Best Credit Union Rates

Insight Financial Credit Union is offering a special 2.25% APY 15-month CD. Minimum deposit is $1,000, and new money is required. Early withdrawal penalty is 60 days of interest. After the 15-month term, the money will be deposited into your Insight Financial savings account rather than automatically renewed.

The special is listed at the credit union’s specials page as of 8/25/09. This special is scheduled to last through 9/30/09 but it is subject to change at any time.

The credit union also has a checking account promotion with a free emergency flashlight clock/radio when you open any of their checking accounts. In addition to free checking, they also have a reward checking called Incentive Checking. As of 8/25/09, Incentive Checking pays 3% APY on balances up to $25K if the typical reward checking requirements are met.

Membership is open to anyone who lives or works in the following Central Florida counties: Lake, Orange, Seminole, Volusia, Brevard, Marion, and Sumter. Membership requires a minimum balance of $5 in the share savings account. There’s an online application provided by Andera that allows you to join and open the checking account with funding via an electronic ACH transfer.

Branches are located throughout Central Florida including the cities of Orlando, Apopka, Lake Mary and Leesburg.

Eastman Credit Union continues to offer competitive certificate rates. The three most competitive ones include a 2.50% APY 12-month CD, a 2.75% APY 2-year CD and a 3.10% APY 3-year CD. Minimum deposit is $1,000. An extra 10 basis points are applied to Jumbo CDs with a $100,000 minimum deposit. These rates are current as of 8/24/2009.

Membership is open to those who live, work or attend school in several counties in the northeast part of Tennessee. Counties in southwest Virginia and in Harrison and Gregg Counties in Texas are also included. There’s also a long list of Select Employer Groups.

Branches are located in Tennessee, Virginia, Texas, South Carolina and Arkansas.

The credit union is federally insured by the NCUA. It’s a large credit union with $2.1 billion in assets and 109,770 members based on 3/19/09 NCUA data. It has grown quite a bit since 2007 when it had $1.6 billion in assets and only around 81,000 members.

Linn Area Credit Union is offering a special 15-month CD with a 2.90% APY. Minimum deposit is $1,000. This special CD is available as of 5/15/2009.

The credit union continues to offer a high-yield reward checking account. As of 5/15/09, the rate is 5% APY for balances up to $25K.

Membership is open to anyone who lives or works in Linn, Buchanan, Delaware, Jones, Cedar, Johnson, Iowa and Benton Counties. Membership requires a minimum deposit of $5 in the share savings account.

Branches are located in Cedar Rapids and Marion, Iowa. The credit union is NCUA insured.

First Heritage Federal Credit Union is listing a 2.78% APY for its share and IRA share certificates with terms of 6 to 24 months. Minimum deposit is $1,000. These rates are current as of 4/28/2009.

Membership is open to everyone who lives, works, worships, attends school or maintains a business in Chemung and Steuben Counties, New York, and Tioga County, Pennsylvania. Membership also requires a minimum balance of $5 in the share savings account.

The credit union is federally insured by the NCUA.

Amplify Credit Union is offering a special 4.00% APY 5-month share certificate. The minimum deposit is $500.

One nice feature with all of Amplify’s certificates is that you can make additional deposits of at least $500 to the certificate at any time during the term. The new deposits will earn the same rate as the original CD.

You can apply for membership and open accounts online. Funding can be done with an ACH transfer from another bank or credit union. However, they limit your initial funding to $5,025. After you join, you’re able to log in and can initiate ACH transfers into your share savings or checking without the $5K limit. Then you can open a new CD or add to a current CD using their online interface.

Membership is open to anyone who lives, works or attends school in Travis, Williamson, Hays, Caldwell or Bastrop county, Texas. Membership requires a minimum deposit of $25 into your share savings account.

Branches are located in Austin, Round Rock and Cedar Park. The credit union is federally insured by the NCUA.

Most of the focus of the mortgage crisis has been on banks, but according to this WSJ article, credit unions are also experiencing some major mortgage-related losses. However, the credit unions mentioned in the article are not the ones we deal with. They’re corporate credit unions which serve regular credit unions by providing investment services.

The article described five corporate credit unions which reported $5.7 billion in “unrealized” losses as of the end of May. It also describes how there is an effort to reclassify the losses and downplay their importance.

Individual credit union members appear to be mostly insulated from these problems. Regular credit unions that have deposited money with the corporate credit unions could see losses if the corporates fail. According to the article the last time a corporate credit union failed was in 1995, and the regular credit unions were eventually able recover their money.

The article mentions that 9 regular credit unions have failed this year. However, many of these failures have been tiny credit unions. The last one that failed was Port Trust FCU which had assets of only $461,000 (see NCUA press release).

The major regular credit unions seem to be healthy based on their recent financial ratings. Here are a few of the largest credit unions in the US (source) and their ratings based on 3/31/08 data:

• Navy FCU – 5 stars at BauerFinancial, 3 stars at Bankrate.com
• Pentagon FCU – 5 stars at BauerFinancial, 4 stars at Bankrate.com
• Alliant CU – 5 stars at BauerFinancial, 3 stars at Bankrate.com
• The Golden 1 CU – 5 stars at BauerFinancial, 4 stars at Bankrate.com

The vast majority of credit unions are federally insured by the NCUA, and this insurance is very similar to what the FDIC provides for bank deposits. I have more info and references on NCUA insurance in this post. Whether your deposits are held at banks or credit unions, it makes sense to stay under the federal insurance limits.

Northrop Grumman Federal Credit Union is offering 4.40% apy on a 60 month bonus term share certificate. The minimum deposit requirement for this certificate is $40,000. This yield is good for both regular and IRA bonus term share certificates.

Field of membership in Northrop Grumman Federal Credit Union is offered to Northrop Grumman employees, retirees, and their family among others. For those who don’t otherwise qualify for membership in this credit union, prospective members can become eligible through membership in the Southern California Historical Aviation Foundation (SCHAF). Membership in SCHAF is $25.

Peoples State Bank is offering some attractive CD specials. These include a 4.50% APY CD with terms of 36 to 40 months, a 4.05% APY CD with terms of 25 to 30 months, and a 3.50% APY for terms of 13 to 15 months. The minimum deposit amount is $5,000 with a maximum of $250,000.

It appears a branch visit is required to open the CD. Branches are located in several Michigan cities including Farmington Hills, Fenton, Madison Heights, Sterling Heights, Troy and Warren.

Garden Savings FCU has recently raised the yield on its 60-month CD term to 5.00% APY. The minimum deposit is $500. This rate is also available as an IRA CD.

Membership is open to those who live, work, worship, or attend school in Newark, Elizabeth, or Jersey City. In addition, you can be eligible to join via Select Employer Groups and via family. Membership requires a minimum deposit of $5 into the share savings account.

Branches are located in Parsippany, Newark, Whippany, Montville and Morristown, NJ.

A+ Federal Credit Union is offering a 5.00% APY 12-month StartUP Share Certificate. The minimum deposit is $10, and the maximum is $1,000 per member. Money can be added at any time as long as the balance remains under $1,000. Monthly interest is paid to member’s savings account. The rate can be increased up to 5.50% by redeeming 5,000 PlusPoints.

The $1,000 maximum deposit definitely limits this attractiveness of this deal. However, the CD can be opened for each member of your family, and it doesn’t have checking account requirements. So it’s a decent deal for those with small balances. For one CD you’ll make about $20 over what you would make in a 3% CD.

Membership is open to employees of many schools and businesses in Central Texas. Also, members of the A+ Education Foundation are eligible to join the credit union. Membership requires a $5 fee and a minimum balance of $10 in the Membership Savings Account.

Branches are located in several Central Texas cities including Austin, Round Rock, Georgetown and San Marcos.