Bank Deals Blog: Banking Tools and Data

The second Fed meeting of 2018 has started today. The FOMC statement should be released on 2:00pm Wednesday. A rate hike is expected which will move the target federal funds rate range to 1.50% - 1.75%. A Fed rate hike on Wednesday will likely be the first of three or four rate hikes for 2018. How will this affect deposit rates? To help answer that question, we did an analysis of our proprietary banking data with a focus on savings account rates. This is an update to the analysis that...

The first Fed meeting of 2018 has started today. The FOMC statement should be released on 2:00pm Wednesday. Even though no rate hike is expected to be announced at this meeting, 2018 should be another year of multiple Fed rate hikes. How will this affect deposit rates? To help answer that question, we did an analysis of our proprietary banking data with a focus on savings account rates.

After three Fed rate hikes in 2017 and after a total of five rate hikes since the Fed started normalizing rates in December...

This was the year in which savers finally started to see widespread deposit rate increases. Average rates haven't increased much, but if you look at the rates from internet banks, it's clear that rates are going up.

First, let’s look at the average savings account rate for all banks and credit unions that DA tracks. The vast majority of these savings accounts are from brick-and-mortar banks and credit unions. As you might expect, these rates are much lower than the rates you can get at most any internet bank. The current...

One of the things we’re proud of at DepositAccounts is how our patented rate-tracking technology isn’t built to monitor only banks, whose products dominate the coverage by most sites that list deposit rates. In the data universe we opted to create, more than 4,000 credit unions also populate our rate tables. Ranging from those with over a hundred thousand members and nationwide availability to tiny ones with a single branch and a mere one hundred members, credit unions play a fully co-starring role alongside banks on our stage of national,...

A year and a half ago, we focused our data microscope on a question that comes up from time to time: do smaller or larger financial institutions offer better deposit rates? Or maybe it’s the mid-sized banks and credit unions? Our test hypothesis was what most savvy savers will anecdotally tell you from their rate shopping, that the biggest players typically pay the least. And indeed our 2015 analysis bore that out. But does that equate to the smallest institutions paying the most?

Since we last sharpened our pencils on this,...

As many readers know, a major focus here at DepositAccounts has always been on tracking and organizing as much helpful data as we can gather on banks, credit unions, and their deposit products. This focus (and the technology that drives this initiative) has resulted in a very large data set – which includes more than a quarter million rates, as featured by our rate tables – and the discovery of many of the attractive deals that we cover here on the Bank Deals Blog.

One less publicized aspect of our...

If I utter the phrase “J.D. Power Ratings”, I’ll bet you a dollar I can guess what pops into your mind. It’s probably a memory of the last time you bought a new or used car. Maybe you were trying to figure out whether people are happier with their Toyota Highlanders or their Nissan Pathfinders, or which sedan is more dependable, the Ford Fusion or the Honda Accord. Whatever car model one’s considering, J.D. Power can ply you with a wide array of metrics to help (or perhaps complicate?) your...

I have a favorite podcast. It’s called Planet Money, produced by NPR, and it bills itself as “The economy explained, with stories and surprises”. I’ve listened to hundreds of the show’s short episodes over the years, but one has been my favorite ever since it aired in 2010. It’s succinctly titled "Why Gold?" and it immediately came to mind when I conceived of the analysis we’re about to dig into.

That’s because “Why Gold?” started with the periodic table of Earth’s 118 elements and, criteria by practical criteria, whittled it down...

By now, many of us handle a good portion of our routine bank business by computer or smartphone. We can log in to check balances, transfer funds, and send payments. And we can deposit checks using our bank’s app in tandem with our phone’s camera. The ability to manage our deposit accounts from wherever we are, and without stepping foot inside a physical branch, has not only never been greater, it’s likely to continue expanding.

So with the necessity of brick...

We have made an enhancement to the rate table pages. It’s an enhancement that is easy to miss. At the bottom of each of the major rate tables, a chart is included that displays the trend of the average APY of all the banks and credit unions that we track. This is intended to help you see where rates are headed. It also can be useful to see how the Fed rate hikes are affecting deposit rates.

These average yield charts are located at the bottom of the major rate...