Changes to Mango Prepaid 6% Interest Account (take 2)

Transition Process

We’ve written about the numerous options of high-interest savings accounts, including the 6% interest rate earned with the Mango prepaid/savings account. Mango recently announced that their account will switch from being backed by First Bank & Trust to Sunrise Bank. While that sounds very boring, there are numerous things to be aware of here.

  • The prepaid card is being reissued in the form of a Visa in place of Mastercard.
  • You need to go into your Mango account to process the switch to the new account.
  • If you don’t process the switch, be sure to stop any direct deposits to the account as after 8/31/15 they’ll go on to be rejected. Any remaining funds will be sent to you via check sometime in October if you don’t empty the account before then.
  • As before, the Mango account comes with a monthly fee of $3, charged on the last day of the month.
  • I assume that we won’t get the $3 fee on both accounts after transitioning. Since it has a zero balance after the transfer, it would be hard for them to collect the fee, in any case.
  • Unclear if the $20 direct deposit promo (for new card members) is still around. It’s not mentioned anymore on the site.

New Account Details

Most importantly, the Mango prepaid is now open again for new applicants – it had been closed temporarily – and the 6% savings account is still being offered. (The Union Plus prepaid card is still apparently unavailable for signup.)

Two important caveats:

  • The new offer has a requirement of a monthly direct deposit of $500 in order to be eligible for the 6% savings account. While we expect that any ACH transfer will qualify as a direct deposit (it has in the past), this does make the card more intrusive as you’ll have to set up monthly deposits. Easiest would be to automate this and have $500 pushed and pulled from/to your regular checking account.
  • There’s also a requirement that there remain a $1 balance in the account at the end of the month in order to qualify for the 6% interest rate. Since there is a $3 monthly fee, you want to make sure that $4 remains at the end of the month, which will leave over the $1 amount. To automate this, push $500 and pull $497 each month, after ensuring there will be a $1 balance left.

Because of the new $500 direct deposit requirement, some may prefer the Netspend accounts which offer a 5% interest rate (just about the same as Mango’s 6% with a $3 monthly fee) and don’t have the monthly maintenance.

UPDATE: FreequentFlyer notes that the new Mango accounts are incapable of getting ACH pulls from them. This is hugely important; aside from the fact that it’s nice to have easy access to you money (i.e. you don’t need to pull out the money be purchasing a money order), we need a way to pull out the $500 monthly that goes into the account. This is not possible and this really kills the value of the Mango card, in my view. You can still deal with pulling out the $500 monthly via money order or ATM, but it adds a lot of hassle to the account.

Update #2: ACH withdrawals seem to be back on now.

My Impressions

I just got the new card and completed the transfer, here’s what I saw:

  • The new site looks much more outdated than the old one.
  • When you activate the new card, at that time the funds are officially transferred from the old account under First Bank & Trust to the new one under Sunrise Bank.
  • Both the prepaid balance and the savings balance gets automatically transferred at the time of activating the new card.
  • It shows up in the account as ‘Mangotransition’.
  • There’s some sort of rewards program on the new site which I don’t believe was there on the old one. I haven’t gotten any offers yet; it could be it’s like the Netspend rewards program which only targets you with offers based on your spend.

Account/Routing Number

The other important thing to note is with regards to the account and routing numbers on the account. (You’ll need these to process the required direct deposit.)

The account number remains the same apparently. Oddly, the routing number is also showing up in the online account as the same (114994196). It’s hard to understand how that’s possible being that it’s routing to a different bank now. Possibly, Mango has their own routing number and they are able to transfer it over.

Note: In the mailing they send out, it states a new routing number (091017138), contradicting what it shows online. According to a Mango rep who I spoke to, the new routing number (091017138) is only for new card members. Those who had the old Mango Mastercard and transitioned over should continue to use the old routing number. This means that if you have Mango attached to your checking account, you don’t have to change your ACH/direct deposit setup and you can just change the amount to $500 to make you eligible for the 6% interest.

The rep told me that the new routing number won’t work for old card members and this is being reported by someone who attempted such a thing as well.

  • Old routing number: 114994196
  • New routing number: 091017138
    Chuck
  • On August 25, 2015, 08:30

View Comments (93)

  • Rntp: I got the same thing, with the name detected as Eastern Bank, and I was a bit nervous about that, too. I tried a minimum $10 transfer just to be safe, and it got to my Mango card fine. I wouldn't worry, as long as you have the numbers set correctly.

  • The routing number and bank name given in the Mango prepaid card package is : 091017138, “Sunrise Bank”. When I register for transfer money from my bank account to card , the bank name displayed as “East Bank”, instead of “Sunrise Bank”. Does anyone noticed this ? I am little worried to transfer or setup direct deposit since the bank name is different than what they claim. Please help if anyone see as “East Bank” and still no issue with it.

  • I just noticed that the website now lists the requirements to be eligible for the 6% rate as:

    "Earn 6.00% Annual Percentage Yield with Mango Savings™ if you' re enrolled in Mango Direct Deposit and receive Net Direct Deposits of $800 or more to your Mango Card account during the calendar month. "Net Direct Deposits" are the total amount of ACH direct deposits to your card account for the month less the total amount of ACH debits made from your card account during the month. ACH debits include bill pay transactions and any other transactions debited from your account via ACH."

    First change I notice is the $800 per month instead of $500 it's been in the past, and the second change is that it's NET deposits, meaning anything you ACH out counts against the $800. Seems like a big change, no?

  • "There’s also a requirement that there remain a $1 balance in the account.............." never had such account!
    1. As I understood two accounts will be opened (saving and checking) ?? and all transactions will be only on the checking account?
    2. And I can deposit $500 and after 1 hour pull $497 out? Or at least wait for a day?
    3. So I can you just PayPal or my bank ACH to deposit then easily withdraw with no fees?

    thanks

    • 1) Yup, prepaid/checking and savings

      2) Once the balance clears you can pull it out

      3) Yup, lots of banks will do that without a fee

  • Anyone else not seeing the "add money" button on their terrible website? I got the card, pushed funds to it from a bank account, opened the savings account, but am confused about how to add/extract now.

  • Can someone confirm if you only need to do one DD to have the 6% interest permanently?
    Thanks

  • ACH WITHDRAWAL SUCCESS DATAPOINT: I've confirmed that the ACH withdrawal limit is $2500 per transaction. Withdrawal of $4000 was reversed, but withdrawals of $500 and $2000 were successful using CapitalOne360 account to ACH pull.

  • I am glad some of you are still going on this card. I am dumping this card ASAP as my experience has been terrible since I switched to the visa version. I got switched Aug 11ish and was able to push 500 dollars from NFCU to the mango visa. It showed up in transaction as "ach load/direct deposit" but on Sept 1 I only got 2%. I did leave 4 dollars in the prepaid side.

    So I decided I want to get all my money out. I tried debit paying citi by phone for 2.2k but a hold got placed on my card. I called and csr said they lifted it but the hold is still there (called 3 times over a week and a half they said it was cleared but it is not) so my money is 100% inaccessible right now. Sunrise bank sucks I am never using this product again.

  • I had a successful data point after two failed attempts in August.

    My transfer to my Ally account just posted today. My account was converted from the MasterCard, and hopefully this doesn't get reversed like some people are reporting.

  • A little more detail. On day 0 I scheduled the transfer. On day 1 the transfer posted on CapitalOne360. One day 2 Mango shows "ACH Unload - DECLINED". On day 3 the reverse transfer posted on CapitalOne360.

    Does anyone know if there are daily/monthly withdrawal limits for the Mango. I think I've clearly exceeded them...

    • Ooh, maybe you are onto s/th. There is a 2.5k limit on debit transactions. M/b they maintain that limit for ACH also.

      Meaning that the issue here has nothing to do with ACH not working.

      • Definitely think it might have been the amount. I've been able to complete 2 ACH withdrawals so far - $500 to take back the amount I pushed last month to qualify for the 6% APY and $25+, which was last month's interest.

        It does seem that ACH debits (as they called them) are sanctioned by Sunrise Bank as the terms say:
        The bank routing number and your assigned Account Number are for the purpose of initiating direct deposits to your Card Account and "authorized ACH debit transactions only."

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