Century Bank Direct - Checking

Average Score:

•   take a look

  Well, I am going to look into this because whenever I have $50,000 in an account is going to be so far away from now that it is not a concern for me

  Posted by learwalker -- Sept. 15, 2009

•   Not for me

  When I first saw that Century Bank had a Checking account with only a $100 minimum that was offering a 1.65% APY, I though I found my new general purpose account.

  Their website mentions a slew of features: free order of 50 checks, free online billpay, ATM fee reimbursements, and postage paid envelopes for banking by mail. At the very bottom, it also mentions "Earn interest on balances up to $50,000." I wasn't exactly sure this meant, so I called up to speak with a CSR.

  He confirmed it for me; the 1.65% rate only applies to balances less than $50,000, and every dollar above that earns ZERO interest. This certainly makes me less excited about the account, but the CSR mentioned that if I opened a Savings account with Century as well, I could easily move money between the two, and instead of the 1.65%, I could be earning 1.99% in the savings account.

  I know some people do this, but I personally don't want to have to think about moving my money back and forth between accounts all the time. I'd prefer to have a single account that pays me a good rate on my entire balance, and just leave it at that. Unfortunately it looks like this isn't the account.

  Posted by VizslaMama -- March 26, 2009