideas, but please refrain from using personal insults. Especially against women. Is it ok for us to say that about you?
I receive bonus offers in the mail twice a month from Chase and Capital One. $250 if you open a checking or savings account. $500 for both. But you must deposit $10,000? Capital One wants $50,000. That's ridiculous, and you must leave it there for 6 months? I chose to put my 50K in Redneck Bank @2.50%. I earn more than $100 each month, and can easily withdraw it anytime.
Sorry had to re-post since comments were deleted.
HSBC -- $200 offer for existing customers to upgrade to Advance, $10K min combined balances, 90 days, direct savings 2.22%.
4. $200 Thank You Gift Offer Terms and Conditions: This offer is non-transferrable and available only at a U.S. HSBC branch or by contacting the Advance Engagement Team or HSBC representative via LiveChat. All qualifying activities must be completed within the stated time frames in order to be eligible for the $200 Thank You Deposit.
[EDIT] Although, somehow it opened a new savings account for me instead of applying the offer to my existing savings account. Weird but I can easily close the extra once the holding period is done.
The 60 day yield would be 24%
$5,000 x 24% = $1,200/12 = $100 x 2 =$200
A bit less because you have to wait for the bonus to post. They say 90 days but it has never even taken 30 days for the bonus to post in my experience.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/bank-accounts/is-opening-a-bank-account-a-soft-or-hard-pull/
My $400 appeared on time, but sometimes they don't - as stated above see https://www.doctorofcredit.com/citi-400-600-personal-checking-savings-bonus-available-nationwide-direct-deposit-not-required/ for problems folks have had with Citi. Also, a problem for thos who also have Citi credit cards is, Citi has a tendency to sometimes**** up and remove ALL online access when checking accpoutn is closed, so you have to re-establish your onloine acces for cards. Citi is more of a pain to deal with than, say, Ally.
As for fidelity, I got a much bigger bonus whenever I opened my account nearly 20 years ago but also did a deal last year for a ton of free trades. I had to move in so much for 9 months. Initially I was going to do a big bonus deal with Merrill Edge for moving money/assets there but changed my mind when I found out they cancel limit orders after 30 days.
I have generally not done too many deals. I opened a Discover account for a bonus and then got another bonus for a $10k-20k ach transfer.
In recent months, I did a couple of credit card deals for the bonuses only. Did a capital one, $150 for a $500 spend and an Amex $200 for $1000 spend. Both of them were really quick about giving me the money in the form of a statement credit so I did not have to spend extra to use the bonus money.
I may pay closer attention to these kind of deals in the future. In the past, I have passed on Citi deals because I read a lot of people saying they often fail to pay bonuses even for people who are diligent about meeting the qualifications.
But, I sure don't want a chexsystems hit that keeps me out of a future deal. Because I have had too many in the last 12-15 months.
I might look into an Edge deal soon as I have $ coming available from Keesler soon with no immediate plans for it. And they have had their best bonus deals around tax time. But I would not use it for my primary brokerage, maybe just for the bonus money while possibly buying brokered CD with it?
I find that one risk of doing this over time is that you might end up keeping a lot of accounts open for various reasons. Sometimes you'll find unexpected uses for bonus accounts. One time I had to pay for a hospital visit on an international business trip and the only card that worked there was a debit card from a recent bonus deal. So most bonus accounts that I could have closed after 6 months, I find that I keep them open for a year or more and many of them I ended up never closing.
Over the past number of years I have done business with over a dozen online banks: Purepoint, CIT, Citi, Synchrony, GE Bank, GS Marcus, iGo, LiveOak, Barclays, UFB, and more. I will say that GS/Marcus is the only one that has ever given me big problems and tied up my funds for no apparent reason. After having a large amount of funds there for a long time and then trying to withdraw those same funds, they froze my account and forced me to jump through hoops to get my own monies. I have read about this same thing happening to others when they go to withdraw. I'm not saying this will happen to you, but proceed at your own risk. Is $100 worth it?
The best I've ever seen is $500 from Chase? But you had to open both a checking and savings account. That's too much. The more we submit applications and spread our personal information around, the greater chance of ID theft? That's another reason I rarely chase rates or bonuses at various places. Only very occasionally.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/best-bank-account-bonuses/
and Citibank has a $500 bonus here:
https://banking.citi.com/cbol/checking-500/default.htm?
While this is an easy $100 to pick up, what concerns me is if an extra chexsystems inquiry keeps me from opening an account elsewhere with a very favorable rate then the amount I could forgo might be many times the $100.
Someone gave me the link to get a free copy of my chexsystems report but that by itself will not really tell me what I need to know...which is how many new accounts in what time frame will cause a rejection from a member firm?
I was once rejected probably 15 years ago but not since then. But, I've had a lot of new accounts in the last 12-15 months. Of course, not all use Chexsystems.
Right now, I am sitting on a large amount of cash with another large amount maturing next month. I had intended to go for the Hyperion CD deal but it abruptly ended and because of a lack of military affiliation I do not have a good option for a CD right now. I am considering the Keesler 3% 19 month just because I already have an account there. I probably won't put much in it but since its a decent rate and they might have a decent special in 19 months only open to those with a maturing CD then it can't really hurt to open a small one. I am considering $10k-25-50k at the most. But that still leaves me with 6 figures seeking a good CD deal.
But, I just realized this Goldman deal ended yesterday so I will have to wait & see if they have another one later on.
Going back a few decades prior, I WAS on their blacklist over an S&L that I had a savings account at since I was a teenager. When I heard they were closing I went in to cash out my small account. I found out I had a negative balance because they unilaterally started charging me a monthly fee. Inactivity I guess. I raised my voice and the manager called downtown and got approval to give me my money and close the account. Years later, I went in a bank to open a business account and that S&L incident was on there and the usual rep would not open the account. She said that the branch manager could override that and said to come in tomorrow.
I brought in a copy of my credit report, (scores were not common then) , a copy of my brokerage account and a few thousand in cash. I explained what it was all about and that the S&L went under. And at the time there was no way to object to anything at chexsystems. He approved the account.
Liz Warren is a democrat running for president. Contacting her or a financial board is likely to be a waste of time.