Live Oak Bank $300 Savings Bonus

Offer at a glance

  • Maximum bonus amount: $300
  • Availability: Nationwide
  • Direct deposit required: None
  • Additional requirements: See below
  • Hard/soft pull: Soft pull
  • ChexSystems: No
  • Credit card funding: No
  • Monthly fees: None
  • Early account termination fee: None
  • Household limit: No
  • Expiration date: 1/13/25

The Offer

Direct link to offer

  • Live Oak Bank is offering a $300 bonus when you open a new savings account and complete the following requirements:
    • Open a Live Oak Bank personal savings account by 1/13/25
    • Deposit at least $20,000 into your account by 1/13/25.
    • Maintain a balance of at least $20,000 for 60 days.

The Fine Print

  • New and Existing Customers:
    • Only one bonus is available per Tax Identification Number per promotional period.
    • Only personal savings accounts are eligible for the bonus offer. Checking accounts, CD accounts and fiduciary accounts (e.g., trusts) are not eligible for this offer.
    • Opening of a new account will be subject to approval by Live Oak Banking Company in its sole discretion.
    • A new Live Oak Bank personal savings account must be fully funded with at least $20,000 by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on 01/13/2025 to be eligible for the bonus. If the account is not fully funded by January 13th, then the account is not eligible for the bonus offer.
    • All funding of the new personal savings account must consist of funds originating from an external financial institution to qualify; deposits or transfers originating from an existing Live Oak Bank account (whether personal or business) via internal transfer, CD redemption, check, ACH transfer, wire, or loan proceeds do not qualify for bonus offer.
    • Beginning on the date in November or December 2024 or January 2025 that the new account attains a balance of at least $20,000, if the balance remains equal to or exceeding $20,000 for 60 consecutive days, then the account will be eligible for the bonus if all other conditions are met. If all eligibility criteria are met, the $300 cash bonus will be deposited to your open, eligible account within 45 days following the expiration of the 60-day period.
    • Your new account must not be closed or restricted at the time of payout in order to receive the bonus. Live Oak Bank reserves the right to withdraw or withhold the bonus offer from any customer, with or without notice, if fraud or other suspicious activity is suspected.
    • Any promotional amounts received may be subject to taxation.

     

  • Existing Customers:
    • In addition to the other requirements for the bonus offer, existing Live Oak Bank customers must maintain their existing account balances (not including interest accrued but not credited to the account) at or above the end of day balance as of November 11, 2024 11:59:59pm (ET) across their existing personal savings in order to be eligible for the bonus offer.
  • All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

Monthly Fees

This account has no monthly fees.

Early Account Termination Fee

There is no EATF.

Our Verdict

This account also earns 4.3% APY, this is competitive with the top rates currently. This is better than the recent $200 savings bonus as the bonus is bigger and the hold period is shorter. This works out to be an extra 9.125% annualized. Worth doing if you need to tie up some funds.

Hat tip to reader seven

Useful posts regarding bank bonuses:
    William Charles
  • On November 15, 2024, 12:00
Tags: nationwide bank bonusesno credit card fundingsoft pull

View Comments (192)

  • Has anyone tried linking to Fidelity from the Fidelity side? I tried using the routing and account numbers manually, and it said it couldn't verify information. I tried again using Fincity, and it says Live Oak is not a supported bank.

  • Is it best to push the $20,000 into the account after opening? I don't really want to send a statement. Fidelity CMA is what I would use. Already opened with $20 deposit.

    • You can of course push money into the account. However, by initiating the pull at Live Oak, I earned interest at both LO and external bank for the weekend:

      Fri - Live Oak pulled $20K from external bank
      Mon - $20K withdrawn from external bank
      Wed - $20K available at LO (money was on hold at LO for a few days but earned interest starting on the Friday) @guest_1970807

  • These guys are picky. First email request was for linked account bank statement. Sent a pic of paper statement. Recvd second email asking me to call. Issue was the statement had my mailing address. So they wanted me to change the address on linked acct (and wait for next statement?) or get an account verification letter from linked bank. Instead I cancelled application and applied again with a different linked account that had my same residential address so they matched. Again received email request for copy of statement of linked bank acct. Sent a screen shot of linked acct statement. Got second email asking me to call. Said screen shot not OK, must upload a PDF.
    So a pic of paper statement would’ve been ok if addresses matched but screen shots are a no no

    • @guest_1965156 Yep, Live Oak is quite picky. I opened my account with them two weeks ago for this $300 deal without problems. So yesterday I applied for an account for my wife. Went through linking to our Ally Savings account without problems, but this morning received an email asking for an Ally bank statement. There are several sub-accounts in the Ally account (two CDs, a checking acct, two Savings accounts). The full Combine Statement is 8 pages long, so I only printed out page 5 that has info about the Savings account that was linked to Live Oak and uploaded it. Got another email to call them. We called and were told that we needed to upload all the pages of the Combine Statement. So we did that while on the call, the agent reviewed it and said it looked good and she would send it up to someone higher to approve the account.

  • As far as I understand, the 60-day period starts from the time the deposit hits, right? So if the deposit hits on 12/5, the counter would start from that point - not from the 1/13 date (which seems to just be the cutoff for the promo)?

    • Correct. Start the count from the deposit posting date shown in online banking. @guest_1962828

  • I have an old login and it will redirect me to an generic account opening page without mentioning the bonus at all, I called and the CSR told me there is no special promotion link or page, just open and fund the new account within the timeframe and you will get the bonus.

  • I had a previous log-in from the biz account deal and an already linked external but didn't see any mention of the $300 bonus when I opened the account. Do they send a verification of enrollment at all?

    • I've done two previous promotions with them just like this. No confirmation email was sent but I had no issues receiving the bonus. There are other banks that operate their promos in a similar manner like PNC and PenFed. Ie, no promo code needed, all new accounts created within the timeframe are automatically enrolled in the promotion.

      Just screenshot the terms as always in case something does go awry, however, I'm not expecting this to be the case given my previous positive experiences with them.

      • @guest_1959530 @guest_1954927 I looked back at my biz bonus timeline and realize I didn't get any verification there either and it paid out fine so I'm just going to fund it and let it sit the 60 days. At 4.3%, it's not high risk IMO.

        • Yeah, I might still try it. I just didn't feel good about being redirected to a generic account opening page with no mention of the bonus. And given the interest rate, it's only $10 opportunity lost if it doesn't work.

      • should we concerned or you think the bonus is applied and you're not worried at all? im also an existing customer and was planning to apply today to do this $300

        • I'm an existing customer, doing both the earlier $200 offer and this $300 offer. Since this bonus offer doesn't have a promo code and is on their normal savings account page I treat it literally like the offer says: just do the requirements within the calendar dates and time intervals and I'll get the bonus. The offer is archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20241113080414/https://www.liveoakbank.com/personal-savings/ plus I'll have my monthly statements as proof I opened a new account, funded and held balance per offer terms..

        • I'm not worried about it.

          Guess one could call and ask them if the bonus is "attached" to be sure (no way to message them that I could find to get it in writing) but I believe this is just one of those banks that pays out their bonus without any kind of promo code to worry about.

          Keeping screen shots just in case would seem a prudent thing to do if worried.

  • Do I have the option to manually link external account instead of using MX during application? can I link external account alter after the LOB account has opened?

  • Do I must link an external account during the account opening process? Can I link an external account after the LOB account has been opened?
    Do I have the option to manually link (trial deposits) external account during the account opening process?

  • Does anyone know how to ask MX to remove data on you?
    I ended up linking my Marcus through them an now thinking that wasnt a good idea.

    I know WellsFargo, BoA and other banks have a page where you can all the connected 3rd parties and remove their access, wondering if Marcus has one too?

    • I have the same question.

      I used MX for the first bonus but I just linked a disposable account and opened with small deposit.

      This time I wanted to start the 60-day clock by the weekend so I linked a keeper account and pulled $20k. I knew it was a bad idea. Now MX has my bank details ready for the next data breach and my app went pending anyway.

      The "team is working diligently to review it" which probably means Monday or Tuesday.

      • Now these bozos want a current statement from the FI I pulled from.

        I pulled to Live Oak from exactly the same account I had pushed $20k from just over 30 days ago. Maybe they think the account has a different owner with the same name and account # now.

        I think they're confused but whatever. Sent them a redacted statement.

        • BTW, I am kind of surprised that you went to the trouble of sending them a redacted statement. You seem like a risk taker by nature. I am much more risk averse than you and yet I didn't bother redacting anything from my statement even though I used 1 of my main accounts that has many transactions every month.

          • The redacted statement worked; they opened and pulled the $20k immediately on receipt.

            Redacting was no bother because I already had Lightroom open on my desktop when I got the email. Multitasking.

            My takeaway is it's better just to pull a few $ from a disposable account on application, then push in the $20k. I've done it both ways now and it took the same number of biz days to start the clock.

            OTOH if I'm lucky I may collect interest on the same $20k from 2 banks today. So it's possible I'll come out ~$1.75 ahead.

          • Quick opposite DP just for reference - They wouldn't accept my redacted statement, but were quick to open the account after I sent the unredacted version that they asked for instead

          • They may have accepted my redacted statement because I'd pushed in $20k from the same bank to my other LOB account a month ago.

            I'm guessing only asked me for the statement because they hadn't noticed that.

          • That's interesting. So it turns out that @guest_1952351 actually did take a risk by redacting the statement. His risks seem to almost always pay off!

          • Ha! Just watch what happens when I post something funny on DoC.

            Speaking of which, my inbox runneth over with tags from that "children and candy bars" thread.

            Busy now but I'll check those out tonight. I bet they all want literal answers too lol.

        • Gotta love gallows humor :) A silver lining behind every data breach!

          Anyway, there are probably already 47 copies of all my data for sale at <$5 on the dark web.

          • I had never heard of "gallows humor" before I saw your comment. I looked it up and see that it is another name for "black humor". I'll have you know that I take great offense to being told that I use "black humor"!

          • I think you're being facetious. But just in case, here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

            A 2017 study published in the journal Cognitive Processing concludes that people who appreciate dark humor "may have higher IQs, show lower aggression, and resist negative feelings more effectively than people who turn up their noses at it."

          • I was not being facetious but I was heavily exaggerating when I wrote that "I take great offense".

            BTW, I now feel that you insulted me rather than complimented me because I don't appreciate dark humor. 😉

          • Right, but you also know I intended the opposite. To mangle an aphorism, offense is usually in the eye of the beholder.

          • I did know that you were trying to compliment me (and yourself). That was why I added the 😉 at the end of my reply.

            Unfortunately, my emojis don't have the desired effect with certain people.

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