[OH] Pathways Financial Credit Union: 10% APY (Round Up Account)

Update 2/15/24: $300 bonus no longer offered.

Update 4/17/23: APY has been increased to 10% APY (from 5%) and maximum balance now $5,000 (from $2,500). Hat tip to amtrakrailfan

Offer at a glance

  • Interest Rate: 5%
  • Minimum Balance: None
  • Maximum Balance: $5,000
  • Availability: You are eligible for membership if you live, work, worship or attend school in Delaware, Franklin, Madison, Licking, Fairfield, Pickaway or Union County, Ohio
  • Direct deposit required: No
  • Additional requirements: See below
  • Hard/soft pull: Mixed datapoints
  • ChexSystems: Unknown
  • Credit card funding: None
  • Monthly fees: None
  • Insured: NCUA

The Offer

Direct link to offer

  • Open a new checking account with Pathways Financial Credit Union and they will give you a swipe2save savings account. The way this works is that for every debit card purchase you make they will round it up to the nearest dollar and that amount is depoited into your swipe2save savings account. For example make a purchase of $4.56 and they will round it up to $5 and transfer the extra $0.44 to your swipe2save savings account.
  • For the first six months they will match your savings, up to $50 per month. E.g in the above example they will deposit another $0.44.
  • Swipe2save savings account earns a 5% APY on all bances up to $2,500

The Fine Print

  • Existing checking accounts not eligible for Pathways matching funds, a Swipe2Save Savings Account will be added earning 5.00% APY. APY = Annual Percentage Yield.
  • Swipe2Save Secondary Savings Account balances $2,500 and under will earn 5.00% APY compounded and credited quarterly; balances exceeding $2,500 will earn regular Secondary Savings APY.
  • Consult the Credit Union’s Account Disclosure Rate Supplement for current APY.
  • Six month Credit Union match valid for new checking accounts only.
  • Maximum match amount $50 per month for the first six months; match ends six months after checking account opening.
  • Round-up deposits will not be made in the instance of a negative checking account balance.
  • The only deposits permitted into Swipe2Save Secondary Savings Account are round-up deposits from debit card transactions and applicable credit union match funds.
  • PFCU share and checking accounts federally insured for up to $250,000 by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). Savings rates subject to change without notice.
  • We reserve the right to end or extend this offer at any time.
  • All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

Neither account has any monthly fees to worry about.

Our Verdict

It’s a shame that this is a hard pull because according to the comments they aren’t very strict on the debit card transactions you make, so it should be easy  to just make a lot of small debit card transactions each month this might be worth it just for the $300 bonus. The 5% APY is less interesting after the matching bonus disappears, but there is nothing stopping you just letting that $600 build up over time. As always if anybody has any experiences please share them. This is an interesting cross between a savings bonus and high interest savings account. I won’t be adding it to either best of list due to the hard pull unfortunately.

Hat tip to reader Adam K

 
    William Charles
  • On April 17, 2023, 07:00

View Comments (20)

  • @2
    $300 (match) bonus is gone. Current offer is for a $50 (mastercard) gift card for 10 debit transactions. They pull Chex.

  • Can confirm as of 2023 that there is no longer a hard pull involved here.

    Also can confirm that all transactions are rounded up to the nearest dollar. There is no need to do $0.01 transactions or $0.50 AZ reloads. Even $1 transactions are rounded to $2.

    This seems like a no brainer if eligible. The 10% owner rewards account has to be opened on their end, so be sure to message them to ask for that after opening the checking account.

    I am still waiting on the Crew debit card after about 5 weeks. Hopefully that arrives

  • For Clarity - the ONLY $300 You can get is via the Monthly 'Swipe2Savings' Match - via $50 x 6 months for $300 total. But that's subject to you having 51 + Debit Card Transactions, with them MATCHING just the Round Up. So You'd have to expertly and tediously charge $1.01 (etc) 50 times a month, 300 total times- for the $300.
    Might be worth the hassle for $300 + 10% interest I suppose.... $250 in Interest approx (10% x 6 months of $5k balance presumed)

  • Are we allowed to solicit referrals in the comments? (Btw 3 people share this email for public posting - A,M, and T are letters of first names.)

  • So if you do 51 cent transactions, you'd have to do about 98 or 99 per month for six months to max this out, right? That's a lot of swipin...

      • @guest_1599671

        Curious how the owner rewards account works. I opened successfully with no hard pull and have done a few transactions, but the match has not credited yet, nor has the owner rewards account been opened. Any thoughts?

  • @will the APY has been increased to 10% with a max balance of $5000. Anyone from OH or KY can get it.

  • They do allow credit/debit card funding up to $300, not sure about cash advance fees (funded with a debit card from another CU).

  • Any OH or KY resident who joins the American Consumer Council can join the CU. I applied with TU frozen, and they approved me the next day. No HP on TU for me, according to CK. You can get a $50 gift card if you ask for the "Love my Crew" checking account after making 10 debit purchases. They allow funding by debit card, unsure about credit card funding. The round up is done at the end of every business day. However, if a debit card transaction is run as "credit", then the transaction may take 2-3 days to post (finalize), and thus the round up will not post until it is finalized. If you put in your pin, the transaction will post immediately. I also found out that exceeding 8 transactions per day may result in your card getting declined until you call them. Lastly, if you can get a referral link from a current member, they will give you an additional $50 on a mastercard gift card after you make 10 transactions.
    ATM access:
    The card is supposedly part of the Alliance One and Moneypass networks, so any ATM withdraw inside those networks is surcharge free. However, they may charge you a $2 fee if you do more than 4 withdraws at a non-Pathways ATM.

    American Consumer Council:
    https://www.pathwayscu.com/acc/

  • This is an old post, but to update for future bonuses they might give... they pulled my Chex when I applied a few months back.

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