Your Experiences With No-Penalty Cds? (Or With Marcus?)

racecar | Mar 18, 2025 | 628 posts since 2014

Can you share your experiences, good and bad, with no-Penalty CDs? Which places have been good and which have been bad?

I've never had a no-penalty CD before, and was considering having one for a relatively small amount. Prefer longer ones (those closer to a year).

Your experience w/Marcus no-penalty CDs (or just w/Marcus in genral?)

What about MY Safra (notorious for draconian EWPs w/their normal CDs, but they offer a no-penalty CD too).

Any other places with (relatively) good APYs for no-penalty CDs around a year?

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MAKNYC | Mar 18, 2025 | 324 posts since 2015

I have had nothing but good experiences with Marcus over a long period of time. While I think I had one no-penalty CD in there (closed prematurely due to rate moves) most of my others were all standard CDs and a savings account. Specific pluses were outbound ACH’s originated with Marcus had always arrived at the destination that same day (if pre-scheduled or initiated early enough). Also, and this is admittedly petty, but they start paying interest on the day the account is open with funding instructions, even if the funds are not received until the next day. So with proper planning (read 5p EST on a Friday), if you open the account you’ll theoretically receive interest at both banks until Monday. Makes me feel like I got one over on the MAN! Another little thing for me….Marcus is the only financial firm I have ever encountered that lets you opt out of mandatory arbitration, if done within timeline of each account opening, and they allow you to do so by phone! Even though I have never sued/arbitrated anyone, this to me is a good sign, even as I wonder if offering this option was the result of some earlier transgressions and settlement with a regulator.
Aside from Marcus, I’ve had a ton of no-penalty CDs with Ally, and one with Synchrony. Currently crummy rates aside, Ally has been great. Website is superb…best of breed IMO. As for synchrony I like their regular rates, but customer service if ever needed is awful. With a regular CD to choose to not renew at maturity requires a phone call to customer service. Time consuming. And they always qualify by warning that closing/moving the funds, even to a Synchrony savings account might take up to 3 days. In my case it’s always happened on maturity day (I instruct them prior to maturity) but the warning is concerning. And the one no-penalty cd I had there was a disaster. It literally took them 3 weeks to close it….all back office!

Rickny | Mar 18, 2025 | 1,296 posts since 2017

No problems with Marcus. I have a Marcus (traditional CD) maturing 4/1. You can edit on line your maturity instructions. Sad to lose 5.4% CD with them. Miss the $100 savings account bonus they had anually.

MAKNYC | Apr 7, 2025 | 324 posts since 2015

Just a follow-up as I feel I have an obligation to update given my most recent experience with Marcus. Had some CD's mature and moved to assets to pre-existing Marcus savings account. Last week I added an additional external account which I had wanted to move the newly released funds to. After that account was successfully linked via trial deposit confirmation I entered a request at Marcus to transfer the assets (mid 5 figures) to the newly linked account. The funds were withdrawn from my Marcus account. This was done in the wee hours of Friday morning and I had expected the funds to arrive that same day as was my previous experience. Well they didn't. Monday I get a call from Marcus from a person with an extremely heavy accent asking me to confirm my transfer request. I did. I asked why this confirmation had not been attempted on Friday when my fund request was received and the funds withdrawn from my account. I was provided a BS answer that they did attempt to reach me but couldn't. So at a minimum I lost 3-4 days interest which was not typical for my experiences with Marcus. I have no issue with their attempt to verify...the issue is it should've been done on Friday or they should've left the funds in my account until they got around to it.

Since I had earlier cited an unblemished history with the firm I felt I had the DA obligation to update.

Anitagirl | Mar 18, 2025 | 16 posts since 2023

I have had no-penalty CDs with both Marcus and Ally and it has been very easy to open and close those accounts online without interaction with Customer Service.

racecar | Mar 18, 2025 | 628 posts since 2014

Thanks for everyone's replies. I called Marcus late at night and got a CSR who didn't know much who said they do hard pull credit checks to open just a CD. Called back this morning, got another CSR who seemed to be more knowledgable and he said no, they don't do any credit check. Quite a difference. Said they allow up to 5 linked banks, rate is locked from going down but can go up if rates rise during 10-day funding window, and you can even add more within the first 30 days if you want.

Other than them not allowing partial withdrawals, Marcus seems pretty decent, and I'll consider them in the future as it's not "if" but "when" I'll need a No-Penalty CD.

But for now I just remembered something! I still have about 8 months left on my Navy Add-On Specials that had that no-penalty clause @ 4.7%. Beats Marcus' 4.15% and any HYSA I have. Any No-Penalty I got would only be around a year at most anyway, so I think I'll put the funds into my Navy no-penalty specials w/8 months left. But once that's matured I'll definitely go the No-Penalty route for this "bucket", so I appreciate everyone's info, as in all these years I never opened a standard No-Penalty CD.

happyharold4 | Mar 20, 2025 | 390 posts since 2022

Like MAKNYC above---I have had a ton of them with Ally, Cit and Synchrony---Every time the rates went up I'd close them all and open all new ones---Little beknown to me, both Synchrony and Cit were reporting to ChexSystems for every new account I opened---So I had the worst rating imaginable at CS and several banks declined my opening new accounts with them---All while FICO at 843.---CS should be done away with for sure.

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