[Update] What’s The Best Simple High-Yield Savings Account?

CFG Bank is my current recommendation for the best simple high-yield savings account. (Disclaimer: I don’t have an account with them and we don’t have any financial relationship with the bank.)

I spend a good bit of time trying to keep our Best Savings Rates page up to date, something especially time consuming when the feds keep changing interest rates. People often ask for a simple suggestion as to which account to get, without any hoops to jump through.

My recommendation had always been Ally, Discover, or Marcus. While these banks typically don’t offer the absolute top rate, they continuously keep their rates updated to respectable levels. There are a number of other banks like American Express and Alliant and probably a bunch others in the same boat. Compare that to some other banks who might do a single large rate hike to bring themselves to the top, then, they’ll keep the rate static as the market increases above them.

Doing a deep dive in the comment history of the Best Savings Rates post, it appears that – since arriving on the scene two years ago – CFG Bank has been keeping themselves at or near the top of all rates offered. And the difference between them and the pack can even be somewhat significant, especially as rates increase leaving more room for disparity.

And so I’d now consider CFG to be the top high-yield account to get.

Note: these banks aren’t anywhere near the size of Ally, Marcus, or Discover. Personally I’m comfortable with any bank which is FDIC insured. If you prefer a large brand, Marcus probably makes sense over Ally since they always one-up Ally’s rate by .1%. On the other hand, some people like Ally’s monster hub account capabilities.

Another thing worth noting is that readers complain about their ACH transfer capabilities. In the case of CFG people complain about the limits. To address this issue you can simply link the account from an external account and push the funds into your account. Thus, you’ll be working with the limits and timables of whichever external bank you use, not those of CFG. You can also try calling CFG to increase your limits.

In the end, if you have a lot of cash it’s probably worth going the CFG route whereas if your cash savings are modest and moves in-and-out often, it might be easier to use Ally or Marcus as your hub account. 

Feel free to chime in below if you agree with these assessments. I’m open to changing my recommendation…

Additional Note: Multiple readers confirm there is no hard pull. A reader says they didn’t get a Chex pull.

• READ: Reader Submission: Top High Yield Savings Accounts