NFCU Ends Special 18 Month Easy Start CD June 9Th

MineSweeper | Jun 1, 2024 | 68 posts since 2021

NFCU is ending their 18 Month 4.70 Special Easy Start CD on June 9th. This CD allows one penalty free withdrawal during the 18-month term. This CD allows one partial or free withdrawal during the term. Additional withdrawals will be subject to the standard penalty for early withdrawals. This CD allows you to hedge interest rates during the 18 month term. If rates go up you can cash in the CD and purchase a new CD at a higher rate. If rates go down during the term you are protected by 4.70 percent rate.

For NFCU members if you utilize an NFCU Money Market or Savings account you could shift money into this account and get the higher rate while maintaining access to your funds from the CD with no penalty.

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aaflygirl | Jun 1, 2024 | 87 posts since 2016

According to a previous post, you can no longer do a one time no penatly withdrawal.

MineSweeper | Jun 1, 2024 | 68 posts since 2021

aaflygirl you can still do a one time no penalty withdrawal per their website. I have attached a link below:

https://www.navyfederal.org/campaigns/savings/a31772-lp.html

racecar | Jun 1, 2024 | 551 posts since 2014

aaflygirl,
MineSweeper is correct, that was a mistake on my part (or rather, NavyFed was updating their page in the middle of the night and temporarily showed they no longer offered it, and I posted about it before verifying with them). It's still available, and according to MineSweeper, will end on June 9th.

MineSweeper | Jun 1, 2024 | 68 posts since 2021

RaceCar I am surprised this offer lasted as long as it will given the potential the cost to NFCU. I have been a NFCU for many years and this is the first time I have seen them offer this type of a CD. I wonder if they are planning on offering other new products that allow members to increase the yield on money market type / high yield savings which are not very competitive at NFCU.

racecar | Jun 3, 2024 | 551 posts since 2014

MineSweeper, I think the reason the special lasted as long as it did (ending June 9th) is because of all the older 5% CD Specials that have either just matured, or will be maturing this week. My guess is, they want people to keep those funds at Navy so they're keeping the special around this week as a lot of them mature. Usually they wouldn't tell people when specials will end (just that it can be "any time"), but when I called them earlier they volunteered the same info they gave you -- that they will end on June 9th. I moved my own maturing CD funds out to get the tail end of a special elsewhere, but I also opened up a couple of these CDs with the minimums as insurance.

MineSweeper | Jun 3, 2024 | 68 posts since 2021

Racecar I think you are right. In my case I use NFCU for banking and bill paying. I also use NFCU Money Market to back up my NFCU Active Duty Checking so I can easily transfer from savings to checking. I realized that I was leaving too much money on the table so I shifted most of the money market funds to Alliant Credit Union to take advantage of their high yield savings. With the new CD with a onetime free withdrawal, I opened 3 of these CD's and transferred most of the money market funds that I use to back up my Checking account. The three CD's provide the maximum flexibility for the next 18 months and also increases substantially the interest earned for the backup for my NFCU Checking. I suspect that others have figured this out but apparently not enough for NFCU to pull the plug earlier on this CD. It would be nice if NFCU provided more competitive money market funds so that it is not necessary to use multiple banks to get competitive interest on your emergency funds. I also sent a comment on this product asking NFCU to continue to offer this type of products. In the past I have actually got a personal response but most of the time just an acknowledgement. I think if enough members let them know that they are leaving deposits on the table by not offering this type of product they may change their product lineup to address this issue for members who make NFCU their primary bank.

Rickny | Jun 3, 2024 | 1,254 posts since 2017

You can get an 18 month CD at Charles Schwab Bank @ 5.15% 1000 min. I use Primis Checking account to pay bills. Free checks (no restrictions) and they pay 5.16% APY. Pull my mortgage and large bills (charge bill, estimated taxes etc). Have a Chase checking account for ATM and some other uses.

111 | Jun 4, 2024 | 672 posts since 2019

I called Navy FCU yesterday (6/3/24) intending to move funds from a recently-renewed Navy CD to my "1 penalty-free withdrawal" EasyStart add-on CD paying 4.70% APY that I started in April, and discovered some things that may be of interest.

I'd had a 5% APY 15-month Navy "special" add-on CD recently renew, but at a rate lower than 5%. It renewed within the past 21 calendar days, so I could still move the funds to another add-on CD or to a savings account, with no EWP. (BTW, the CSR said that when customers do move their funds within this timeframe, these funds earn interest at the renewal rate for the days from renewal up to the date funds are moved. That's a customer-friendly policy, because not all FIs do that - I've run across some that pay you nothing during that period, if you end up moving those funds.)

When I told the CSR which renewed CD I wanted to move funds from, she told me that this particular CD had already been assigned the "1 penalty-free withdrawal" status when it renewed. That 15-month "special" add-on CD apparently renews as an 18-month add-on CD, and (she told me) all 18-month add-on CDs from the period between early April to June 9 are assigned the "1 penalty-free withdrawal" status, without the customer having to ask for that. That was useful to me because I hadn't considered that renewal alone would confer that status on a CD that hadn't had it before.

So since the renewal rate was 4.70% - the same rate as the "1 penalty-free withdrawal" 18-month one I'd opened in April - I asked her to make no changes. Having two add-ons with that status instead of one provides a bit more flexibility, and they mature about 5 weeks apart. In fact I may start a couple more, for more flexibility.

The CSR also confirmed a few other things that have been already mentioned here -
- The June 9 ending date,
- No upper limit to the funds that can be added to the "1 penalty-free withdrawal" status CDs,
- A customer can have more than one of these CDs open at the same time (note that in the past, some Navy "special" CDs did have this limitation).

I have some other CDs maturing in the next few months, and unless Navy can start doing a better job on rates, most of those funds will end up in these penalty-free CDs, and soon thereafter in greener pastures.

racecar | Jun 4, 2024 | 551 posts since 2014

These Navy offerings aren't the best rate out there, but they can be valuable in other ways with the penalty-free withdrawal. You can have more than one, and for anyone who opened these special CDs up a while back, you can always "close" it (no penalty) and use the funds to open a new one(s) this week instead, the last week they're being offered, to give you a later maturity date.

As far as "greener pastures", absolutely. When my old 15mo 5% matured recently the teller at the branch gently reminded me that they have "great CD rates right now", but I snagged the tail end of a nice special elsewhere instead.

111 | Jun 6, 2024 | 672 posts since 2019

I started 2 more of these CDs yesterday with the minimum $50, just for flexibility since each one only gets 1 no-penalty withdrawal. So I now have 4, including the one that auto-renewed during the acceptable time period. May never use them, but it's cheap rate insurance, they can collect funds from other maturing Navy CDs, etc.

Since Navy FCU's "Confirmation Notice" for these CDs makes no mention of the 1 free withdrawal provision, I thought it wise to secure-email Navy a quick message. Basically it was, "Concerning my CDs ending in xxx1, xxx2, xxx3, and xxx4, can Navy FCU confirm that these CDs terms include the 1 No-Penalty withdrawal, even if that clause is not stated in the Navy FCU "Confirmation Notice" for each of these CDs?" They responded today confirming that. So, pretty good turnaround time and zero time spent on hold. I don't really expect them to "forget" about the no-penalty clause, but a little extra confirmation helps when it's not written down in the T&C document.

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