Alliant Credit Union's Savings and Checking Rate Scheduled to Drop in January

After a reader emailed me the news, I called and confirmed it. Alliant Credit Union's board of directors has approved deep rate cuts for January on the savings account and High Rate Checking. The savings account yield will fall to 1.15% APY and the High Rate Checking yield will fall to 1.10% APY. Both are currently at 1.35% APY.

Alliant Credit Union's savings account has been a rate leader for the last three years. So it's worrisome to see this drop. Alliant may not be alone on rate cuts in January. With the Quantitative Easing and new regulations, banks and credit unions may find it necessary to cut deposit rates yet again.

It should be noted that Alliant Credit Union's savings account rate will remain above the rates of the savings accounts at ING Direct and Ally Bank. I did a graph comparing the savings account rates between Alliant and Ally for the past 3 years (includes the time when Ally was GMAC Bank). As you can see in the graph, Alliant Credit Union's rates have never been below Ally's rates. Note, before October 2008 the graph compares GMAC Bank's money market account yield with Alliant's savings account yield. GMAC didn't have a savings account back then. In September 2008 GMAC introduced the savings account which had a higher rate than the money market account. In the graph I switched from the MMA to the savings account in October 2008. That's the reason for the Ally rate hike. There were only two times that Ally and Alliant had the same rates (January 2009 and July 2009). All other times, Alliant's rates have been higher.

For the full details of Alliant's rate history, please refer to the bottom of the post of my Alliant Savings Account review.

Alliant Credit Union's CD and IRA CD rates continue to be very competitive. They haven't changed since October. Unlike the savings and checking account rates which always change at the start of a month, Alliant's CD rates can change at any time during the month. For more details about Alliant's CDs and credit union membership, please refer to my October review of Alliant Credit Union and its CDs.