Bank Deals Blog: Fed / Banking News

Happy New Year! I and my team at DepositAccounts.com wish you and your family a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. I thank all of you for your support over the last year.

As I mentioned in my review of online savings accounts in 2017, savers finally started to see widespread deposit rate increases in 2017. The increases haven’t been as much as we had hoped for. The federal funds rate increased by 75 bps, but the average savings account rate of the top 10 large internet banks only increased...

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...

I’m very pleased to announce that Sol Nasisi will be a regular contributor to DepositAccounts. Many of you may be familiar with Sol from his time at BestCashCow where he is the co-founder and a past president. Last year Sol left BestCashCow and is now working on other projects. I was thrilled when Sol approached me with an interest in contributing to DepositAccounts. Sol will be writing a few articles a month on trends, news and issues that impact savers. I’m sure you will appreciate his analysis and insights that...

As of today, 88% of the readers who took my Fed Rate Hike Poll anticipate three or fewer Fed rate hikes in 2017. This prediction is inline with what the Fed suggested last month with its dot plot and inline with the current Fed fund futures, which indicate only a 14% chance of more than three rate hikes in 2017 (Please take the poll if you haven’t already).

This is a good reminder that rate hikes this year (and in the next couple of years) will likely to be gradual....

Happy New Year! Will 2017 be the year when savers finally start seeing some relief from these ultra low interest rates?

You can find reasons to be optimistic in the last two months of 2016. First, the markets reacted positively to Trump’s election. Since the election, the 10-year Treasury yield has increased from 1.88% to 2.45%. According to this Wall Street Journal article:

December’s Fed meeting was another reason to be optimistic for rising rates in 2017. In addition to hiking the federal funds rate by 25 basis points, the Fed’s...

For savers who have lived with the ultra low interest rate environment for the last eight years, they may take some comfort that President-elect Donald Trump has said “Yellen is keeping rates too low, too long.” A Trump Presidency could speed up the pace of Fed rate hikes, and based on interest rate history, deposit rates do track Fed rate hikes and have often outpaced Fed rate increases.

The first way a Trump Presidency may speed up the pace of Fed rate hikes is by changing the Fed. The most...

International Credit Union (ICU) Week begins today (Oct 17), and ICU Day is Thursday (Oct 20). ICU Day has been celebrated on the third Thursday of October since 1948. It’s not only celebrated in the U.S., but it’s also celebrated in many other countries that are part of the World Council of Credit Unions. The Council’s website lists the countries with membership. It’s interesting that several European nations are not listed. It appears cooperative savings banks take the place of credit unions in those countries.

The newsworthy feature of ICU...

New rules for money market funds that take effect today (October 14) will fundamentally change the way money market funds operate. The new rules are intended to prevent runs on money market funds like what was seen in the 2008 financial crisis. These rules only affect money market funds (MMFs) which are mutual funds available from brokerage firms.They don’t affect any deposit accounts including money market accounts which are essentially the same as savings accounts.

I’ve been reporting on high-yield reward checking accounts for 10 years now. I thought this would be a good time to mark this milestone.

Time sure has gone by fast, I started blogging on bank deals in 2005, and in 2006, I began coming across high-yield checking accounts from community banks and credit unions that had a catch: the high-yield had some activity requirements. Debit card usage was the main one that required some effort (see my reward checking overview for more details of the activity requirements). For savers who...

Last year many economists were predicting a Fed rate hike in June. They were off by six months. The Fed rate hike finally came, but it wasn’t until December. There are two things to note from this. First, it’s very difficult to predict interest rate changes. Second, there has been a long history of delayed rate hikes. It’s a good idea to remember these two things when thinking about your strategy with the money you want to keep in deposit accounts.

The difficult question for 2016 is how fast will...