This account is no longer offered. View more high yield accounts by clicking here.
Offer at a glance
- Interest Rate: 5.00% APY
- Minimum Balance: None
- Maximum Balance: $2,500
- Availability: Nationwide (see below)
- Direct deposit required: No
- Additional requirements: 15 debit signature purchases
- Hard/soft pull: Hard pull
- Chex Inquiry: Yes
- Credit card funding: Unknown
- Monthly fees: None
- Household limit: None
- Insured: NCUA
The Offer
- First Financial Credit Union offers their High 5 checking account which gives 5% APY on balances up to $2,500.
To be qualify for the 5% APY rate, the following two things are necessary:
- 15 signature debit card purchases each statement period
- Be enrolled in e-statements
The account also offers ATM refunds, up to $10 per month. And another benefit is that you get Buzz Points for debit card purchases. I don’t know what these points are worth.
Eligibility
The credit union is based out of Illinois and those who live in parts of Illinois can join free. Anyone else can join by donating to SitStayRead or Resources for Community Living. As far as I can tell, even a $1 donation will make you eligible.
The Fine Print
- Balances over $2,500 will earn just .10% APY
Our Verdict
Should be pretty easy to get this 5% account by doing fifteen small debit signature purchases each month, though this one is only on $2,500 which means it’ll max out at $125 per year. The terms state that there’ll be a Chex inquiry and it sounds like there’ll be a hard pull too (“credit score and chexsystems record are obtained during the approval process”). Hopefully, we’ll get more data points on this in the comments.
Check out our list of Best Savings Accounts to see other good high-interest account options. We’ll add this one to that post in the list of more restrictive options.
Hat tip to reader Revil
