The Offer
- CIT Bank is offering a bonus of up to $750 when you open a self-directing investing account via First Citizens Wealth. The SDIA initial opening deposit must be maintained for a 60-day qualifying period from account open date in order to qualify for the bonus. Bonus tiers are as follows:
- $25 for $1,000-$4,999
- $50 for $5,000-$9,999
- $100 for $10,000-$49,999
- $200 for $50,000-$99,999
- $350 for $100,000-$249,999
- $750 for $250,000+
The Fine Print
- Limited-time offer. One bonus per CIT Bank customer. If multiple Self-Directing Investing accounts are opened by a customer, only one account will be eligible for the bonus. Offer is non-transferable. The Promotion begins on December 5, 2024 and can end at any time without notice.
- Offer valid when a CIT Bank customer with an existing savings or eChecking account opens a new Self-Directed Investing account offered through First Citizens Wealth after December 5, 2024 and provided that the following requirements are met:
-
- The First Citizens Self-Directed Investing account (SDIA) is opened with the initial funding deposit to earn the corresponding bonus with new funds not on deposit with CIT Bank. A customer can open an SDIA account with a minimum of $100 but will need to open the account with at least $1,000 to qualify for the bonus of $25.
-
- The SDIA initial opening deposit must be maintained for a 60-day qualifying period from account open date in order to qualify for the bonus. Any losses or gains due to trading or market fluctuation will not be taken into consideration when calculating the qualifying deposit amount.
- CIT Bank will deposit the qualifying bonus into the customer’s Savings or eChecking account within 30 days following the 60-day qualifying period.
- The bonus for which the customer qualifies will be deposited to the customer’s CIT Bank savings or eChecking account within 30 days of fulfilling the promotion requirements in the SDIA account. If a customer has more than one CIT Bank savings or eChecking account, CIT Bank will choose the account in which to deposit the bonus.
- Customer will be deemed ineligible for a bonus payment if the SDIA is not initially funded with an amount to qualify for the bonus, the qualifying deposit is withdrawn or the account is closed prior to the end of the 60-day qualifying period. The CIT Bank savings or eChecking account must also be opened at the time of the bonus payment in order to qualify.
- Bonus payments are reported as interest earned on IRS form 1099-INT for the calendar year in which it was paid. Recipient is responsible for any applicable taxes.
-
Our Verdict
The nice thing about this bonus is that it only requires a hold period of 60 days, most other brokerage bonuses are much longer. Downside is that the bonuses themselves are much smaller. If you don’t mind juggling these accounts then this is worth doing but personally I prefer my investments to just be set and forget.
Hat tip to 14lopeza
Looks like one of the rare brokerage bonuses available for IRAs. Anybody know if the bonus is deposited into the IRA?
“CIT Bank will deposit the qualifying bonus into the customer’s Savings or eChecking account within 30 days following the 60-day qualifying period.”
The online application does not offer a way to transfer securities to fund the account…
A little weird that bonus is based only on initial deposit? Most brokerage bonuses are based on total transfers within n days of opening.
Also: If you have a P2, maybe better to divide and conquer, e.g. $20k combined deposit gets $200 combined bonus, same as single player would earn on $50k deposit.
This offer isn’t worth it. Why is it posted on DoC?
Best bang-for-buck tiers(Bonus beats HYSA interest)
Not worth doing (compared to HYSA at 4.5%)
For these, the fixed bonus % return is too low. You’d make more leaving the money in a high-yield account.
Because this bonus can have an underlying asset not cash? I’m not sure why you’re comparing to 4.5% APY when there is a 5% APY account and you’re not considering that the assets will also earn during that period.
“Why is it posted”? Really? You’ve been here long enough to know all types of offers get posted. There’s plenty I don’t care about but others do. Do you post the same thing on all brokerage bonuses?
It’s not like the money is just sitting there. People invest it, whether that’s stocks, bonds, money market funds, etc.
I don’t do brokerage bonuses particularly because I have no investments. I only have cash. So this offer isn’t good for me since the rates are terrible for 60 days.
Would it be wise for me to dump 100k into SGOV and earn 4.4% whole doing this bonus?
Matter of fact, can I actually do that? Would putting 100k in sgov in this cit investment account count towards the bonus? I would also earn whatever dividends it pays out right which comes out to 4.4%?
Yes. SGOV is an ETF that holds ultra-short-term U.S. Treasury bills (0-3 months maturity). It’s considered very low-risk, extremely liquid, and its current yield is around 4.4% annualized.
If you buy SGOV inside the CIT brokerage account after funding it, the market value of SGOV shares would still count toward the “assets in account” requirement for the bonus, just like cash or other eligible securities. While holding it, you’d receive monthly dividends from the T-bills it tracks — which is where the ~4.4% yield comes from — for as long as you own it.
That’s why many people use SGOV or similar T-bill ETFs for brokerage bonuses: you meet the funding requirement, keep risk minimal, and still earn some yield while you wait out the holding period.
Blessed are the spoonfeeders. 🙂
For the initial deposit, do I push from another bank or will this First Citizen Wealth pull from my bank?
Unless I am missing something, this offer isn’t very good. If I did the $10,000 deposit then I would get the $100 bonus. But I would be missing out on $75 worth of interest. So it would be a net gain of $25?
You would either be transferring over existing stocks or cash (which can be invested into a fund like SGOV) to trigger the bonus.
There’s a $100 outgoing transfer fee which partly offsets the bonus… so only do this as a temporary holding brokerage if you intend to transfer out to somewhere that will cover the fee!
https://www.firstcitizens.com/personal/investments/self-directed-investing
You need to liquidate and transfer out cash to avoid this fee.
That probably works for some folks (as long as there isn’t account closure fee — they have an inactivity fee). For me, I would be transferring assets in-kind and don’t want to incur capital gains from liquidation.
Where do you see the fee schedule?
The fine print refers to it, but they failed to link to it directly. I found it at First Citizens here:
https://www.firstcitizens.com/personal/investments/self-directed-investing
Thanks! I wonder if that’s for partial AND full outgoing transfers or just full. I don’t see any mention of a closure fee, so I’d probably guess they would just assess it for full account transfers?
https://www.firstcitizens.com/content/dam/firstcitizens/pdfs/hosted/wealth/self-directed-investing-fee-schedule.pdf
Same offer as what I posted before https://www.doctorofcredit.com/cit-bank-225-300-savings-bonus-4-30-apy-new-no-hold-period/#comment-2015108
Here’s my DP: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/cit-bank-225-300-savings-bonus-4-30-apy-new-no-hold-period/#comment-2062192
how easy was it to pull out the money after the bonus posted? Some brokerage make it difficult to pull out the money without a fee and hassle even if it is not invested in stocks
No hassle or fee
Offer looks like it’s available for existing CIT checking or savings customers only as that is where the bonus will be deposited.
“Offer valid when a CIT Bank customer with an existing savings or eChecking account opens a new Self-Directed Investing account offered through First Citizens Wealth”
and
“CIT Bank will deposit the qualifying bonus into the customer’s Savings or eChecking account within 30 days following the 60-day qualifying period.”
Is it only Cash deposit or one can transfer assets from other brokerage account?
The terms suggest that assets qualify since there is wording about market fluctuation not counting towards the qualifying deposit amount:
That’s not what it suggests. It just means if you trade after moving in cash, they don’t count any changes from that and only count the cash deposited.
I remember it was cash only transfer.
$50k – $99k is $200
Yes, missing from DoC summary.