Update: SoFi money has now been released and most people did not get offered any $200 bonus. Read our full review of SoFi Money here.
SoFi is planning to launch a new checking/savings account called SoFi money. They have sent out an e-mail to existing SoFi customers stating that when the product launches they will be offering a $200 bonus when you sign up for an account and set up direct deposit. The full e-mail is below:
It’s cute that they think that a 1.09% APY account is attractive, given the best rates are currently up to 2% APY or 5% on a rewards checking account. Despite the abusive use of emoji’s in the e-mail, I’ll still happily take the $200 assuming it’s a soft pull to open. You can’t currently sign up, but you can join the wait list here. It’s not necessary to be an existing SoFi customers to join when the account does go live and obviously we will do a full post when that happens.
The $200 bonus is broken down as follows:
- Receive a direct deposit of at least $500
- Receive $100 into the money account
- Receive $100 into SoFi Wealth account (if you don’t have this, they give you 30 days from receiving the other $100 to set one up)
The account itself might also be useful due to no FTF and reimbursed ATM fees worldwide. Similar to Charles Schwab & Denizen. Update: They do actually charge a 1% foreign transaction fee, no so attractive anymore.
Hat tip to reader @shinobidolife
Just got off the wait list but based on the comments below about the bonus being over, not going to bother. Hopefully a bonus comes back at some point
I just got my an email today that I am off the waitlist. No bonus mentioned anywhere and based on other comments, looks like the bonus is gone. The interest rate is mentioned as 2.25%, which does have ongoing requirements after the first 3 months: monthly direct deposits of $3k or more OR $500 or more in monthly debit card purchases. If you do not meet those requirements, the rate will drop to 1.25%
Curious to see what will happen with my bonus given the post from
Will Ryan . At any rate, just noticed some new terms on the account itself when I signed in today:
Annual Percentage Yield or APY is effective as of 10/15/18 and calculated based on maintaining an average daily balance of $10,000 or more, each month, for 12 months. If after 3 months of opening your first SoFi Money account (either individually or jointly) you do not either: (i) maintain an average daily balance of $10,000 or more in any month; OR (ii) make at least $3,000 in direct deposits in any month, your account will neither earn interest nor receive ATM fee reimbursements. In addition, you may not be eligible for other member benefits until you achieve one of these 2 activity targets. Service fees may reduce earnings. The interest rate is variable and subject to change by SoFi Securities from time to time, in its sole discretion, without advance notice to you. Changes to the interest rate will change the APY described. For more information, please refer to your Customer Agreement. Some account features, including ATM fee reimbursements, may change or be removed at any time, without prior notice.
WARNING:
They have told me this bonus is ‘discontinued’ and are not paying me. Even though the terms were still in their FAQ when they approved my account. They’ve now scrubbed any mention of this bonus from their website.
Wow that’s crazy, considering it hasn’t even launched beyond the waitlist yet. Did you have a previous relationship with SOFI?
No previous relationship.
I filed a CFPB complaint and suddenly they are very anxious to resolve the issue.
are they honoring the bonus for you?
my $500 direct deposit is hitting tomorrow to satisfy the original requirement..now im worried ill have to chat them and fight for this.. iguess ill file CFPB too. hows it looking for you?
I had to file a complaint and exchange a bunch of emails with people at Sofi but in the end yes they paid me the $100. Still waiting on the $100 to my Wealth account.
I am in the same boat, although my $500 DD won’t hit until Nov 2. Curious to see how this plays out.
I wrote in to clarify whats going on with the bonus and received the following response (I opened on 10/3, DD supposed to hit 11/2):
” Only our beta phase SoFi Money members who also have a SoFi Wealth account were eligible for a $200 bonus ($100 in SoFi Money and $100 in SoFi Wealth) if they set up a direct deposit into their SoFi Money account of $500 from their employer. This incentive program has discontinued however you are still able to take advantage of it.
Once the qualifying direct deposit posts to your SoFi Money the $100 Money bonus is applied instantaneously. The $100 Wealth bonus is applied within 10 business days. ”
So…. thanks for doing the legwork with CFPB Will Ryan.
They approved my account today with no mention of the $200 in the email or in my account area. However in the FAQ it says this:
>After we receive your first deposit of at least $500, we’ll add $100 directly to your SoFi Money account and $100 into an individual, non-IRA SoFi Wealth account. Don’t have a SoFi Wealth account? You’ll have 30 days from the day the first $100 of your welcome bonus deposits to your SoFi Money account to set up a Wealth account. After your account is open, we’ll add $100 into your account.
Hard or soft pull? Thanks
Not 100% sure but I know I never received an Experian hard pull from them.
Sweet. I am going to go for it. Thanks
They’ve now told me the bonus is ‘discontinued’ and are not paying me. Sorry if you already started the process.
Looks like they’ve started Early Access. I see the deposit offer after signing up for the account, and it looks like interest rate is currently 1%.
I received the early access email as well but I didn’t see the deposit offer anywhere. Where are you seeing it? Maybe I have to wait for them to ‘finish setting up my account’ (their words)?
Edit: Disregard. Once I linked a bank account the offer language showed on the ‘Manage Account’ page on the right side under ‘Direct Deposit’
My big issue is getting a $500 check to clear as I’m paid weekly. I would like to see if they would be cool with just a regular DD. Or if pushing to them would trigger it.
1.09% + free atm withdrawals + free checks + it being a checking account + slick website etc, sounds pretty nice. i’d take that over a 1.6% savings account (granted i don’t keep huge savings balances). i might give this a spin for my everyday checking account.
What no transaction limit, no minimum transaction account is at 1.09%? There is none. Sure you can link an Ally, Alliant, or Capital One checking account to a higher interest savings account but there is some hassle there and the risk of paying the “safety check” charge if you fail to account for a ACH debit or check.
Schwab is a better product. No foreign transaction fees and unlimited ATM fees reimbursed worldwide. 0.2% on the checking right now too.
Like the OP said, I’ll take the $200 though.
This interest rate is more than 5x Schwab’s…
This says no foreign transaction fees. Basically this offers an extra 1% interest and twice the signup bonus in exchange for limiting ATM fees reimbursed worldwide to 6 per month. Most people can easily make that work. And make this their primary checking account that has high interest without requirements.
You would trade almost 1% of interest for a hypothetical case where you’d use the ATM more than six times in one month? If you keep around ~$1,000 buffer in your checking account, that’s an extra ~$7.50 a month in interest over the Schwab account. You’d have to be going to the ATM 9 times a month every month for the Schwab account to be better.
I prefer to keep a small buffer (~$500 – ~$1,000) in my checking account, but I hate losing the interest with a fiery passion.
By that logic you should go for Memory Bank.
What I mean is using ATM 2-4 times a month is normal/expected usage, using an ATM more than six times a month regularly is highly unusual usage for most people.
Hrm… from the post: “Update: They do actually charge a 1% foreign transaction fee, no so attractive anymore.”
Uh… so no foreign transaction fee was a lie? Uh…
Another desperate attempt to build a business model
$35 and $50 to RECEIVE wires? are they crazy? that’s an insane fee structure
Most people don’t use wires these days, just like they don’t use fax any more.
still $25 and $50 to RECEIVE a wire is robbery. I don’t care how many people use it, it shows the mindset of the people that designed this.
You say how great Schwab is for the unlimited ATM refund and $100 signup for a hard pull. Schwab has a 0.17% interest rate.
If the free checks are unlimited, like Schwab, then they are comparable. Except, it would be a $200 signup and a 0.9% higher interest rate in exchange for not getting a brokerage account and limiting ATM refunds to 6 a month. Since I took a trip and made 0 stops for more foreign currency (I took some out before my trip), I think that this is the better option for most people.
Yup, it has the possibility to be a great account. I was just making a comment on the interest rate not being that great. This is also true for the Schwab account.
DOC,
Obviously there are higher paying accounts, but for an account with no limits and no debit requirements it’s one of the best. If you compare it to Schwab or Fidelity, it compares favorably.
I don’t see any data points for SoFi on your List Of Methods Banks Count As Direct Deposits. Did I miss something?
Um… the account doesn’t exist yet so nobody would have been able to test it yet.
Ooops :-/
Lol, it’s ok we all make mistakes.
These scumbags kept soliciting me to apply for a loan consolidation (I was carrying huge balances on 2 cards), so what I did was ripped some of their application paper, wrote “f*** you” on the paper, placed it into the prepaid envelope and sent it back to them.
I find that hurting their pockets is the most effective way to teach these people a lesson whilst helping out our lovely USPS.
It’s not their fault that you couldn’t manage your money more effectively. Let’s see if we can channel your continued frustration at yourself more effectively:
It would be a more productive use of your time to take yourself off of the various junk mailing list, and to be more careful about what you allow to be shared by the companies you currently do business with. You won’t be able to completely eliminate junk mail, but it’s a start. No doubt, you most likely gave them permission to mail you at some point along the way with something like a credit card application.
There’s no enough information to conclude Wong “couldn’t manage [their] money more effectively.” I’ve been carrying somewhere between $7k and $10k in credit card debt for several years now yet I have enough money to pay it off tomorrow if I wanted. I keep getting no fee 0% APR balance transfer offers, if they are going to give them to me, I’ll take it.
Thanks for being reasonable, Snorlax. Jim probably got triggered by my comment and stupidly assumed I’m one of those people that pay overdraft fees and interest despite the demographics of the people on DoC. I didn’t bother replying to him because of his condescending attitude.
I had 3 12 month 0% APR cards which I MSed hard on and floated the balance for a year on Northpointe Bank and Insight accounts. I also don’t opt-out of mailers because it would eliminate my chances of getting special offers from Amex/Chase/Citi/CapOne.
You’re welcome, you didn’t deserve to be spoken to so rudely. I, too, get pretty frustrated with the onslaught of loan consolidation offers I get daily, but its the “cost of doing business”, so to speak.
Since we are a “take advantage of the system” group, I just assumed you were riding the interest free wave, Navy Federal’s interest free no balance transfer promo from January was actually covered in this very blog.
I purchased thousands of dollars in furniture in 2016 and I’ve balance transferred three times since, the interest free promo period currently is due to end in mid-2019.
SoFi is pretty well respected in the student loan refinancing space. Getting junk mail is part of the game. If you don’t like it, stop actively trying to make yourself look receptive to targeted credit ads.
The card looks pretty cool.
1.09% for a *checking* account is not bad… (Does a quick lookup on depositaccounts.com) it’s actually #1 rate available in my area…
I was going to point this out. Without hoops like 15 debit transactions, this is about as good as it gets.
I mean, I’m getting 4.5% with First Advantage so…
But with non of the traditional Mega-High requirements, it’s actually great if you’re not planning on meeting those requirements anyway.
It’s not the worst, but if you’re specifically going for a good interest rate then you should be aiming for 3% or higher, which isn’t difficult to get. These do tend to have extra requirements, but it’s not that hard to set up a recurring DD with Schwab if necessary and then make a few $0.50 reloads on Amazon every month.
1.09% on top of the $200 is a nice little bonus, though. If they have an early termination fee where you need to keep the account open for awhile, then that 1.09% would be a decent boon. Depends if they have a minimum requirement to keep the account fee free or not.
Capital One 360 checking does 1.0% APY with no hoops. It also has no international fees which makes it attractive if you do international.
Alliant, Barclays, Goldman and others all do 1.5%+ with no hoops. And Alliant reimburses all overseas ATM fees.
Are these checking or savings accounts? I can’t find an account with 1.5%+ on Alliant, Barclays or Goldman. And Capital One has a minimum of 100k plus as far as what I could find for the 1% APY.
They’re savings accounts, sorry. There are a few checking accounts paying 1.5%+ with some hoops and 1-2 with little/no hoops paying 2%.
No ATM fee worldwide, ATM reimbursement, and some interest and a signup bonus. seems like a pretty good deal to me.
How does the $200 bonus work?
We want you to use and love your SoFi Money account, and the best way to do that is to give your account some love. One of the best ways to add funds to your SoFi Money account is by setting up direct deposit. If you add at least $500 per paycheck into SoFi Money, you’ll be eligible to receive a $200 bonus.6 After we receive your first deposit of at least $500, we’ll add $100 directly to your SoFi Money account and $100 into an individual, non-IRA SoFi Wealth account. Don’t have a SoFi Wealth account? You’ll have 30 days from the day the first $100 of your welcome bonus deposits to your SoFi Money account to set up a Wealth account. After your account is open, we’ll add $100 into your account. Smart saving, meet intelligent investing.
Investment. Very limited robo investor. Only ETFs. Select risk tolerance profile, they do the rest. I had it for a little while for a $100 sign up bonus. Plus side – no fees. So, you’ll have to open and then pull the money back out. Took a few days for the sales to settle.
It’s a brokerage. They basically bundle Vanguard funds for you and charge you extra on top of the normal expense ratios
It’s an investment/brokerage account
https://www.sofi.com/wealth-management/
Thanks, let me add this to the post.
It seems like a great account if it’s really no fx and no ATM fees worldwide plus interest
I see “no FTF” not no FX…
Eh, still good for no forex fees and reimbursed worldwide ATMs. I’ll go for it once I’m eligible.
FX is 1%. Fine Print: “All SoFi ATM withdrawal fees will be waived for your SoFi Money Account. In addition, your account will automatically be reimbursed up to 6 withdrawals per month for ATM fees charged by other institutions while using a SoFi Money Visa® Debit Card linked to your account at any ATM displaying the Visa, PLUS, or NYCE logo. The reimbursement will be credited to the account by the following business day. Please note, there is a foreign exchange fee of 1% that is not waived, which will be included in the amount charged to your account.”
Doesn’t everyone charge the 1% Visa fee for ATM withdrawals?
No, Schwab does not charge the 1% fee
Thanks, let me update.
That’s not a true 1% FTF – it’s only on ATM withdraws, not purchases.
i’ll take your $200 sofi
Hey, I already took SoFi’s $200 when I refinanced my loan with them. It may have been $300 actually. Money worked.