Pawtucket Credit Union (RI) Adds 15-Month CD

POSTED ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2018 BY Ken Tumin

Deal Summary: 15-month CD, 3.00% APY, $1k minimum deposit

Availability: Residents of Rhode Island and nearby communities in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Over the weekend, Pawtucket Credit Union (Pawtucket CU) added a 15-month CD, which earns a competitive 3.00% APY. The minimum opening deposit is $1k, with no stated balance cap.

As stated on the Deposit Rates page, the Early Withdrawal Penalty (EWP) reads as follows:

If your account has an original maturity of more than one year: The penalty we may
impose will equal six months interest on the amount withdrawn subject to penalty.

15-Month Easy Access CD

I first wrote about Pawtucket CU’s 15-month Easy Access CD in October 2016, when the APY was 1.35%. Nearly two years later, the Easy Access CD has gained 65 bps in three rate increases and now offers 2.00% APY. The minimum opening deposit is $5k, with no stated balance cap.

APY	MIN	MAX	INSTITUTION	PRODUCT	DETAILS
1.80%	$5k	-	Pawtucket Credit Union	15 Month Easy Access CD

Rates as of January 22, 2020.

The “Easy Access” option allows for,

Two penalty-free withdrawals during 15 month term. To avoid penalty, withdrawals
must be more than 6 days after account opening, and more than 6 days following
each partial withdrawal; otherwise, penalty as described for early withdrawal.

A minimum daily balance of $5k is required to earned the stated APY. If the balance should fall below $5k, the CD will be closed and any applicable EWP will be assessed.

Availability

Headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Pawtucket Credit Union still does not list its field of membership (FOM) anywhere on its website, which is unusual. According to CSR, "anyone" can join the Credit Union, as long as "anyone" lives or works in Rhode Island, or in a nearby Massachusetts or Connecticut community.

Joining Pawtucket CU and/or opening a 15-month CD can be done online, or at any of 15 Rhode Island branches located in Cranston (2), Cumberland, East Greenwich, East Providence, North Kingstown, North Providence, Pawtucket (4), Rumford, Smithfield, and Warwick (2).

While there is not an “Open Now” button on the Deposit Rates page for the 15-month CD, clicking on any of the “Open Now” buttons takes you to the online application. The 15-month CD is listed in a drop-down menu on the second page of the online application.

As stated on the online application,

Maximum online deposit is $2,500. Additional funds may be added up to 10 calendar days after the account is approved by visiting any branch or mailing a check with specific deposit instructions to Pawtucket Credit Union Call Center, 1200 Central Ave, Pawtucket, RI 02861.

Credit Union Overview

Pawtucket Credit Union has an overall health grade of "A" at DepositAccounts.com, with a Texas Ratio of 0.98% (excellent), based on March 31, 2018 data. In the past year, Pawtucket CU has increased its total non-brokered deposits by $112.06 million, an excellent annual growth rate of 7.12%. Please refer to our financial overview of Pawtucket Credit Union (NCUA Charter # 67278) for more details.

Established in 1926, Pawtucket Credit Union is currently Rhode Island’s largest credit union with more than 110,300 members, 15 branch locations, and assets in excess of $2.1 billion. Most of Pawtucket CU’s growth occurred after 1991, at which time the Credit Union had only one office and $120 million in assets. In the past two years, Pawtucket CU’s membership has increased by more than 17%.

How the CD Compares

When compared to the 193 similar length-of-term CDs tracked by DepositAccounts.com that require a similar minimum deposit and are available to Rhode Island residents, Pawtucket Credit Union's 15-month CD APY currently shares the top spot with Taunton Federal Credit Union’s 20-month CD Special APY.

The above rates are accurate as of 8/14/2018.

Searching for the best CD rates, both nationwide and in your state? Please refer to our CD Rates table.

RichReg | Aug 14, 2018 | Comment #1

Why are there so many great short-term deals restricted to Massachusetts and Connecticut?
Are those states somehow facing a major liquidity issue?

RJM | Aug 14, 2018 | Comment #2

Look at the bigger picture. More & More banks & credit unions will see what others are paying and may adjust their rates accordingly. Not all of them of course but some will.

Apparently not LMCU and that has me considering ending my relationship with them. (Closing my accounts)

RichReg | Aug 14, 2018 | Comment #3

Yeah, I get that...but why are MA & CT almost always leader of the pack?
RI also seems to pop up more these days as well.

mathewp | Aug 14, 2018 | Comment #4

I live in MA. My take on this is MA/RI economies are really doing well probably ahead of rest of USA. There is a growing demand for business lending due to construction, renovation, infrastructure activity. The small local banks are trying to generate as much funding as possible locally to boost their lending portfolios which pay them substantially more than the borrowing costs. National banks can just move their portfolios to growth areas without having to pay higher interest rates but local banks can only generate deposit funds locally. Hope that explains your question.

RichReg | Aug 14, 2018 | Comment #6

Thanks mathewp, that makes sense.
You would think that "as much as possible" wouldn't be restricted to local, but would encourage them to permit nationwide access to these products. I mean, generating funding is generating funding, right?

mathewp | Aug 14, 2018 | Comment #7

Agreed that would be ideal. But for a bank set up on being a small local bank from infrastructure, support, systems and contact processes perspective, it is not just so easy to go national. They also need to update their marketing, risk, fraud, compliance requirements to support at national level and also their audit requirements will go up due to exposure to different state regulations etc. Also online application systems and flow throughs are expensive to support and if one doesn't get 100-200 online orders/day, the ROI will be negative. That forces them to be branch-only opening requirement. For example if a customer runs into a special situation in online interactions, they can easily say please go to the branch to resolve. Going national means that whole process has to be supported virtually. So individual banks those decisions based on their respective situations as to your point why would anyone leave deposits on the table if they can. National accounts have different churn metrics than local accounts. That is another big factor on how comfortable they are in dealing with extra churn.