American Express Online Savings Account 1.15% APY
By Sun
Here’s another high-yield savings account offer, even though the rate isn’t as good as the rate from Ally Bank or Discover Bank I mentioned earlier.
The new offer is the American Express High-Yield Personal Savings Account. The credit card issuer received permission from the Fed to become a bank holding company last November, making it eligible to receive financial aid from the Federal Reserve as well as take deposits from savers. The new savings account offer from AMEX is the result from such an effort. Right now the AMEX savings account has an yield of 2.00% 1.15% APY. There’s no minimum deposit requirement to open an account (of course, you will have to have at least $1 in your account to earn interest). The account has no monthly fee either and it’s insured up to $250,000 by the FDIC. AMEX uses trial deposits to verify account ownership. Once the verification process is completed, you can link up to 5 external bank accounts to AMEX account and make electronic fund transfer (ACH). For the savings account, interests are compounded daily and credited every month.
In addition to savings account, AMEX also has CD products with maturities ranging from 3 months to 5 years. The 1-year CD rate is currently at 2.00% 0.90% APY and 2-year at 2.50% 1.25% APY.
Get the most of your money with these High-Yield Savings Accounts:
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Well, there isn’t much information on their website about the new savings account offer if you want to know more about it. When I look at savings products, the only thing that matters to me is the rate. Without a good rate, there’s just no basis for any other features. To be fair, 2.00% 1.15% APY is quite appealing for a savings account in a weak rate environment (you can find comprehensive, updated rate information for popular online savings accounts). If you look around, you will see that most popular online bank savings accounts yields are currently the in 1.10% range, making AMEX Personal Savings Account a decent choice.
Do you want to get an account yourself? I may consider it.
Update: Eventually, I got a Sallie Mae Savings Account instead.
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I think there’s something to be said for having an account with a well known and reliable brand name such as American Express. BTW, American Express Personal Savings is now at 1.85% which is much better than Ally’s current 1.64% (or any other bank right now). Setting up the account was also very easy yet it still has great security built in.
I’m also a bit annoyed that Bankrate has yet to include the new American Express PS account in it’s rankings. It’s been around for 4 months now and it’s not like they are a no-name company. Get it together BankRate.com!
Does your bank (not America Express) charge you a transfer fee when you electronically deposit to or withdraw from the American Express Savigs Account?
No, American Express Personal Savings does not charge for electronic transfers. I have several online savings accounts and I’ve never had one that charged for electronic transfers between banks. However, some banks are much slower than others in executing transfers so sometimes you might lose one or two days interest during the transfer. HSBC was notoriously slow so I finally ditched them. I’d say American Express Savings is about average for speed of transfers (i.e. not too slow, not too fast).
BTW, the rate for American Express Personal Savings recently went down to 1.7%. It’s still ranks as one of the top rates.
Be very careful with American Express Personal Savings. Their customer service is not that great. For example, ater establishing an account and making external deposits, American Express decided to lock the account because they could not verify a mailing or home address. You would think that once you establish an account with your bank, you should be able to make electronic transfers. If American Express locks your account for any reason, it’s a real hassle to get the matter resolved. Another case is where they ask you for your elementary school or address where you grew up for security purposes. After not being able answer the elementary school security question and essentially being unable to discuss the account, it was later determined that the agent entered the street address in which I grew up as my elementary school. I see this as an honest mistake. The 1st scenario should never be allowed to occur. Imagine a case where you put a lot of money in a savings account and then have to prove who you are or anything they desire in order to get access to your money. Also be careful with transfers, since the date you select may not be the date the transaction occurs. It tends to occur 2 days later after your bank is closed. With a previous on-line savings account, Dollar Savings, at least they had this feature correct as it occured on the day you selected and before your bank opened. If the transfer could not be made, at least their website indicated that the transaction would have to occur a day later.
Personally I hate AMEX and will never do business with them again. I had a credit card with them for 6 years, never late, and for most of my time had a zero balance. Two years ago, without warning, when I had a fairly substantail balance, they doubled my interest rate and lowered my credit limit, and still claimed that I was receiving the “lowest possible rate”. I paid them off and closed my account. I don’t trust them. Just make sure you read the fine print. There is a catch–I promise you.
I have had an AMEX Personal Savings Account for nearly a year. I see no downside to the account mechanics. I am only annoyed to see the delay in the time I move funds from my day-to-day checking into the AMEX savings account. It is not unsual for the “lag time” to take up to 4 days. Not a reason to bolt from the account by any means but I enjoy the gratification gained by moving funds from a checking into a savings acccout.
Overall, I recommend the use of the AMEX Personal Savings Account.
poke with a very nice rep (rachel) today and will transfer a large sum from my ameritrade savings getting .7% (lowered from.8% last month).
WHEN is Ben Bernanke going to stop screwing the American saver and FORCING them to chase yield in the stock market? As U.S. saver essentially supplement BANK earnings with this huge hose job!!
Nice job BENNY……devalue the dollar and cause commodity inflation worldwide as USA savers get shafted!
This account process has been a nightmare! We applied over a month ago, and a week later we got a letter requesting a letter of identity verification from our bank. We went to our bank and sent that in, and then 2 weeks later they sent another letter requesting a letter from the social security administration. This is ridiculous! Are people supposed to take a day off work to wait a couple hours at the SS office for a lousy savings account? The customer service agent’s other advice was to try to apply again and see if we get a different result. This seems very suspicious and I am fed up with their inconsistency and lack of respect for their customers’ time.
I didn’t know account verification requires document from SSA. Usually, banks do require ID and SSN verification, but most of them can be done by mailing a signature card which also serves as the verification of the SSN provided during account application is correct. I never had any bank ask me to provide anything from our bank.
I have a savings account with AMEX and they have been holding my money hostage for about 6 days already. I called them 2 days ago and they said it would be available the next day so when that didn’t happen I called again and they told me another 2 days. I have made at least 10 transfers to and from the account and it has never taken this long. Yes it is a larger amount that I transferred but they also said it doesn’t matter how much I transfer, the hold will be the same. They do have a high interest rate but if they are going to continue to do this then I prefer not having an account with them!
Sorry to hear your experience. Did they give you any reason why it takes longer than usual? I don’t have an account with AMEX, but with others and it usually takes the same amount of time to clear the fund, regardless the amount of money being transferred.