New Kasasa Accounts with a High-Yield Reward Checking at Peoples National Bank

Peoples National Bank has just started to offer Kasasa accounts, and one of those accounts is a high-yield reward checking account that’s called Kasasa Cash. There’s also a savings account called Kasasa Saver which links to the checking account, and there’s another type of reward checking account called Kasasa Cash Back. Instead of high interest rate, this checking account offers rewards in the form of 2% cash back on debit card purchases (up to $6 of cash back per month). The nice thing about Kasasa is that these are free accounts with no monthly service fees.

Below is a summary of the bank’s Kasasa Cash and Kasasa Saver accounts based on the bank’s Kasasa Cash page and Kasasa Saver page as of 4/8/2014:

Kasasa Cash rates and ATM fee refunds if monthly requirements are met:

• 2.01% APY on balances up to $10,000
• 0.015% interest rate on the portion of the balance over $10,000
• 0.01% APY on entire balance if requirements are not met
• ATM fee refunds nationwide (up to $20 monthly)

Kasasa Saver rates if monthly requirements are met on the Kasasa Cash or Kasasa Cash Back:

• 0.40% APY on balances up to $10,000
• 0.15% interest rate on the portion of the balance over $10,000
• 0.01% APY on entire balance if requirements are not met

Kasasa Cash and Kasasa Cash Back monthly requirements:

• 12 debit card purchases
• 1 automatic payment (ACH auto debit or bill pay)
• enrolled and receive eStatement notice

As mentioned above, these are free accounts with no monthly service fees and no minimum balance requirements. All require an initial minimum deposit of $100. There's a limit of one account per social security number.

Availability - Specific counties within the states of IL, MO, IN, and KY

Update 4/21/2014: The bank's online application now restricts new accounts to residents of only certain counties of four states. Below is what is stated on the first page of the online application:

To open an account at Peoples National Bank you must reside within our market area in specific counties within the states of Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, and Kentucky.

These accounts have an online application, and the online application is currently allowing any U.S. citizen to open an account online. I contacted the bank to confirm, and I was told the following:

People from any state are welcome to sign up for a Peoples National Bank Kasasa account. If you are interested in Kasasa Cash, please feel free to fill out an online application and a banker will contact you shortly.

As we have seen many times before, banks often change the eligibility rules. If you see a change, please leave a comment. Peoples National Bank isn't a small bank, so hopefully, it will be able to handle customers from all states.

Bank Overview

Most of Peoples National Bank branches are located in Southern Illinois. Some of the cities include Belleville, Benton, Harrisburg, Marion, Mc Leansboro and Mount Vernon. There are also branches in St. Louis, Missouri.

It’s a sizable community bank with over $900 million in assets. The bank has an overall health grade at DepositAccounts.com of a B+ with a Texas ratio of 11.46% (above average) based on December 2013 data. Please refer to our financial overview of Peoples National Bank , N.A. for more details. The bank has been a FDIC member since 1934 (FDIC Certificate # 3809).

How These Reward Checking and Savings Accounts Compare

The 2.01% APY is competitive for today’s reward checking accounts. The $10K cap is a little low, but unfortunately, that has become the norm for new reward checking accounts. You can get better deals at other nationally available institutions. The best deal is the Ovation Checking at INOVA Federal Credit Union. This account has a 3.00% APY for balances up to $20K. The best nationally available deal at a bank is the Kasasa Cash account at Lee Bank. This account has a 2.50% APY for balances up to $15K. These rates and balance caps are accurate as of 4/8/2014.

Peoples National Bank’s Kasasa Saver account is disappointing with a rate of only 0.40%. Saver accounts are only useful if they offer rates higher than the best internet savings account rates. You can easily get internet savings accounts with rates up to 1.00% as of 4/8/2014, and they don’t have any balance caps or monthly requirements to maintain the rates. Savers would be better off just linking their Kasasa Cash account to their online savings accounts.

To find other reward checking accounts that are available nationwide or in your state, please refer to our high-interest reward checking account table.

To learn more about high-interest reward checking accounts, please refer to my post 10 Common Traits of High-Yield Reward Checking Accounts.