[UPDATE: Note some changes in Mango terms.]
We’ve written a lot about high-yield savings accounts, some of them being prepaid cards with an attached savings account. Prominent among them is the Mango prepaid card which offers a 6% APY interest rate on up to $5,000 balances.
Previous Posts:
- Mango 6% Rewards Checking Account + $20 Bonus
- Mango Prepaid Changes Hands
- Changes to Mango Prepaid 6% Interest Account (take 2)
The big change recently was the added requirement of receiving a $500 direct deposit. And – we thought – a new restriction in the usage of the account which would not allow ACH pulls to withdraw money from the Mango prepaid account.
Numerous reports have come in that ACH withdrawals are working again and are not getting reversed as they were in the past. It worked for me as well. There is, however, a $2500 ACH withdrawal limit per transaction. The problems we were experiencing were apparently just a transition glitch and not any new rule.
This is really a huge difference in the palatability of the account since now you should hopefully be able to ACH push $500 into the Mango prepaid and ACH pull $497 out (leaving $3 for the monthly fee); you can even automate this through your banks online banking system. Or you can pay your credit card bill using the routing/account numbers.
Be sure to always leave over a $1 balance in the account since they’ve added a condition that the 6% rate only applies to accounts with $1 in the prepaid account at the end of the month. The end of the month is when the monthly fee hits and you want to make sure that there is $4 in the account so that there will be $1 remaining after the monthly fee. [Update: I now believe the $1 has to be in the savings account; the prepaid doesn’t have to have any balance.]
See also Guide to 5% Interest Prepaid/Savings Accounts for a roundup of all the high-interest options on prepaid cards.
Thanks to reader Tuck and Octavio for clarifying this issue.
