Salem Five is headquartered in Salem and is the 8th largest bank in the state of Massachusetts. It is also the 220th largest bank in the nation. It was established in 1855 and as of September of 2019, it had grown to 581 employees at 36 locations. Salem Five's money market rates are 4X the national average, and it has an A health rating.
Related Posts
4/27/11 - Salem Five CD and Savings Account Promo Updates
1/12/11 - Update on Salem Five Bank's CD Specials - Available Nationwide
12/15/10 - Competitive CD Specials at Salem Five Bank - Available Nationwide
7/4/10 - $100 Gift Card Bonus For Opening A Checking Account At Salemfive In MA
7/23/08 - 5.00% 60-Month CD at Salem Five Bank
1/14/07 - 5.25% Savings Account at Salem Five
5/26/06 - 4.75% Money Market Account at SalemFive
5/12/06 - 5.30% 9-Month CD at a Massachusetts Bank (open to all)
10/19/05 - 4.25% CD/Savings Account and a 3-year 5% CD
I Love Them!
I had to write this review because I am shocked at these ratings. This bank is GREAT! Great products, no fees, good service, up to date with the times. I have the SalemFive Direct eOne Savings and Checking combo with an interest rate of 1.5%. Not bad for complete freedom to your money! Other Banks don't have a rate like this for CD's! I do agree; however, that their penalty for breaking a CD is much too high - they need to fix that!
If You Can Put Up With A 150-Year Old Institution . . .
This 150-year old brink-n-mortar bank is trying to join the 21st century by becoming an "internet bank" - it fails msierably.They have no clue how internet banking works! And interest in learning how either. They think people still use horse-n-buggy for transport and women wear very tight corsetts.
So, why am I trusting them with my money? They have very conservative thinking - which is good. Their state - Massechussetts - forces them to insure a much higher limit than FDIC. They pay better interest rates. And I don't have to see their CEO or bank employees in person to aggravate me further.
They have STUPID limits on incoming deposits - as if Butch Cassidy is going to deposit their loot into this bank.
The CEO must be a complete idiot not to hire top-notch software talent to learn from them to become an internet bank.
Skip This Bank
Only use this bank if you have read all 25 pages of disclosure.
I have used online banking for many years now and have never run into the kinds of restrictions imposed by Salemfive.
For instance, you cannot transfer out any sums over $5000 and you cannot transfer out any sums over $20,000 per month.
A very similar situation for transfers into Salemfive.
Their website is not as user friendly as other online institutions I have used.
Ineptly-Antiquated Online Bank - Many Steps Backward In Time!
This is by far the worst (utterly 15+yrs outdated) online banking experience I've ever had, and that's really saying something: between managing my 88-yr-old mother's finances, and my family's, I do a LOT of online banking of all sorts. This review revolves around a 5-yr-CD for my mother. I really should have "bailed" when we had issues initially x-ferring the funds into the account (but at the time the rate was just SO good, that I "waded" thru the issues, which took a week or two to resolve - no-interest-earned in the interim :-) - big mistake #1.
OK, so now the account is funded - where's the option to have the interest transferred back into my mother's checking account upon accrual? - Response: oh-so-sorry-no-can-do... no option like that - all interest is added to CD till maturity.
Hmmm...I thought, it would be a real pain to cancel the CD & lose a couple months interest over this issue... I decided that the CD-income wasn't THAT critical to my mother's cashflow, so i'd just let that issue ride (big mistake #2)
So a number of months go by & I realize that I am way overdue on providing my mother with her quarterly "statement of assets"... we log-in to her account only to find that you can only view 3-months of back-transactions (my accounting for was further behind than that). So I think: OK, I'll just download statements... Hmmm, odd... NO statments available - she's had the account for 7+months, how can there be "no statements available? Response: oh-so-sorry-no-can-do - online-statements are only issued ANNUALLY. Me: "So just shail-mail us a statement" Response: oh-so-sorry-no-can-do - CD statements are only available online, you'll have to print your own. (lets just say this put my bloodpressure into a very unhealthy range)
So, now here we are 5-yrs later - CD has FINALLY matured (btw, there was NO maturation-notice sent - not by email, not by snail-mail, nothing but a mid-year "acct-statement-is-avail" e-notice (one of many-dozens that typically go unheeded on a regular basis - UNLESS, (1) you remember that there is no such a thing as a "mid-year-stmt" from THIS bank, -or- (2) as in my case, you keep very close tabs YOURSELF on CD-maturity-dates).
OK, so we're still in the "grace window" after maturity - we login (btw, found a secure-msg, irrelevantly titled, that does say CD matured) & send a secure-request that the principal+interest NOT be rolled-over into a new CD (i.e. GET ME OUT OF HERE, NOW!!!), and request that the funds be x-ferred via ACH back into the exact same checking account that they came from initially (provided in secure-msg, the full ACH-info - its a major-bank w/ identical acct registration) Response (nearly 2-days later): oh-so-sorry-no-can-do - you can only redeem a CD via a bank-check thru the mail (w/ no indication that they were actually MAILING the check) - sent another secure-msg confirming snail-mail address & requesting check. Response (nearly 2-days later again): We'll be mailing the check winin 2-days, you should receive it within 10-days - please contact us again if you don't.
Note that NONE of these secure-msgs were accompanied by any sort of email-alert indicating that a response-msg was waiting to be read, i.e. we had to repeatedly log-in to see if there was a SalemFive response yet.
I swear I'm not making ANY of this up! I've dealt with many dozens of online banks & financial institutions over the years - learned the hard way about teaser-rates, fine-print-fees, all sorts of dirty tricks - I don't think any of those apply here - SalemFive is just has a completely ineptly-antiquated online customer-service - Imho, its at LEAST 15-years behind the typical online banking services that you expect from the industry! Aside from reading 100's of reviews, how do you even protect yourself from this sort of thing prior to opening an account? This bank pushed me completely over the edge a while ago - now as CD's mature, I'm moving both my mother's & our family's entire CD-ladders to brokered-CD's (in our case thru Vanguard). In another week or two (assuming my mother notices the check in the mail & finally deposits it in her checking account), I'll finally be FREE of this nightmare. As for SalemFive, I wish them a speedy corporate-demise - maybe a REAL online-bank will take them over and finally put all the rest of their customers out of their misery...
Data as of Q3 2019
Learn why bank health mattersHealth Grade Components
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| FDIC Certificate # | 23296 |
| Year Established | 1855 |
| Employees | 581 |
| Primary Regulator | FDIC |
| Profit Margin | |
|---|---|
| Return on Assets - YTD | 1.27% |
| Return on Equity - YTD | 12.24% |
| Annual Interest Income | $155.4MM |
| Assets and Liabilities | ||
|---|---|---|
| Assets | Q3 2019vs Q3 2018 | $5.24B$4.94B |
| Loans | Q3 2019vs Q3 2018 | $4.06B$3.71B |
| Deposits | Q3 2019vs Q3 2018 | $4.00B$3.79B |
| Equity Capital | Q3 2019vs Q3 2018 | $553.5MM$507.6MM |
| Loan Loss Allowance | Q3 2019vs Q3 2018 | $36.9MM$30.9MM |
| Unbacked Noncurrent Loans | Q3 2019vs Q3 2018 | $14.5MM$13.0MM |
| Real Estate Owned | Q3 2019vs Q3 2018 | $740.00K$1.4MM |
