WTDirect Increases Savings Account Yield to 1.21% APY

On the day when the Fed chief indicated that the near-zero interest rate we had since December 2008 will be here to stay in order to combat the high unemployment rate (his comments also sent the stock market down sharply BTW), WTDirect, one of the popular online banks, announced that it’s increasing the yield of its WTDirect High-Yield Savings Account to 1.21% APY from 1.16%.

Even with the Fed holding its benchmark rate steady, the trend of online savings account interest rates has probably been reversed already. At this time last year, every bank seemed to be in a race to the bottom. Now not only rates at major online banks have stabilized, we actually have seen a few increases in the past few months: first Capital One, then SmartyPig, now WTDirect. For WTDirect, the rate increase is rather small, but I hope that other banks, which are already in a better position in terms of rates, will start to follow suit.

BTW, to get the 1.21% APY from WTDirect, you will have to have at least $10,000 in the account. Are you interested?