Barclays’ New Dream Savings Account

Barclays has recently added a new online savings account that it calls the Dream Account. It’s intended to encourage people to save money. Long-time savers with large savings probably won’t find much benefit with the account. That’s due to a maximum monthly deposit of only $1,000.

The Dream Account currently has a 0.95% APY as of 12/2/2013. Barclays also offers an interest bonus. Every time you make consecutive deposits for six months, Barclays will give you a 2.5% bonus on the total interest you earned over that time. In addition, make no withdrawals for six consecutive months and earn another 2.5% bonus on the past six months of interest earned. If you can earn both bonuses, the effective yield becomes close to 1%. This is a little higher than the rate of Barclays regular savings account which currently has a 0.90% APY.

The main issue with the Dream Account is a low maximum monthly deposit of only $1,000. According to Barclays’ FAQ, "the initial opening deposit cannot exceed $1,000" and "there is a maximum deposit of $1,000 in a calendar month, per account." Each customer is allowed a maximum number of 3 Dream Accounts.

Please refer to Barclays savings account page for more details. Thanks to DA member vjrampello for reporting on this account in the forum.

Barclays Online Savings Account

In my opinion, this Dream Account doesn’t offer enough advantages over Barclays’ regular online savings account. That savings account has a competitive rate of 0.90% and it has a history of competitive rates. From the time the savings account was launched in March 2012, there has been only one rate cut. That happened on May 16, 2013 when the yield went down from 1.00% to 0.90%. The online savings account has several nice features such as no minimum balance requirement and no monthly fees. Barclays also has a nice ACH transfer system. I have more details on its ACH system in this blog post.

Bank Overview

The Barclays internet bank is part of Barclays Bank Delaware which is a FDIC member (FDIC Certificate # 57203). The bank is best known in the U.S. for partnering with companies in offering co-branded credit cards. It's part of the U.S. division of Barclays, a British multinational megabank.

Barclays Bank Delaware has an overall health grade at DepositAccounts.com of A+ with a Texas ratio of 4.22% (excellent) based on September 2013 data. Please refer to our financial overview of Barclays Bank Delaware for more details. The bank has been a FDIC member since 2001.