Offer at a glance
- Interest Rate:Â 3.5% APY
- Minimum Balance:Â $100
- Maximum Balance:Â $5,000
- Availability:Â Must live, work, worship or attend school in one of the following counties: CA: Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, San Francisco AZ: Pima
- Direct deposit required:Â None
- Additional requirements:Â None
- Hard/soft pull:Â Mixed DP, make sure to opt out of overdraft
- ChexSystems: Unknown
- Credit card funding:Â Unknown
- Monthly fees:Â None
- Insured:Â NCUA
The Offer
- Meriwest offers the Premier Savings account, this account is only available to sign up for members within 30 days of becoming a new member. The account earns 3.5% APY on balances up to $5,000 with no requirements to receive this rate
The Fine Print
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
This account has no monthly fees to worry about.
Our Verdict
This might be worth doing for people that sign up for the checking account that comes with a $150 bonus. This is definitely one of the best high yield savings account available as there are no requirements and the 3.5% APY rate is great.
Rates have been reduced. Top tier is 2.5% and second tier is 1%.
Just got off the phone with Merriwest, I’ve been told the following:
Hard Pull would be done regardless of opting out of overdraft.
Can fund 5k with a DEBIT card, Visa, MC, or Discover (Prior data points seem to indicate only MC?)
I’m new to funding accounts, is this the normal jargon and I would simply make the payment with my *DEBIT* card and hope it posts? I’d like to open this account but if it incurs a hard pull I’ve got other priorities first before I potentially take the HP hit.
Mastercard only (no Visa) for CC funding up to $505 (500 + 5 member fee)
When applying they want to verify by phone – if you don’t have access to the phone, they do a Chex verification.
That’s strange they allowed me up to $5k funding with a cc.
This was a hard pull. The back office person wanted to do a hard pull to verify my identity. I offered to go into the branch with DL to prove identity and it was not enough.
It’s possible that it is under their discretion.
No hard pull in my case. I wasn’t asked for any identity verification either. Seems YMMV.
Anyone who recently opened this, hard or soft pull?
No hard pull for me. I inquired before applying and was asked to thaw Chex and Experian but did not get notice of an Experian hard pull, so they must have done a soft inquiry.
DP: Able to fund 4k with a MasterCard over the phone. The representative said maximum 4k with a cc (used to be 5k from previous DPs).
I just tried to fund with cc over the phone (I’ve found some reps know about cc funding and others have no idea about it) but citi declined the transaction. When chatting with citi, the representative said it was over my cash limit. Did yours code as a purchase?
Yes it coded as a purchase on my Citi DC card (Services – Mortgage Companies-financial Institution).
Jealous! Any chance you remember the name of the rep who helped you? Maybe he/she has a secret to make it not code as cash advance haha.
Anyone have any idea about credit card funding to open these accounts?
just created an account. up to USD 500 credit card funding (+USD 5 membership fee)
Has this rate stayed typically higher, or is this one of those teasers that will drop to uselessness within a few months… 3.5% vs 2% is not bad …
This account had 3% for years. It was just increased to 3.5% two months ago.
I already had this account and thought something was different from the amount of interest I was earning. Also, as a DP, I remember when I opened this with the checking, they allowed $5k cc funding over the phone, only mastercard if I remember correctly. And the checking bonus took three months or so after 3 schvab brokerage transfers.
Wow hmm makes me wonder if you can only do max $500 online but $5,000 over the phone…
I think I saw another DP of someone’s being able to do $5k as well. Any more DPs?
Able to do $4k with a master card over the phone today.
I had no idea this went up from 3%! I signed up initially when it was 3% on up to $5000 of balances and 2% on the next $5000