TAB Bank 2% APY On Balances Up To $25,000 – Direct Deposit Not Required (Rate Reduced)

No longer accepting new applications

Update 7/1/20: Rate has been reduced from 3% APY to 2%. For the best current high yield accounts click here.

Update 4/28/20: Limit seems to have been reduced from $50,000 to $25,000.

Update 3/29/20: E-mails have been sent out stating the rate will be reduced from 4% APY to 3% APY

Offer at a glance

• Interest Rate: 2% APY
• Minimum Balance: None
• Maximum Balance: $50,000
• Availability: Nationwide
• Direct deposit required: No, ACH payment or bill pay also works
• Additional requirements: 15 debit card transactions of $5+
• Hard/soft pull: Soft pull
• ChexSystems: Unknown
• Credit card funding: None
• Monthly fees: None
• Insured: FDIC

The Offer

Direct link to offer

• TAB Bank is offering 4% 3% 2% APY on balances up to $50,000 $25,000 when the following requirements are met:
  • At least 1 direct deposit, ACH payment, or bill pay transaction(s)
  • At least 15 debit card purchases of at least $5 each

The Fine Print

• To earn your rewards, the following enrollments must be in place and all transactions and activities must post and settle to your Kasasa Cash account during each Monthly Qualification Cycle: (1) At least 1 direct deposit, ACH payment (use of routing number and account number to complete a transaction), or bill pay (using TAB Bank’s mobile app or online banking portal) transaction. (2) At least a combined total of 15 pin-based / signature-based debit card purchases.
• Account transactions and activities may take one or more days to post and settle to the account and all must do so during the Monthly Qualification Cycle in order to qualify for the account’s rewards.
• The following activities do not count toward earning account rewards: ATM-processed transactions, transfers between accounts, debit card purchases less than $5.00, debit card purchases processed by merchants and received by our bank as ATM transactions, non-retail payment transactions and purchases made with debit cards not issued by our bank.
• Transactions bundled together by merchants and received by our institution as a single transaction count as a single transaction for the purpose of earning account rewards. “Monthly Qualification Cycle” means a period beginning one (1) banking day prior to the first day of the current statement cycle through one (1) banking day prior to the last business day of the current statement cycle.
• Commensurate with the spending activities identified above, we expect the account’s debit card to be used frequently throughout each month and for transaction amounts to reflect a wide dollar range. Small debit card transactions conducted on the same day at a single merchant and/or multiple transactions made during a condensed time period particularly near the end of a Monthly Qualification Cycle are not considered normal, day-to-day spending behavior. These types of transactions appear to be conducted with the sole purpose of qualifying for the account’s rewards and thus will be deemed inappropriate transactions and will not count toward earning the account’s rewards. TAB Bank reserves the right to determine if the account is being maintained for a purpose other than day-to-day, primary use. Accountholders who persist in making debit card transactions in a calculated and limited fashion in order to meet their monthly qualifications may have their accounts converted to a different checking account or closed altogether. We also reserve the right to convert the account to a different checking account if the account does not have consistent active use over 3 consecutive Statement Cycles
• All bank account bonuses are treated as income/interest and as such you have to pay taxes on them

Avoiding Fees

This account has no monthly fees to worry about

Our Verdict

Update: Given the restrictive debit card language, I think Orion is actually still a better option for most people.

This looks to be the new best high yield rewards checking account, Orion offers 4% APY but only on balances up to $30,000. Although this account requires more debit card transactions and those transactions need to be at least $5. Big question will be how long these banks are able to manage such high interest rates. These high rates with high maximum balances also make other things such as dealing with 0% APY $0 fee balance transfer offers, allowing you to park funds in this account.

We do still need to know if opening an account is a hard or soft pull, although I’d argue even if it was a hard pull it would still be worth considering for some people. In addition we need to know if you can fund with a credit card, if you know then let everybody else know in the comments below.