We cover the top online savings accounts of 2023, rated by account APR, minimum balance requirements, minimum starting deposits, and special offers available for new customers.
Last Updated: September 22, 2023
* The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) plays an important role in generating economic growth and opportunity in some of our nation’s most distressed communities. By offering tailored resources and innovative programs that invest federal dollars alongside private sector capital, the CDFI Fund serves mission-driven financial institutions that take a market-based approach to supporting economically disadvantaged communities. These mission-driven organizations are encouraged to apply for CDFI Certification and participate in CDFI Fund programs that inject new sources of capital into neighborhoods that lack access to financing
Your savings account plays an important role in your financial life. Savings accounts, like their name implies, are designed to keep your money safe. They’re perfect for storing extra funds that you don’t need immediate access to but that you want to hold for a specific purpose or in case of emergency.
Savings accounts pay interest on the money that you deposit, but finding good interest rates can be hard. Many large, brick and mortar banks offer such low rates that you’ll be lucky to see pennies of interest each year. Ultimately, your savings could wind up losing value after you account for inflation.
Still, having a savings account for emergency savings or goals is important, so you should try to find banks that offer reasonable interest rates. SaveBetter is one way to set aside your extra cash while earning a reasonable rate of interest.
SaveBetter is a New York-based fintech (financial technology company) that offers an “online savings marketplace.”
The company is owned by Deposit Solutions, a company based in Hamburg, Germany, which operates a similar service in Europe. SaveBetter is a way for the company to expand its service to the United States.
Through its online savings marketplace, customers can open a single account with SaveBetter. That account gives those people access to high-yield accounts at multiple banks, which they can manage through a single account portal.
SaveBetter works with banks around the United States, many of which we feature in our list of the top savings accounts.
Ponce Bank was founded in the Bronx, New York City, in 1960. Since then, the bank has expanded to provide financial services in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and parts of New Jersey. As a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), Ponce Bank places an emphasis on serving unbanked and underbanked communities.
Continental Bank is a Utah-based, privately held commercial bank. It focuses on business banking services but consumers can open accounts through SaveBetter. The banks says that its mission is to “create value through fostering a culture where the Bank’s employees, customers and communities thrive.”
As its name suggests, the Central Bank of Kansas City is located in Kansas City where it’s been operating for almost seventy years. Like Ponce bank, Central Bank of Kansas City is a Community Development Financial Institution, meaning it has a heavy focus on helping to develop the local community. It has allocated more than $450 million to financially distressed communities in the past fifteen years.
Working with SaveBetter is much like working with an online bank.
The first thing that you have to do with SaveBetter is open an account. When you go to sign up, SaveBetter will ask you to choose a savings product that you’re interested in.
Next, you’ll have to provide some personal information, as well as an email address and a password to create your account. You’ll also need to verify your identity and link an existing bank account to use to fund your SaveBetter account.
When you’re making your SaveBetter account you’ll have to choose a savings product you’re interested in. Once you’ve created your account you can stick with that choice or let SaveBetter show you the other available options.
Currently, SaveBetter can match you with other bank’s savings accounts, high-yield CDs, and no-penalty CDs.
As long as you can meet the minimum deposit requirements, you can open accounts at multiple banks through SaveBetter.
If you want to open a savings account or a CD at one of SaveBetter’s partner banks, you can do so through your SaveBetter account portal. The company handles all the paperwork on your behalf, opening an account at the partner bank.
You’ll manage all of your accounts at the different banks through SaveBetter. That includes making deposits and withdrawals. This means that you can easily manage multiple accounts from one simple dashboard.
One thing that SaveBetter focuses on is community. Many of SaveBetter’s partner institutions are Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs).
CDFIs focus on providing banking services to underserved communities. Currently, almost 25% of American households are unbanked or underbanked, relying on check-cashing stores and non-traditional financial services to handle most of their financial needs. CDFIs aim to help these communities access less expensive, traditional banking services.
CDFIs focus on improving their local communities by offering banking services as well as financing small local businesses, nonprofits, and affordable housing. CDFIs are not non-profits, but they don’t seek to maximize profits. Instead, they balance earning a profit with benefiting their community.
There are several benefits to opening an account with SaveBetter.
SaveBetter gives customers the opportunity to open savings accounts and CDs at multiple institutions. This lets you take advantage of the accounts with the best available interest rates.
Managing multiple bank accounts can get confusing very quickly. You have to remember multiple account passwords and recall where you’ve stored your money. SaveBetter makes it easy by giving you a single account you can use to manage all of your savings accounts and CDs at different banks.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) offers insurance for people who put their money in covered banks. The FDIC protects up to $250,000 per depositor at covered banks. If the bank goes under and doesn’t return your money, the FDIC will reimburse you for any amount lost, up to the limit.
If you’re fortunate enough to have more than $250,000 you want insured, you can open accounts at multiple banks. As long as you don’t have more than the limit at any bank, all of your funds will be covered.
SaveBetter makes it easy to split your balances between banks, maximizing your FDIC protection.
Savings accounts are supposed to pay interest on the money that you deposit but recently most large banks have offered incredibly low rates. Depending on your balance, you’d be lucky to earn more than $1 per year at some banks.
While many banks pay as little as 0.01% APY, SaveBetter partner banks offer much higher rates, as high as 0.50% at the time of writing, which can make a huge difference in your interest earnings each year.
SaveBetter isn’t perfect, so it’s important to keep its drawbacks in mind.
SaveBetter isn’t a traditional bank. It matches you with partner banks, but only lets you open savings accounts and CDs.
If you have a savings account, it’s almost certain that you need to have a checking account as well. Your checking account is the hub of your financial life, giving you a place to store money you need quick access to and giving your access to tools like online bill payments.
If you want a checking account, you’ll need to open one with a bank directly, at which point it might make more sense to open a savings account with that bank as well. SaveBetter is mostly useful if you want a separate account for savings or if the bank you have a checking account with offers poor savings products.
SaveBetter has a limited list of partners that it works with. Many of the banks that SaveBetter partners with are great institutions with solid interest rates, but there are thousands of banks in the United States. The odds are good that if you do some research on your own that you can find a bank with better interest rates or perks that you can take advantage of.
SaveBetter is very convenient, but you might not always find the best deal.
If you’re not sure SaveBetter is right for you and want to choose a savings account on your own, these are the things to look for.
SaveBetter is an online service that makes it easy for people to open savings accounts and CDs at multiple banks. This can help you earn higher interest rates and keep more of your money insured by the FDIC while keeping things easy to manage from a single centralized dashboard.
The primary drawback of the service is that it focuses on savings accounts, leaving you to find a checking account and other services, like loans elsewhere. Still, the service is worth checking out if you have money you want to keep in a savings account.
All of the savings accounts on our list are FDIC insured, meaning up to $250,000 per depositor is protected against loss if the bank or savings association fails.
SaveBetter doesn’t charge any fees to its customers. Instead, SaveBetter makes money by referring customers to its partner banks, who pay a fee for the help in finding customers.
SaveBetter uses state of the art cybersecurity practices to make sure that your account, and the money deposited at its partner banks, stays safe. This includes multi-factor authentication for accounts, data encryption, and regular security monitoring.
SaveBetter does not currently offer joint accounts. Only individuals may open accounts through the service.
All deposits submitted by 4:30 PM on a business day are completed on the next business day. Deposits submitted after 4:30 PM take one additional business day.
Withdrawals submitted by 1:30 PM on a business day are processed the next business day, with withdrawals submitted after that deadline taking one additional business day.
