SoFi Money offers a hybrid checking/savings product with an interest rate of 2.25% and waived ATM fees. They used to require debit spend and direct deposit to be eligible for the rate, but reader A. sent over an email they sent out indicating that the requirements have been removed:
Great news: Now everyone who has a SoFi Money™ account gets 2.25% APY, no account fees, unlimited ATM reimbursement worldwide, and of course, an easy-to-use mobile app and debit card.¹ We’ve removed the spend and direct deposit requirements to qualify for SoFi Money’s best benefits.
In the post What’s the Best High-Yield APY Checking Account Option? we mentioned SoFi as a solid checking option for someone who can easily meet the requirements. Now, SoFi joins Memory Bank as the only two checking accounts with no requirements and a nice interest rate. SoFi’s 2.25% is significantly better than Memory Bank’s 1.6%.
2.25% is also a competitive savings rate, though there are options with slightly higher interest at up to 2.53% currently.
Oddly, the SoFi Money page still shows “up to 2.25%”, but I guess that just hasn’t been updated properly.
I opened a Memory Bank account last week and just opened a Sofi Money account to compare the two and I have to say the Sofi user experience is light years beyond Memory Bank. It took about a minute to open the Sofi account whereas it took several days and multiple logins (application vs account) with Memory Bank and that’s only if you are “approved”. Memory Bank has low transfer limits for the first 30 days which means it takes awhile to move money if you are planning on switching banks. They also appear to use some third-party website for external transfers which seems a little sketchy not to mention the transfers themselves take much longer than at my local bank. I can’t comment much about Sofi transactions since I just opened the account but from what I’ve seen so far it is far superior to Memory Bank in most respects.
Does this account allow 3rd party ACH withdrawals? I like to schedule all my credit card bills to come out on the due date from the credit card’s website will this SOFI account allow this? This specific question was not covered in their FAQ’s.
You can push payments out, I did that. To test pulls, I would try to link Paypal or a bank that uses test deposits and pull them back.
I recently opened an account and did not experience the freezing issues some have commented on, although it took almost a week to have my initial ACH transfer post to the account. The biggest drawback I have found so far is that there is no way to do a recurring external transfer, but their CSR said they are hoping to add that feature in the future. Otherwise so far so good with SoFi.
It took a month to open and finally get my account approved for use. The longest in my life to use an account. Linked 3 external accounts, added a deposit from my job, set up automatic cc payments – one that is due *tomorrow* and then BAM! I receive an “account restricted” email stating they’ll get back to me in 7-10 days. Customer service refuses to tell me why the account was restricted and no guarantee someone will call me back any time soon.
I’m not sure if I would recommend doing business with these guys at this time.
Before speaking with customer service, I requested to take a survey after the call. I never received a call back to take the survey.
I’m here stuck with them holding my money hostage / restricted as well with no real update in resolution and well past their 7-10 business day notice. Very disappointed.
I forgot to cancel an ACH pull from another institution and the other account was frozen as well. I just explained the situation to them and hopefully it will be unfrozen within two business days. What a mess.
They closed my wife’s account for no reason. She has a direct deposit from the employer.Even though she didn’t request to close it, she got this email. This email is to confirm your request to close your SoFi Money account. Once your transactions have posted, checks have cleared, or any transfers have been completed, the account closure will be finalized and your remaining balance will be sent to your account ending
She initially got this email saying account temporarily restricted.
We take the safety and security of our Members’ accounts very seriously. For your own protection, your SoFi Money account ending in 0670 has been temporarily restricted.
While we review your account and determine next steps, you will not be able to perform:
Deposits or withdrawals from your account
Electronic or check transfers to or from your account including Bill Pay
Debit card purchases
P2P transactions
Withdrawal Limits
Peer to Peer
Cumulative Amount Per Day $250
Cumulative Amount Per Month $3,000
Amount Per Transaction $250 $10,000
This seems like it doesn’t make it easy to move money. This along with the restriction of 3 external accounts only seems to make it pretty flawed. I think I’ll stick to fidelity and Provident for my checking account needs.
That’s peer to peer. If you wanted to send more to someone you could link the debit card in Square Cash? I wonder if that’s POS ($3K limit). The POS trnx/day of 12 could possibly be too low for some. Otherwise I’ve transferred $5K+ back and forth via ACH no problem.
Sofi is not yet in Plaid’s system which many apps/sites are using now for verification. I also tried to link the account# & routing# to PayPal but it didn’t work. So much easier just to use a real bank account.
That’s not a disadvantage. Plaid is insecure by design (They provide no way at all to tell if your banking details are actually being handled by Plaid, or stolen by criminals who use a Plaid-lookalike form, because they don’t put the form for entry of credentials on the Plaid domain itself.)
Just opened account. The biggest drawback is you can’t link more than 3 accounts, DAMMIT!
If I had been able to link at least 10 accounts, I would use it for everything. Currently i’m looking for a checking account that allows me to attach 20+ bank accounts, electronic bill pay, and high interest. I can get two of these things, but not three.
Anyone know of a bank that offers high interest checking with electronic bill pay and the ability to connect lot’s of accounts? I’m trying to sign up for an ally account but they gave me a 3-5 business days notification so I have to wait for the letter to come in the mail.
If SoFi has a limit of 3 accounts, you can always add SoFi account from your other bank websites and transfer money in/out
MemoryBank offers this
Does anyone know what type of credit pull SoFi initiates, if any, when opening either a SoFi Money or Active Invest account? Thanks!
only soft pull so doesn’t affect credit (for Money that is)
They may want to know because they have a buearu frozen.
I know if I apply for a capital one card i’ll freeze experian.
I tried to do a wire to the SoFi account but it was rejected by the back end bank…
Yeah, I’m not surprised it didn’t go through, with these types of accounts (“not a checking account that you use like a checking account”) wire transfers usually are going to be different routing and account number than ACH.
I can’t find on SoFi’s site how wire transfer in, so they might not support it yet.
(I found this out when my work screw up my paycheck and tried to wire it to me in my Fidelity cash management account the next day and it failed. For Fidelity ACH transfers go through UMB Bank and wire transfers go through Chase, totally different banks)