Survey identifies Top Ten interest rate banks

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

MoneyRates.com has issued a report identifying banks offering the highest interest rates on savings and money market accounts in the first quarter of 2011. You can use the information to assess how your bank’s rates stack up against the competition.

The 10 banks offering the highest money market account interest rates in the first quarter of 2011 remain unchanged from the previous quarter. Eight of the 10 banks offering the best savings account rates have made the list for the second quarter in a row. Since most savings accounts do not guarantee a rate for a specified amount of time, continued reliability is an important factor.

The top 10 banks offering consistently high savings account rates during the first quarter of 2011 were:

1. American Express Bank – 1.269 percent 2. Discover Bank – 1.224 percent 3. Capital One Bank – 1.221 percent 4. Zions Bank – 1.087 percent 5. Ally Bank – 1.070 percent 6. Cashmere Valley Bank – 1.006 percent 7. ING Direct – 1.063 percent 8. Mile High Banks – 0.913 percent 9. OneWest Bank - 0.883 percent 10. Acacia Federal Savings Bank - 0.832 percent

The top 10 banks offering consistently high money market account rates during the first quarter of 2011 were:

1. OneWest Bank – 1.100 percent 2. Discover Bank – 1.079 percent 3. Ally Bank – 1.070 percent 4. Mile High Banks – 0.974 percent 5. AIG Bank – 0.936 percent 6. Capital One Bank – 0.928 percent 7. Hudson City Bank – 0.908 percent 8. Zions Bank – 0.858 percent 9. State Farm Bank – 0.797 percent 10. First Savings Bank Northwest – 0.793 percent

More banks offered savings accounts with rates over one percent than banks offering money market accounts with rates in excess of one percent – a rate higher than the national average for both types of accounts. Ten of the banks listed offer these rates with minimum opening deposits between $0 to $100.

In conducting its survey, MoneyRates.com looked at the money market accounts and savings accounts offered by a sample of 100 banks across the U.S. This sampling was constructed to be broadly representative of the general banking environment. It includes the 50 largest U.S. banks by deposit amount, plus another 50 banks of more average size, at around $1 billion in deposits each.