131–140 of 684 posts
Maybe I'm doing it wrong but the "no foreign transaction fees" is just as exciting. Using my BofA card on trips always results in a welcome home set of charges I could do without.
I think I've spotted the problem. Seriously though, look into your available local Credit Unions. There are plenty of good credit cards with no foreign transaction fees as well (some of which are from larger banks).
3% on checking sounds too good to be true. What's the catch? For example, I didn't see anything about how funds are insured. If Robinhood were to somehow lose depositor funds, what recourse would account holders have?
It said that they invest your money into US treasuries. I assume since they are doing this instead of providing mortgage/loan services and having to employ an army of loan and compliance officers, this would theoretically make it possible to profit based on the long term treasury rate since it's just a buy and hold strategy and doesn't really require much overhead (comparatively) even when being done on a large scale…
This is higher than even most long-term CDs at the moment. Anyone have thoughts on how this is possible? Possibly a teaser that will adjust down soon?
i suspect its a combination of (1) 6 month treasuries are yielding ~2.5% (2) they are getting revenue share from interchange fees on spending that they are passing on in the form of interest as opposed to some cash back/rewards program
Unless I'm completely ignorant of what's out there, 3% interest on a free personal checking account is absolutely bonkers. I can only imagine everyone in /r/churning jumping on this if they have an invite.
30 year US treasuries are now also above 3%, and we may see that continue with shorter-term instruments so there's a hedge there as well.
https://support.robinhood.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001226966
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's stopping you from opening up similar accounts with other banks?
Most banks that will give you a current account will want to see £xxxx deposited every month (e.g, your salary) to earn any interest (if they even offer interest, it's rare on a current account). I could open multiple, but then every month I'd need to spend time transfering money to each to earn the interest. Im not sure that would even count towards deposited every month, they might want to see a direct debit that i…
However, if you're looking for something slightly better than what you've got now there are currently a fair few 1.5%ish easy access accounts available that you could just dump your savings in and make a fair bit more than you're currently getting. You can get 2-3% if you're willing to lock some up for a year+.
ISAs are irrelevant for most people since the personal savings allowance came in - if you're earning less than £500/£1000 per year in interest (depending on income) then you won't pay tax anyway.
moneysavingexpert.com has excellent round ups of this sort of thing.
Inflation is around 4% [1], the account is only insured up to about $3500 (if you are lucky) and VND keeps deflating in value against USD. Never mind the US tax filings take another chunk.
There is always a catch.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You shouldn’t store more than $250k in cash in any kind of bank or brokerage due to the insurance limit (unless the bank has account insurance beyond $250k.) Investments are different, of course. Edit: I forgot about the details of the limit. Thank you all.
EDIT: According to the link shared by mortenjorck this is incorrect. A banker explained this to me a while ago, and I just took their word for it. I might have to call my mom now. I'll leave this up so that anyone else with the same misconception will know its wrong It's actually per bank, per type of account. So $250k in savings accounts, $250k in checking, $250 in Money Market, etc.
> All single accounts owned by the same person at the same bank are added together and insured up to $250,000
Revocable trusts, joint accounts, and other types of accounts with multiple custodians are covered separately, but checking, savings, and so on are not.