New Savings Rate Deal from National City Bank / PNC Bank
January 22, 2009
National City Bank (now part of PNC Bank) is offering a money market savings account with a 2.50% APY guaranteed for 180 days for new funds that have not been on deposit at PNC Bank or National City Bank within the last 30 days. The minimum deposit to earn the 2.50% APY is $10,000. This deal give a depositor the rate guarantee of a CD with the liquidity of a money market account. Although the 2.50% APY may not be thoroughly exciting, the national average is well below 1% and bank experts are predicting deposit rates will continue to drift lower in 2009. A guaranteed 2.50% for six months on FDIC-insured funds may end up being a great deal.
National City Bank was offering a large number of money market and CD rate deals in 2007 and 2008 before the PNC Bank merger went through. By offering this deal on the old National City website, it looks PNC is going to keep bringing in new deposits with rate promotions under the National City banner. This is similar to how Bank of America continued using the Countrywide Bank website after their purchase of Countrywide Financial to offer higher rates to new depositors than current customers were receiving. It looks like current customer of PNC Bank could park their money in a different bank account for 30 days and then take advantage of the PNC - National City offer.
The offer is available online to residents of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Anonymous
23 January 2009 at 6:04 am
And at the same time, Reward Checking is out there for, on average, 4.0%-5.0%. No minimum balances. So what if I have to make it my primary checking account. For an extra $100-300 per year (for a $10k balance), sounds like a really good deal.