CIT Bank High Yield Savings Account Up To $200 Bonus + 0.95% APY – Nationwide

Offer at a glance

  • Maximum bonus amount: $200
  • Availability: Nationwide
  • Deposit Required: $25,000-$100,000
  • Deposit Length: 3 statement cycles
  • APY: 0.95%
  • Hard/soft pull: Soft
  • ChexSystems: Unknown
  • Credit card funding: Unknown
  • Monthly fees: None
  • Early account termination fee:
  • Expiration date: December 31st, 2016

The Offer

Direct link to offer

  • Open a High Yield Savings Account with CIT Bank (0.95% APY) and receive a bonus of up to $200, the bonus you receive depends on how much you deposit. You’re required to keep that average minimum daily balance for three statement cycles. The tiers are as follows:
    • $25,000-$45,999: $95
    • $50,000-$99,999: $125
    • $100,000+: $200

The Fine Print

  • Limited time Bonus offer valid on High Yield Savings accounts opened and funded on or before December 31, 2016, provided that the following requirements are met:

    • The account is opened with a minimum initial deposit of $25,000 not already on with or help at CIT Bank, N.A. or its OneWest Bank division.
    • An average monthly balance of at least $25,000 is maintained in the account through the first three full statment cycles. How we calculate the average monthly balance for each statement cycle: at the end of each day, the High Yield Savings account balance is recorded. When the statement cycle ends these end-of-day balances are added together and then divided by the number of days in the statment cycle to determine the average monthly balance.
  • If the opening deposit is less than $25,000, if the account is closed prior to the end of the third statement cycle or if the average monthly balance from any of the first three statement cycles is less than $25,000, the account will be deemed ineligible for a bonus payment.
  • Any Bonus for which the customer qualifies will be deposited to the account within 30 days of the end of the third monthly statement cycle.
  • All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

There are no monthly fees and no early account termination fee.

Our Verdict

The upside to this savings sign up bonus is that it offers a reasonable APY of 0.95%, the best current rate for non rewards accounts is 1.25% so you’re losing out on 0.3% APY but obviously get this bonus. If you put $100,000 for three statement cycles you’d be losing ~$75 in interest, so the top tier bonus is really only $125. For the other bonuses you’d be earning more (total bonus of $380 if you put $25,000 into 4 accounts across 4 people) but you’re also having to open four accounts instead of just one (and you could have opened another banka ccount bonus instead).

I doubt many readers will have these types of funds available in cash, but if you do it’s probably worth putting it into one of the rewards checking accounts instead (one with a higher maximum balance preferably).

This assumes that it’s a soft pull to open the account and there is no credit card funding. If it’s a hard pull it’s even worse of a deal as you could get a nice credit card cash sign up bonus instead. If you can fund a huge amount with a credit card then it might be worth opening just for that. Please share your experiences in the comments.

Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:
    William Charles
  • On November 17, 2016, 10:30

View Comments (14)

  • The interest rate rose to 1.05% APY today. One person is allowed to open multiple savings accounts with $25K and get the bonus for each one.

  • Looks like no credit card funding. Click on the apply for an account and this comes up:

    -----------------------------------------
    To apply online you must:

    Be a U.S. citizen or resident alien
    Be 18 years or older
    Have a U.S. address, a Social Security number, and a driver’s license or state-issued ID
    Have a check or bank account number to electronically transfer money into your new CIT Bank account

  • I think William has this wrong. If you count the interest + the cash bonus you actually do better at every deposit level then if you just went to a bank with a 1.25% interest. And yeah the sweet spot for large deposits would be to open multuple $25K accounts (no mention of any limits on how many accounts you can open in the fine print). Thus $100K split across 4 accounts would get you an extra $380 on top of the $237.76 interest (thats a total of $617.76)!!!

    Explain to me again how going with a 1.25% bank returning just $312.98 after 3 months is the better deal?

    • Sorry, I was thinking about the opportunity cost of not opening other accounts for bonuses when thinking about the lower bonuses.

      It isn't fair to compare opening 4 accounts to opening one/none IMO.

      • William promotions like this are all about 1 thing... bonus cash and effective APY. If opening multiple accounts isn't prohibited then why not take advantage of it for maximum return? In the end it's about a short term gain that no other bank comes anywhere close to matching for a 3 month commitment. My advice, if you have the funds then take full advantage of this promo before it goes away.

        • I'm assuming each account is a new ChexSystems inquiry and one person can't do multiples.

  • If I have 100K available, I may have my family members including me to open 4 accounts and fund each account 25K. $95x4=$380. That way will make the deal better to me. I have not gone through the application process but I don't feel comfortable to just do 25K for the initial funding. Their fine print says that's a must for the bonus so it just kills the deal for me, personally.

    • Yes, but you could have used that chexsystems inquiry on another account instead. $95 is a tiny bonus for a $25k deposit requirement.

    • I have a credit freeze on all three Credit bureaus and I’m concerned that the freeze will prevent application approval. Should I unfreeze Experian, Transunion, or Equifax?

      FWIW – a second internet link indicates it is a soft inquiry (not hard), but the link does not identify which credit bureau nor cites a source.
      [removed]

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