Sallie Mae Bank is a financial institution affiliated with Sallie Mae, the company widely known for its student loan business. The SLM Corporation (the formal name for Sallie Mae) is a publicly traded (NASDAQ: SLM) education finance corporation with a plethora of divisions and subsidiaries that offer an array of debt management services and business products. Sallie Mae Bank is a recent venture by the company into the retail banking space.
The bank offers three different types of savings products on its personal banking side, including Money Market and savings accounts, and Certificates of Deposit (CDs). DepositAccounts.com has featured Sallie Mae’s Money Market account in the past for its competitive rate offering, and it is still usually one of the top offerings in the country. The MMA comes with check writing capabilities and has no minimum balance requirement, no monthly fees, and no tiered interest rates. The savings account offering is very similar, having no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements, as well as a comparable interest rate. The main difference between Sallie Mae’s Money Market and savings account is that the savings account offers a 10% annual match on Upromise rewards, whereas the Money Market account comes with check writing but no rewards. The bank’s CDs are available in 12-, 36-, and 60-month term lengths and come with fixed rates and minimum initial deposit requirements. Sallie Mae Bank also makes undergraduate and graduate student loans available, as well as family loans for kids in K-12 grades.
Sallie Mae Bank online banking provides the only way for customers to access their deposit accounts, as the bank has no physical branches. The web-based platform gives account holders the ability to perform functions like direct deposit, bill pay, and funds transfers, but because the bank doesn’t offer a checking account to the public, customers should be careful to avoid going over the six transactions per month limit.
Sallie Mae Bank is a subsidiary of the SLM Corporation, which was created in 1972 as a government-partnered mutual loan entity. In 2004, the company permanent severed ties with the U.S. government and became a private sector company. A year later, in 2005, the bank was started in order to complement its loan business. In the summer of 2013, Sallie Mae announced that it was going to divide its education loan management business from its banking business in order to offer more consumer lending products on its banking side. Sallie Mae Bank is currently headquartered in Murray, Utah, and maintains it customers’ deposit accounts through its online banking system.
If you ’trust the process' everything works great! Not being the trusting type I tried to understand the relationship between Savebetter and its listed banks. Apparently SaveBetter's custodian bank 'Lewis and Clark' maintains an account at their client banks (like SallieMae) and Savebetter deposits are aggregated to this account. So the client banks don't need to deal with many retail accounts. Savebetter then does all the customer facing work like showing account balances and processing retail transactions. They claim (taking them at their word) that the FDIC insurance passes-through if a client bank fails. I guess SaveBetter gets some money from their client banks for marketing and recordkeeping.
Overall, the process seems to work remarkably well so far given its complexity (haven't taken money out though).
Only gottcha's so far is that their is no option to collect accrued interest from CDs prior to maturity and their ChatBot while not ChatGPT quality is reasonably complete. It answered how to set a beneficiary for example. Also SaveBetter was a bit sketchy about how (the one) external bank account allowed is set or displayed. I tried getting someone with a pulse to answer a question but got music-on-hold. Be advised.
I had a little trouble finding this CD as it's only open on the Savebetter platform, not the Sallie Mae web page. Once I got there, it was very easy to set up a platform wide account and then to open the CD. Also an easy process to link and pull funds from an external account. The transfer was complete in a day or two. You have the option to renew the maturing CD or have the funds transferred back to your linked account. Glad I got to lock in 5% for a 27 month period.
Been with Sallie Mae for over 15 years, and their Money Market Account (with limited checkwriting) has usually been the best rate out there and pretty convenient to access via free ACH transfers.
They have changed recently, however. Not crazy about their new website and some policy changes, however. For example, without notice, their money market account is now considered a savings account for ACH purposes when it used to be a checking account. They gave no notice of the policy change and simply removed the ACH guidance on this entirely from their FAQ's. I also can't get prior year 1099's anymore.
Today, I also had a very big disappointment with them worth bringing to everyone's attention. Although the bank offers same-day domestic wire transfers for a $20 fee and accompanied by photo ID, and even has a special wire transfer request form to specify the destination party and account, etc., somebody at this bank has seriously misinterpreted their own Deposit Agreement to mean that all wire transfer requests are "preauthorized transfers" and can only be made to one of your linked accounts for online ACH transfers. That means no wire transfers may be sent to third parties, and even no same day transfers to a new external account of your own (as to be an eligible linked account, it also must be ACH verified via trial deposits first).
I tried arguing with their representatives that a wire transfer request is not a preauthorized transfer, and the section of the Terms and Conditions Agreement which describes the wire transfer service makes no mention that a wire can only be sent to a verified linked account, but of course they won't budge. I'm likely going to submit a dispute claim with their compliance team on the matter for the money that I have now lost due to their refusal to execute the wire request, but who knows where that'll go...
Honestly, somebody there seems to have lost their mind by limiting wire transfers to only external accounts for which 2-day ACH transfers can already be performed by the customer (up to $500,000). And the information collected on their wire transfer form and photo ID requirement is totally unnecessary and ridiculous if they still only allow wire transfers into previously linked accounts, which they already know about and have verified that you own!
I tried to apply online for a Sallie Mae CD. After completing 95% of application, it asked for my bank username and password in order to "verify" the routing and acct. numbers. I chose instead to verify later and received an Application pending screen. Next day, did not receive any notification through email so called. Customer service could see all my personal data (ss#, dob, security answer) but said the application failed and I would have to reapply. When questioned why she could see all my information if the app failed, she said she cannot delete it and it would leave their system in 30 days. I think this is bad practice and don't want them handling my money.
Overall | |
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FDIC Certificate # | 58177 |
Year Established | 2005 |
Employees | 1688 |
Primary Regulator | FDIC |
Profit Margin | |
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Return on Assets - YTD | 1.91% |
Return on Equity - YTD | 23.09% |
Annual Interest Income | $640.9MM |
Assets and Liabilities | ||
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Assets | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $29.39B$28.92B |
Loans | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $21.14B$21.31B |
Deposits | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $21.99B$21.55B |
Equity Capital | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $2.48B$2.49B |
Loan Loss Allowance | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $1.48B$1.23B |
Unbacked Noncurrent Loans | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $137.4MM$136.0MM |
Real Estate Owned | Q1 2023vs Q1 2022 | $0$0 |
Always verify rates and promotions with the bank or credit union. We are not Sallie Mae Bank; we are a rate comparison website and cannot provide official rates or promotions.
APY | MIN | MAX | ACCOUNT NAME | VIEW DETAILS |
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4.50% | - | - | High-Yield Savings |
APY | MIN | MAX | ACCOUNT NAME | VIEW DETAILS |
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4.75% | - | - | Money Market |
Sallie Mae Bank is an Internet only bank and does not have branch locations. Its headquarters is located at 175 S West Temple - Salt Lake City, UT 84101