Netspend offers a savings account along with their prepaid product and it offers 5% interest on balances up to $5,000. To be eligible for the savings account, you need to upgrade to a Premier account, which is done by receiving a $500 direct deposit within one calendar month. This direct deposit requirement is a one-time thing, no need to have a monthly direct deposit.
Previously, any ACH transfer worked to get an upgrade to Premier. As of January 22, 2016, only paychecks or government benefits payments will qualify. The change does not apply for those who were already upgraded.
Previously, we did not require specific types of direct deposits to meet the $500 direct deposit requirement to qualify for the NetSpend Premier FeeAdvantage Plan. Now, we will require a total of $500 in direct deposits of paychecks and/or government benefits payments within one (1) calendar month to qualify for the NetSpend Premier FeeAdvantage Plan.
If you previously qualified for the NetSpend Premier FeeAdvantage Plan, you will be allowed to remain on that fee plan, regardless of the type of direct deposits that qualified you for this fee plan.
Here is the link to the PDF with a whole bunch of changes. None of the other changes mentioned there seem to make much of a difference for us.
[Most of us are not on the Fee Advantage Plan, rather on the Pay-As-You-Go, but I think the change affects the upgrade and thus will apply even for those who choose not to go with the Fee Advantage Plan.]
This change will affect all Netspend products, including Western Union, Brinks, and the rest. Note, that the change should not affect the $20 referral bonus requirement of adding $40 to the card; that requirement is just to get the funds onto the card, no need for direct deposit, and ACH transfer would work fine for that.
If getting a real direct deposit is challenging for you, it may be worth opening an account now and doing an ACH transfer to upgrade yourself before the change goes into effect. (Grab a referral from here.) Note that even after the changes you only need a single direct deposit to get an upgrade; if you’re getting a $500 tax refund, for example, that will work.
See an update on this in the post: Netspend Allows Savings Account without Direct-Deposit/Upgrade.
View Comments (110)
$501 cash out from Square Cash App triggered Brinks account upgrade and access to Savings Account.
Datapoint. Funded both Ace Elite and HEB accounts with an ACH push from Ally Bank 2 days ago ($500 each), and I qualified for the savings account.
Is there a list of ACH transfers that still count for the $500 DD requirement? I don't have a 360 account.
Brinks automatically upgraded me to 5% savings after a $500+ ACH from Santander Bank. Same for my wife's account.
ACH push from Alliant CU triggered Direct deposit.
Yes Brinks is BofI bank i have 2 both in my name. Advantage? well brinks works for me.
Also have 3 Metabanks ace,wu, net.
all to get 25K at 5%
i think that is the max (3 Meta and 2 BofI)
Brinks UPDATE. Did get 5% savings on new 2nd brinks card after 500 ach from Cap 360.
Are you sure you are allowed to have more than 1 of the same account? What is the benefit to doing that rather than having 1 of each type?
don't know about the shutdowns but 360 works for me for wu, netspend, brinks
also wife got 5% savings on brinks with cap1 360 ach of 5000 on 1/26/16, no other dd on her new account.
I did not get 5% savings with my 2nd brinks with only a flashpay transfer of 500. will try 500 ach next?
Based on older reports about CO360 shutting down accounts, I have been too chicken to try ACHing from my CO360 account to any of these NetSpend accounts. Good to hear your wife's $5K ACH went through. Would make it a lot easier for me if I could use my CO360 for these accounts, (although they do limit you to 3 external banks at a time).
I think Brinks is BofI (not Metabank). I wonder if CO360 plays nicer with BofI. Or maybe the CO360 shut down is just an urban legend, or somebody who was already on the verge of being shut down anyway?
Why fear 360 shutdown when there is amex personal save at .9% vs 360's .75%. Amex personal save links are good for all netspends, and brinks. there is also discover savings which is supposed to be good.at .95% and possibly a $100 bonus with 15K deposit.
Now i'm just saving not MSing on any of these.
360 works well for me as my core checking account. I like that you can use the CapOne branches now, free ACHs push and pull, free ATMs even international, have a bunch of bill pays set-up, etc.
I move my liquid funds around to catch promo interest rates and bonuses at other banks, but keep enough for bills and cash at 360 and it would be a minor disaster if my account got frozen.
I could not link netspend, ace or wu to paypal. I did just link 2 brinks to paypal.
Hi Chuck,
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I did order from NetSpend, and I did follow the directions that were listed on NetSpend (add just like any other bank) and for some reason it kept giving me a "Sorry, we are not able to process your request. Please try again later." error. Over and over, over the course of multiple days. That's why I called Paypal for assistance. And then they gave me the run-around I describe above. The NetSpend folks said that their policies "just changed recently" (I'm assuming they mean the 1/22/16 changes you outlined in this post) but their own webpages say to add NetSpend/Metabank per the above steps!
I tried to add money to the account using another bank, but my only other account are LMCU and SFGIDirect. LMCU doesn't allow pushing money out, and SFGIDirect allows only one linked bank account (currently my LMCU). So I guess this means that I *do* have to go to some brick and mortar joint to load the cash?
Thanks again.
I can't add any bank account to my Paypal for the past few months. See if you can add a regular checking account. If you can't, then it's just a Paypal glitch, unrelated to Netspend.