Fitness Bank 2.3% APY When You Have An Average Of 12,500+ Steps A Day
Update 11/25/19: Rate will decrease to 2.3% APY on December 1st.
Update 11/7/19: Rate has been decreased to 2.6% APY
Update 8/31/19: Rate has been decreased to 2.75% APY from 3% APY.
Offer at a glance
- Interest Rate: 2.75%
- Minimum Balance: $100
- Maximum Balance: None listed?
- Availability: Nationwide
- Additional requirements: Have an average of 12,500 steps a day
- Hard/soft pull: Unknown (soft according to customer service rep)
- ChexSystems: Unknown
- Credit card funding: Can fund up to $2,500 with a credit card
- Monthly fees: $10, avoidable
- Insured: FDIC
The Offer
- Fitness Bank offers a saving bank offering up to 2.75% APY. To receive this rate you need to be opted in for online banking and download the step tracker (this can be linked to Apple Health, Google Fit, Fitbit and Garmin). The rate you receive depends on the average daily steps:
The Fine Print
- The interest rate on this account is based on the Average Daily Steps from the prior month.
- Rate updates for average daily steps from the prior month are reviewed no later than the second Monday of the following month.
- The initial APY will be 2.50% until the rate adjustment date following first full month that the account has been opened.
- Rates are valid for accounts opened online and require a valid email address.
- All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them
Avoiding Fees
This account has a $10 monthly fee, this is waived if you have a $100 daily balance.
Our Verdict
Never heard of fitness bank before, but it’s a division of Affinity Bank. This account is really only worth considering if you average 12,500+ steps a day, otherwise you’d be better off with another high yield savings account. I can also see this as a good motivator for people that want to improve their fitness. Will be interesting to see if it’s a hard or soft pull. If anybody has any experiences with this account please share them in the comments below. There is also a senior version of this account for those over 65 years of age with a slightly smaller step requirement.
Hat tip to reader Sasha & midas89
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What about a more fun version….eat one cheeseburger a day……
That would be Fatness Bank.
😂🤣😆
Interesting, I don’t know how many people opt-out of the leaderboard (which appears to be a manual process). But of those that don’t, they only pay 11 people the top interest rate.
I’m half-tempted to rig up a rube goldberg machine to increase the steps on my fitbit, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.
Lame gimmick
I’m going for it.
and for a mobile phone pedometer swing.
I always wondered what does a pedo-meter do?
Due to her accent, my mom always pronounces pedometer as pedo-meter. It always gives me a chuckle.
More efficient to fool google fit using a cheap android phone (or your primary phone if you don’t mind).
Hint: look up various methods for pokemon go.
As an Assistant Manager at Walmart I average almost 20k/daily i might, my average steps per week accounting for days off is roughly 15k, i think i might actually be able to move to a bank like this lol.
Oh, this is perfect for people working in large stores! Tell some coworkers about it too, I’m sure everybody except cashiers/customer service are getting in a lot of steps without trying to exercise!
or, tie your fitbit to your ceiling fan w/ some string, and put it on low. every revolution = 1 step. i rack up ~35K steps a day while working in a cubicle.
I live in NYC and walk a lot so this would be great for me. I’m hoping to see some DP around the HP/SP. By the way, when you click to open the account it says you can fund it via debit or credit.
hopefully they have a credit card maximum of $12,500 too
It looks like the initial funding only accepts $100, via bank, debit, or credit. How does one fund up to $2500 with a credit card?
Also if you ACH in/out from Fitness Bank, the limit is $2500/transaction.
Looking at the leaderboards not many people have joined up yet. There are a couple of life insurance companies I have seen that have reduced rates for runners, that business model makes sense, not sure how savings and walking/running are tied together. Any idea if there is an early termination or account closure fee?
“not sure how savings and walking/running are tied together”
This seems to be a very new program, but I’m guessing they plan to try to make some extra money by getting sponsorship deals with employers who want to encourage their employees to both exercise more and save more.
And of course a lot of people will end up falling short of their goals, so those getting the lower interest rates at least some months help ‘pay for’ the successful people getting the highest interest rate.
Yup, “A lot of people will end up falling short of their goals of 12500 steps a day” is exactly how savings and walking/running are tied together.
So I’m gonna ask the question everyone is thinking…how do you “automate” your steps?
I think you mean Manufacture Steps (MS) 😉
Bahaha!
Sigh. Love this community but there’s a difference between using the rules to your advantage and breaking them…I wish the line wasn’t so blurry around here. This business seems to be trying something innovative that might actually help people with their fitness goals or put more money in the pocket of those who already meet the criteria. Why try and defraud the program for a few bucks a month and harm not only the business but the people who legitimately qualify for this offer?
With banks – even smaller ones like this – you have to assume that we’re not operating in a zero sum game. That you can manufacture steps and receive the higher rate, and that you’re not at all infringing on those who wish to use the program as a motivational tool.
Now, when 3.33% is so easy to obtain through a bank like Heritage, I’m not sure why anybody would NEED to manufacture steps for 3%. But I don’t see the harm in people wanting to.
No need, but Heritage requires direct deposit, and this doesn’t.
Heritage only requires an ACH transfer, no payroll direct deposit requirement
it does require an ACH direct deposit monthly. Doesn’t have to be a payroll deposit, you are right about that.
Are you sure about that?
ACH=/=DD.
No it doesn’t, just a small monthly ACH.
Looks like Heritage caps deposits at 30K.
No limit at Fitness. Yay!
I think if you work at Home Depot mixing paint, there’s a device you might be familiar with to strap your fitbit onto!
I remember a review of one Fitbit model where someone said that they had (1) run it (mistakenly) through the clothes dryer with no apparent ill effects; and (2) gained 163 steps by it.
I also remember seeing it move when I jounced around on a bus, from which I got the idea it’s tracking vibration of your ups and downs.
However, once I went up a huge non-moving escalator by my office and it didn’t credit me with a single stair, perhaps because my hand was hovering level with the banister, lol.
You can connect to a small fan and let it work itself. My work gives healthcare discounts for certain steps a day and a lot of people do that. I’ve only tried it once and worked without any issues.
Google Fitbit cheating. Some of the options are a dog, an electric drill, or a clothes dryer (on the no heat setting).
How about 12,500 AmznGC reloads per century?
There are already a lot of rewards checking accounts that let you earn the higher interest rate by making a certain amount of debit card transactions. It is nice to see a bank try something different.
Hence my comparison.
The point is a lot of people find debit transaction requirements to be too much hassle for them, while other people love those accounts. This will be a more convenient option for people who already get the necessary amount of steps on a regular basis, while being too much hassle for other people too.
If there is no max this is amazing.
I’ll just stick with m 4% Orion and Origin and only need to do a few Amazon reloads per month and deposit cash.
Not worth the battery drain and wear and tear on phone.
Not really much battery use for something like Google Fit and not sure how it contributes to wear and tear?
Try running 6 miles with a phone in hand. Now do it everyday, and try to not sweat on it or accidentally drop it.
You don’t need to use your phone, you can use other tracks. Also I run constantly with my phone and I’ve never dropped it on sweated on it. Plus you don’t even need to run, walking works as well.
Have you heard of these things called pockets? I swear, they will change your life.
Non-US citizen have to open in branch
Super easy. No need to resort to technology to meet the requirement. If they increase the rate a bit more, I can just strap the stepmeter to my kid, who will not stay put no mater what I do. He can do half of those steps while kicking on his sleep.
I read their Privacy Policy and it makes no specific mention of what the bank does or does not do with the fitness tracker data. I used to work for an insurance company and know how much we’d pay or spend developing Apps to get that kind of activity level personal data on our policyholders. I am curious what they do with this data. Also I’ve never used a step counter but 12,500 steps is something like 6 miles unless you have a very long stride. That seems like an average daily step count only avid runners would meet.
“That seems like an average daily step count only avid runners would meet.”
And people who work in large retail stores and warehouses, and people who use public transit with lots of walking in between stops.
I work at home and average 10K a day without a problem (just under 5 miles with my stride). 2.5K more wouldn’t be much harder to achieve. I make sure to move around a lot because it’s a desk job and I run errands daily. Just walking normally is about 100 steps per minute for me.
I myself have been walking both ways to work for a few weeks (NYC), and it takes me a little over 2 miles one way. When added to an average amount of white-collar office-walking, I’ve been averaging 17,000-18,000 steps/workday, and I’m a 5′ 7″ female with legs of only average length, so I’m not quite sure that’s true. I grant that most people don’t want to walk five miles/day and would prefer to get the selfsame amount of exercise by a 20-minute run; but I find the walking relaxes me.
Out of curiosity I reached out to the bank’s VP of Deposit Operations to inquire why their Privacy Policy makes no reference to how fitness data collected on the FitnessBank Step Tracker is utilized by the bank as well as how FitnessBank benefits from its deposit customers having a high step count. I received this response:
“We feel (fitness tracker data) falls under personally identifiable data mentioned in the privacy policy. The bank does not really benefit from you receiving 12,500 steps a day. It is a way for us to differentiate ourselves among other banks and create a product that is fun and provides value…. Also, not every person can make the top tier so our blended rate will be a little lower and therefore; if you are active, it is a great way to earn an interest rate which is at the top of the spectrum.”