Western FCU (Easy Membership) Has Top-Rate 19-Month IRA
California-based Western Federal Credit Union (Western FCU) is offering a 19-month High Yield IRA Certificate Special (2.00% APY). The minimum opening deposit is $500 and there is a maximum deposit amount of $500K per membership.
In a Live Chat, CSR stated the 19-month High Yield IRA Special’s Early Withdrawal Penalty
Would be 90 days worth or interest, unless you are over 59 1/2 years old.
In that case, there will be no penalty.
Only a few other institutions (PenFed for one) offer this age related penalty-free feature, which only increases the competitiveness of the 19-month High Yield IRA Special.
Availability
Headquartered in Hawthorne, California, Western Federal Credit Union’s field of membership is varied, with residency, employment and organization membership servicing as qualifying criteria.
Easy Membership: Individuals who join either the Surfrider Foundation or Friends of Hobbs qualify for credit union membership. According to Western FCU’s website, you can qualify "through a complimentary membership with a partnering nonprofit organization."
Employment: Hundreds of companies through the US offer membership in Western FCU as part of their employee benefits package, including Toyota and Northrop Grumman.
Residency: Individuals who live, work, worship or attend school in selected areas of 13 states are also eligible for membership. Western FCU used to have a "Search for your Zip Code" page to help determine eligibility, but that page no longer exists. Western FCU does, however, offer "Live Chat" on their website to assist in clarifying eligibility status.
Relationship: Immediate family members of current Western FCU members are automatically eligible for membership.
Joining Western FCU and/or opening the IRA Special can be done online, or at any of 46 branches located in Alabama, Arkansas (5), California (25), Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky (2), Michigan, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas (2), Utah, Virginia (4), and West Virginia.
Credit Union Overview
Western Federal Credit Union has an overall health grade of "B+" at DepositAccounts.com, with a Texas ratio of 6.79% (excellent) based on June 30, 2015 data. In the past year, Western FCU has increased its total deposits by $132.78 Million, and excellent annual growth rate of 7.72%. Please refer to our financial overview of Western Federal Credit Union for more details.
Established in 1963, Western Federal Credit Union (NCUA Charter # 15732) is the 16th largest credit union in California and the 88th largest credit union in the country. As a result of several mergers (including those with Toyota FCU and TRW Systems FCU) in the past 10 years, Western FCU currently has over 180,200 members and assets in excess of $2.1 Billion.
How the IRA Compares
When compared to the 65 similar length-of-term IRAs tracked by DepositAccounts.com that require a similar minimum deposit and are available nationwide, Western Federal Credit Union's 19-month High Yield IRA Special currently ranks first.
The above rates are accurate as of 10/19/2015.
To look for the best nationwide IRA rates and the best IRA rates in your state, please refer to our IRA rates table.
I've always wondered something about an IRA CD (and in fact this one seems to be an "IRA-only" CD), especially one which is touted as having a no-withdrawal-penalty clause for people over 59.5 years old. I understand that this CD itself, like PenFed's, has no early withdrawal penalty for those above that age. What I'm less clear on is whether opening such a CD, as an IRA, creates an IRA account which may have its own separate set of rules, and fees.
After all if you look at the fee structure for IRA accounts at Fidelity, T. Rowe Price or nearly anybody but Vanguard, you see a structure that almost always includes a closing fee. So if you decide to close an IRA account at many of these institutions, whether or not the particular investment you put in that IRA account (stocks, bond, mutual funds, etc., perhaps even brokered CDs, etc.) itself has a closing fee, often the IRA account as a whole will have one. I just went through that with Fidelity, which for some types of IRA accounts insists on a $50 closing fee. This is separate from any "closing" or "sell to cash" fee that one or more of the individual investments within that IRA account may or may not have.
So maybe it's apples and oranges but I wonder - for these bank IRA CDs which claim no-penalty withdrawals, is withdrawal from the CD and from the IRA account completely fee-free?