Update 9/5/23: Rate now 6.05%.
Update 10/16/22: Looks like you can just pay the $5 fee to one of the 4 organizations, making it available nationwide.
Offer at a glance
- Interest Rate: 5.11% APY
- Minimum Balance:Â $0
- Maximum Balance:Â $10,000
- Availability:Â Looks like you can just pay the $5 fee to one of the 4 organizations, making it available nationwide.
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas; must pay a $5 membership fee to one of 4 organizations; otherwise, you need to reside in St. Landry or Rapides Parish or work for (or retired from) one of the partnered organizations or if immediate family member is eligible for membership. - Direct deposit required:Â Yes, no minimum specified
- Additional requirements:Â See below
- Hard/soft pull:Â Hard
- ChexSystems: Unknown
- Credit card funding: Up to $1,000
- Monthly fees:Â None
- Insured:Â NCUA
The Offer
- Pelican State Credit Union offers the Kasasa cash checking account. This account offers 5.11% APY on balances up to $10,000 when the following requirements are met:
- Be enrolled and receive FREE eStatements
- Be enrolled and log into online or mobile banking
- Have at least 15 debit card purchases post and settle (must post as signature)
- Have at least 1 direct deposit, online bill payment, or automatic payment (ACH) post and settle
Avoiding Fees
This account has no monthly fees to worry about
Our Verdict
The rate is good, but unfortunately it’s a lot of requirements for a maximum balance of only $10,000. Most people will be better off going with an account with a higher maximum balance/less requirements. A full list of the best high yield savings accounts can be viewed here. It also being a hard pull makes the deal even worse.
Hat tip to missjenniferd1
Does Pelican’s statements run by calendar month? Were the requirements waived for the 1st statement?
The statements run by calendar months. I did not get the dividend reward for my first month because I did not meet the 15 debit card purchases requirement. I could have easily made 15 small Amazon gift card reloads, but I failed to do that during my first month.
Thank you. That works out well as I had planned to apply early next month with my Chex frozen.
Any issues with the account that would keep you from recommending that I apply?
No issues.
Statements run by calendar month but all transactions you need to qualify for the good interest rate have to post to the acct by the day BEFORE the end of the month.
Thank you for the heads up. However, I am well aware that it is best to meet the requirements for these types of accounts days before the end of the month. OnPath, which I have an account with, has an even earlier close to the period than most.
BTW, I saw you comment in the CA post. Did you end up applying? If so, what happened?
I did- soft pull experian, pulled Chex, said I’d have to come in-person to verify ID in-branch (hard to do since I’m OOS with no plans to be in the area in the next 60 days so basically a waste of my time and a Chex pull). I need to start applying with it frozen to see if I can get through, seems like the folks who did had better luck.
I did see a few people reporting a similar negative DP but I didn’t recall you being one of them. Anyway, I only saw 1 person mention getting in with their Chex frozen.
They then did not reply to my follow up question. That is never a good sign for a trusted DP.
I have never applied for an account with my Chex frozen (yet), but I wouldn’t recommend ever applying for a promo that you really want with your Chex frozen. In my opinion, it’s not worth the risk of not being able to apply again.
For this Pelican account, I’m willing to take the risk for 2 reasons. 1st of all, like I wrote earlier, someone told me that they got approved with their Chex frozen. 2nd of all, if they reject my application and don’t allow me to apply again, I won’t be upset as this account is not really that special.
That’s a good point, and why I haven’t in the past- hearing a couple successes with it frozen (meaning I either missed getting in because of Chex and/or wasted a Chex pull for no reason) is frustrating.
Depending on what happens with additional DP from now until I freeze my Chex, I might apply to CA as there won’t be much to lose.
Did you happen to use a referral from
Tikky? If so, I’m wondering if using a referral from someone that referred so many other people in the same day raised a red flag with the CU.
i did- could be part of it
It doesn’t seem many of them, if any, got completely approved till they came into branch for ID verification. So the referral wasn’t the issue. My take is that they do accept OOS but only in branch. They also had an issue with emailing expired referral offers that didn’t reflect the current promo.
Calendar month.
I opened in 2022, so not sure…that’s a long time ago.
Did not receive the high interest this past month. Didn’t do anything different. Anyone else?
Mine came thru on both the Kasasa Cash Checking and Kasasa Cash Back.
Try Cash App (Venmo and paying Citi CC no longer work) for the spending.
I used cash app and amazon as well as some local store purchases. Maybe it’s the deposit. I used Ally which worked in the past.
Is anybody else’s ACH limit $500 a day from pelican? Kind of frustrating as a main account.
I’m limited to a $500/day transfer limit too. So I just use it as a place to park $20K, solely for the dividend income.
Yes $500 transfer limit too 🤨
That $500 limit is only for transfers initiated on Pelican’s site, correct? There is no limit to withdraw using your external account, right?
Yes, no limit for transfers initiated from your external banks.
What constitutes “automatic payment (ACH)”? Does an ACH deposit to and withdrawal from Pelican with another one of my bank accounts count?
It should count but why not just have 1 of your credit cards withdraw funds every month to satisfy it?
I heard from a couple of people that Pelican doesn’t do a Chex inquiry. I noticed that
William Charles has the post marked as a Hard pull. Are both of those still accurate?
i applied today, csr said credit should be thawed but confirmed it’s only a soft pull (usually on equifax), and didn’t think they pull chex- i’ve viewed my chex report since applying and they haven’t pulled it yet, so no hard pull and probably also no chex pull- will post an update if either of those change
Sounds good. I might eventually apply for an account.
I’m getting a lot of Amazon reload rejections on this one too.
Used to do amazon reloads 15 times a month for account qualification. Looks like that doesn’t work anymore. Amazon has started using ach for gift card reloads now. That is exactly why I can’t use online visa/mastercard egiftcards for balance reloads either. Anyhow that rendered me unqualified for the month of January… Looks like all debit card transactions now need to b done “in-person” – this is ridiculous. Why did the terms suddenly change and no notification either?
Is this for the Kasasa Cash or Kasasa Cash Back?
Honeyras
Amazon is still working for my Kasasa Cash account, but stopped working for my Kasasa Cash Back account for Dec and Jan.
I can confirm this is for kasasa cash – never owned a kasasa cash back account. Anyhow they were nice enough to grant me a one time exception and they posted the interest manually
I hate the names they use for their different account types. They’re so confusing. Note that they have a “Kasasa Cash Saver” account and a “Kasasa Cash/Saver” account. The only difference between the two is the slash mark. I have my $20,000 parked in the “Kasasa Cash/Saver” account. I did the 15 Amazon reloads last month and I received the dividends on February 1st, right on schedule.
Can you clarify what you mean by this?
“Amazon has started using ach for gift card reloads now.”
It means that:
I’ve never heard of that and it’s never happened to me (as far as I know) and I’ve done many reloads through the years. BTW, I do not have a Pelican account.
Sent a secure message. The rep said Bill Pay no longer works. I sent the URL of the terms and showed her “Bill Pay” is clearly in the terms. In fact it just says “purchases” and does not say anything about excluding Bill Pay.
BillPay should work for triggering the DD/ACH/Bill Pat requirement
From the representative:
“The reason bill payment transactions may not count towards Kasasa qualifications lies in a technical aspect called the Merchant Category Code (MCC). This code is determined and set by the merchants themselves, reflecting the nature of their business.
Different merchants utilize various MCCs, leading to a diversity in how transactions are categorized. Unfortunately, this diversity can affect whether a specific transaction aligns with the criteria for Kasasa qualifications. It’s essentially a system in which the merchant defines the category under which a transaction falls.
In simpler terms, even though a transaction might be made with your debit card, its classification by the merchant can impact its eligibility for Kasasa qualifications. This system aims to provide consistency, but the variation in merchant coding is a factor beyond individual control.”
Are you just doing all Amazon reloads to meet the monthly requirements?
You need to go into the card on your amazon wallet and make sure the “processed as a debit card” box is checked. Once you do that it should work fine. FYI, post here first when there’s a problem. Don’t call the bank about it if you’re only doing reloads. It just alerts them to what we are doing and makes it more likely they will shut that down entirely. Some already have.
Looks like this is up to 20k now – “Earn 6.05% APY on balances up to $20,000”
Can confirm, I received an email today about it.
Update to terms 12/1… looks like cannot deposit money orders or cashier checks?
DP: PayPal debit card transactions do not count toward the monthly APY qualifications.
DP: CashApp debit card loads do count toward the monthly APY qualifications.
CashApp worked as of October, but I’ve not used this account since then.
Cash App is still working as of the December 2023 statement.
Is there a way to see if it still counts, like a tracker of some sort? Or do you just try and see if you get the interest the following month?
not officially, but you can look at your cleared transactions, the “signature” ones count, and the “billpay” and such don’t count.
(so for example with amazon reloads, they aren’t disqualifying all of them, only a few (maybe for being back to back with each other, within 24hr, or something like that))
Do utility payments (ie Fios) show up as “signature” or “bill pay”?