Update 3/27/22: Reposting as there isn’t much time left to meet the new requirements (see below and the comments for much discussion).
Update 1/1/21: Referral bonus no longer being offered
Update 10/1/21: Porte is reducing the APY:
Effective January 1, 2022
The interest rate earned on an average daily balance of $15,000.00 or less will be reduced from 2.97%
with an APY of 3.00%, to 0.20% with an APY of 0.20%. You may, however, earn a higher interest rate of 2.97% with an APY of 3.00% on an average daily balance of $15,000.00 or less if you meet the following qualifications during a calendar quarter:(i) receive at least $3,000.00 in Qualifying Direct Deposits of payroll, pension, or government benefits payments from an employer or government agency into your Porte Spending Account in a calendar quarter,
AND
(ii) make at least fifteen (15) Qualifying Debit Card Purchase Transactions with a merchant for goods or services (excludes transfers and/or cash withdrawals) from your Porte Spending Account within a calendar quarter.You must meet the criteria for both the Qualifying Direct Deposit and Qualifying Debit Card Purchase Transactions during the calendar quarter in order to earn the higher interest rate for such quarter. The Bonus Savings Rate does not apply to the portion of an average daily balance greater than $15,000.00
Update 9/5/21: Referral bonus now down to $50
Update 5/9/21: Referral bonus is now up to $100 for each party from May 4 – September 4th, 2021. (Previously it was $50 for each party.) Do not share referrals in the comments below, instead go here to find a referral.
Offer at a glance
- Interest Rate: 3% APY
- Minimum Balance: None
- Maximum Balance: $15,000
- Availability: Nationwide
- Direct deposit required: Yes, $1,000+
- Additional requirements: None
- Hard/soft pull: Soft pull
- ChexSystems: No
- Credit card funding: Unknown
- Monthly fees: None
- Insured: FDIC
The Offer
- Porte Bank is offering 3% APY on balances up to $15,000 when the following requirements are met (funds need to be in the savings account to earn 3% APY):
- Receive a direct deposit of $1,000 or more per month
Referral Bonus
Porte Bank is offering a bonus of $50 when you refer a friend (both the person referring and being referred get $50) and they open a new account, complete a direct deposit and activate the debit card. Referral links don’t show the $50 bonus but once you go through account set up it does state “you and your friend are eligible for a $50 bonus.” Do not share your referrals in the comments of this post. They can be shared in this linked post instead. You’re limited to receiving ten referral bonuses so keep that in mind.
Avoiding Fees
This account has no monthly fees to worry about
Our Verdict
Seems like a relatively good account and I’m sure this will be very popular due to the referral bonus.
Hat tip to reader Jeffrey T
My Porte account was closed out of the blue. Don’t have time to check on it right now.
Did they notify you by email?
Yes and app push notification.
You seem to have a lot of your accounts closed. What kinds of transactions do you do?
Delete
Only three IIRC, so not that much. T B K, Nearside, and this one now.
I didn’t do any transactions other than move a penny back and forth from the checking and savings a couple months ago to keep it active. I can’t log in or reset password so I’m going to let it be and wait for my close out check. I think I had something less than $10 in total with Porte, can’t remember exactly. Didn’t use them for the 3% after Q1.
I thought you were 1 of the few people that had your account closed at Midland. Maybe you just had issues but it wasn’t closed. I don’t remember as it was a long time ago.
What’s Nearside?
Anyway, maybe they closed your Porte account for inactivity. Why didn’t you use the 3% account? The requirements are easier than most rewards accounts.
Definitely had issues with Midland but got the bonus and closed on my own terms.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/nearside-small-business-checking-50-bonus-1-6-cashback
My cash stash is much lower than before. I still have to fill up ETFCU so Porte was only a last resort. Plus I didnt like quarterly payouts and they are a less than reliable fintech with only app access.
I hate that they don’t have website access also. I emailed them 1 or 2 months ago to ask them to implement it but I won’t hold my breath.
My transfer from Chase biz checking to Porte got returned 🙁 Was able to make a transfer from Chase last year.
DP: 15 $1.xx USAA Insurance payments + $3k Alliant Savings ACH transfer = You’ve Qualified! badge
Not working – Service Credit Union ACH
The debit counter has changed and no longer moves at all, no matter if the debits count or not. I guess this was their fix to having false positives, where the counter would increment, but not always count for the badge.
So, your only indicator is once you completed all the requirements (i.e. your debits & ACH DD have been posted) and see the “You’ve Qualified!” badge in the savings account.
DP: 15 $0.5 Amazon reloads + $3k T-mobile money transfer = You’ve Qualified! badge
.50 reload x15 times amazon did not work? The counter did not move even though its settled Friday…
The counter doesn’t work this quarter, I saw the same thing with my reloads. However, after my 3000 deposit hit( transfer from LMCU ), it showed me as qualified.
nice, did you initiate a pull from Porte? LMCU doesnt do external transfers
LMCU definitely does external transfers, , i use it extensively. It is a little hard to find because it is under their Bill pay. Pro tip, using their external transfer there is a 2500 transfer limit daily limit( at
least for me ). However, if you use the pay a person feature in bill pay, you can essentially make a direct deposit without that limit. The pay a person is only a push from LMCU, to do a pull you have to use their transfers. The limit is there too, but its kinda vaguely different.
Interesting, how do you find the payee info (Porte Bank)
Look at your account info in the app, under your profile…. under the hamburger button (3 lines) in the upper right once you log in.
You can also click on the direct deposit and get the form. Either way, it will have the ACH RTN and account number for the spending account.
Did anyone else start getting interest withheld from Porte?
Yes — and when I called about it, the first person put me on eternal hold that eventually rang back into the automated attendant. Went back through the whole menu, account verification, etc. and the second person couldn’t see the transaction. “Well, we only have limited visibility into savings accounts… so go check the terms and condition.”
Pretty irritating.
Hey sorry, didn’t see this reply til now. So I figured out the setting in the app to turn off backup withholding. Settings -> Account Info (at the top) -> then the Savings Account has “Backup Withholding Status”. At least this is how it shows up on iOS.
DP: Can confirm that HM Bradley (keywords HMB HMBradley) pushes still qualify as DDs (direct deposits) to trigger the badge. I was at about $2,950 for this quarter because my last employer DD was just barely below the last bit I needed to pass $3,000. I’ve been splitting my DDs between HMB, Porte, and other banks this quarter so it was getting pretty tight. Based on earlier DDs, I was going to try Alliant (but I couldn’t verify Porte in time) and a T-Mobile Money push that hadn’t happened yet, but HMB got there first.
So to summarize: $2,950 in real employer DDs plus $100 in HMB ACH pushes triggers the badge. I suspect, but can’t be sure, that just a $3,000 push from HMB would count as well.
Edit: one line up there should read “Based on earlier DPs, I was going to try Alliant (couldn’t verify Porte in time)”
P1 did 15 Amazon $.5 reloads and 3k ACH push during April and was able to see counter moving and badge posted.
P2 is trying to do the same (close to 10 now) during June and the counter is not showing up at all.
It says “Merchant Debit Transactions” does that mean PIN-based transactions?
Is there a list of what qualifies as dd for the 3%? Chase is a no go and the only bank I have that I think will transfer to the metabank.
List of DD datapoints here:
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/knowledge-base/list-methods-banks-count-direct-deposits/#Porte_Bank
I guess it will need to be updated to reflect that Chase appears to no longer work.
Can someone please confirm if Amazon $0.50/$1 transactions are counted towards the debit transactions? I did 8 transactions last week and counter never changed.
They were working, but they may have made changes? How about making a real debit… $1 Slurpee… and see if it moves?
Before the problem with some debits was that the counter would increment (Cash App, Venmo, Geico, Verizon, Tmobile) but they did not count toward getting the qualified badge.
I’ve completed 15 amazon transactions (some as early as mid-april) and $3k in real employer DDs, but the transaction counter has not moved at all and I don’t have the badge.
I did the same thing in the first quarter and I could see my progress on the transaction counter, then got the badge after the final DD.
I’ll try a real debit in the next few days to see if that moves the counter.
Well never mind! I was confused and had only completed 12 amazon transaction. I completed 3 more yesterday, they’ve already posted, and the badge now shows.
I’ve completed 15 $0.5 amazon transactions and >3k real DD this quarter. I can confirm that I have the “You are qualified” badge.
However, it’s possible that they made changes this month, as
Ram is the 2nd person to report the debit counter not moving (incrementing). Or, could be account specific? Glitch?
Amazon reloads were definitely working before… I did some in late April that worked just fine.
All it would take is for them to put in a $1+ minimum transaction… of course, it would be nice if they relayed that if it was the case.
50 cents has worked in the past… It worked for me last month.
But this is a fintech… they might make changes.
P2 received $3000+ real DD last week. Then I made several 50 cents Amazon reloads to bring the total to 15. The badge showed up shortly afterward.
Just to add one more data point, I even tried a payment to Xfinity and it still the counter doesn’t move. Probably, I shall use the physical card over the weekend to see if the counter moves. Things we have to do for $100….
Use the Search 🔍 next time.
Oops missed that, thanks
Did a genuine transaction at Burger King two days ago for $2.19 and even that doesn’t trigger the 15 debit transactions
yes, it works still.