Right now, with interest rates where they are, I no longer recommend anyone jump through the hoops of using Netspend to open multiple 5% interest accounts. Instead, I recommend using Raisin, which is a free high-yield savings option that you can set up in minutes. Check out my post on Raisin here. In the interest of completeness, however, I’m still leaving this post up.
Most people don’t believe it, but even in today’s market, you can still earn 5% interest on money sitting in an FDIC-insured savings account. It does require a little bit of legwork to set up, but once you’ve done it, the entire account is completely automated.
For most people, a 5% interest savings account is a perfect place to store your emergency fund – it’s where I store mine. And depending on how much you like to keep in it, you could potentially have your entire emergency fund earning 5% interest per year.
You’re probably pretty skeptical right now, and I admit, I was pretty skeptical too. But now that I’ve had these accounts for over three years, I can confidently say that they work exactly as I hoped they would. I get 5% interest on my emergency fund, I never have to look at the accounts, and I’ve never paid any fees. If you take a little bit of time to set these accounts up now, you can have a great spot to store some or potentially all of your emergency savings.
In addition, with Insight no longer offering their 5% interest accounts to new customers (as of July 1, 2018), Netspend becomes one of the only ways you can have a 5% interest account without a ton of hassle.
For a list of all the ways that you can earn 3-5% interest in high-yield savings accounts, be sure to check out the following post: Where To Get 5% Interest Savings Accounts.
If you need further convincing, just take a look at the difference in interest you stand to gain every year by utilizing these 5% interest savings accounts. Here’s what it looks like if you had just $5,000 saved:
And here’s what it looks like with $10,000 saved:
Instead of losing purchasing power to inflation each year, a 5% interest savings account – like the ones I use – see gains every year. Guaranteed! Potentially forever! All for a little bit of upfront work.
And as a bonus, if you sign up using my referral link, you’ll get a $40 signup bonus once you make your first deposit into your Netspend account of $40 or more. That means you get a 5% interest savings account and a free $40 to start! It’s a no-brainer, in my opinion.
- What Are Netspend Accounts?
- What Are The Limitations?
- Step By Step Directions
- Quick Recap
- In What Order Should You Open These Accounts?
- How To Withdraw Money From Your Netspend Account
- Other Things To Note About Your Netspend Account
- DCU: An Additional 5% Interest Savings Account
- Why Doesn’t Everyone Use A Super High-Yield Savings Account?
- Get Yourself A 5% Interest Savings Account With Netspend
- Comments
What Are Netspend Accounts?
First, a little bit of background on what these accounts are. The 5% interest savings accounts are provided by a company called Netspend. They’ve been around for over a decade and deal in prepaid debit cards. As a product, prepaid debit cards are bad. They typically prey on low-income people who can’t get access to traditional banking.
Luckily for us, we can sort of fight back by signing up for a Netspend account and using it only as a savings account. Each Netspend card comes with access to an FDIC-insured savings account that pays 5% interest annually. The FDIC insured part is important – it means the money in your Netspend savings account is treated exactly the same as money in any other FDIC insured bank. And remember, we’ll never pay any fees to Netspend because we’ll never actually use the prepaid debit card for anything.
It’s easiest to think of a Netspend account as consisting of two parts:
- A prepaid debit card (we don’t want to use this!)
- A 5% interest, FDIC insured savings account (this is what we want!)
To get the money into the savings account, we need to first move the money from our normal bank into the prepaid debit card. From there, it flows into the 5% interest savings account. You can think of the process of getting your money from your bank into your 5% interest account as looking sort of like this:
The thing we need to remember is that the prepaid debit card is a tool. We need to have it in order to get the 5% interest savings account, but we’re not going to use it for anything other than as a temporary stop on the way to the 5% interest savings account.
What Are The Limitations?
As I said, it does take a little bit of work to set these accounts up. In order to maximize our 5% interest, we’ll need to open up multiple accounts. That’s because a Netspend account only pays you 5% interest on the first $1,000 in each account. Anything above $1,000 will only earn 0.5% (which actually isn’t all that bad in today’s market).
The good thing is that each person is allowed to open up a maximum of five Netspend accounts. Put $1,000 into each Netspend account and you’ll have $5,000 earning you 5% guaranteed interest. If you have a spouse or partner, you can have them open up five accounts of their own as well, effectively allowing your household to put away $10,000 earning 5% interest.
Considering the fact that the average American household has less than $1,000 in emergency savings, I’d say most people would do pretty darn well if they could put away $5,000 or $10,000 earning 5% interest.
Step By Step Directions
In order to open up five Netspend accounts, we’re going to need to open up multiple prepaid debit cards. Each prepaid debit card is tied to a specific company, but they all have the same underlying platform with Netspend and each one works exactly the same. Here are the five prepaid debit cards you’ll need to open:
-
- Netspend Prepaid Debit Card
- Ace Elite Prepaid Debit Card
- Western Union Prepaid Debit
- H-E-B Prepaid Debit Card
- Brinks Prepaid Debit Card or Netspend MLB Prepaid Debit Card (some people have found that they can’t activate the savings accounts with Brinks, so in that case, use MLB if that happens)
Below, I’ve listed step-by-step directions on how to set up your 5% interest savings accounts with Netspend. It might look like a lot of steps, but it really isn’t as complicated as it looks. The process of opening up all of the accounts will take some time, but the actual work of setting up the accounts only takes a few minutes. Most of your time will be spent reading this post or waiting for the cards to arrive in the mail.
The most important thing is don’t rush it! Follow these steps carefully, enjoy the process, and avoid the urge to skip ahead or do multiple steps at once. This is a money hack, and if you skip ahead or try to do multiple steps at once, you could end up causing more headaches for yourself, making the process harder and taking more time than it needs to.
Again, take it step-by-step, exactly as I’ve laid it out below, and you can’t go wrong.
1. Set Up An Online Checking Or Savings Account With A Normal, Online Bank.
You’ll first need to have an online checking or savings account that lets you transfer money to the prepaid debit card. I use Ally Bank. It’s a completely free online bank that offers a 1% interest savings account. The really good thing about Ally is that it lets you link as many external bank accounts as you want, which makes it a very valuable hub bank account to have. Some banks, such as Capital One 360, limit you to linking 3 external bank accounts. Since we need to be able to link at least 5 external bank accounts, Ally is my preferred choice.
*Note: my experience with Netspend is entirely through linking it and doing transfers through Ally. I can’t guarantee that everything works perfectly when done using any other bank. Ally is a totally free bank, so if you don’t have an account with them, it’s easy enough to just open up an account and use it just for your emergency fund purposes. If you opt to use another bank as your normal bank account, the steps should still be the same, but your mileage may vary. Just make sure that your bank has free ACH transfers in and out of the account.
**Additional note: I recently discovered that Capital One 360 won’t link with Netspend. As a result, you can’t use Capital One 360 as your transferring bank.
2. Sign Up For Your Netspend Account.
Next, you’ll need to sign up for a Netspend account. If you use my link here, you’ll get a $40 bonus to start off your account once you deposit $40 or more (note, I’ll also receive $40 as a referral bonus – it helps me run this site). Make sure that the code 1450481187 is in the Referral Code section of the sign-up form in order to qualify for the $40 bonus.
Once you sign up for a Netspend account, you can then refer other members of your household and snag yourself another $40 bonus. All you need to do is sign up for a Netspend account, collect your $40 referral bonus, then refer your spouse or partner to open up an account using your own personal referral code. They’ll get $40 and you’ll get another $40.
Altogether, you’ll snag $120 and get the benefit of keeping some or all of your emergency fund or cash savings in a super high-yield savings account.
Unfortunately, you can only get the $40 bonus on the first Netspend account that you open. The other accounts you open won’t be eligible for a bonus.
3. Wait For Your Prepaid Debit Card To Arrive In The Mail And Then Activate It.
After you’ve signed up with Netspend, wait for the prepaid debit card to arrive in the mail. It probably took about a week before my Netspend card arrived. The packet will have a bunch of stuff that every bank has to send. Think of things like the fee schedule, truth-in-lending act documents, etc. I pretty much just shred all of that stuff.
Also included in that packet will be your routing number and account number (just like with a regular bank). Make sure you keep this information somewhere because you’ll need it in order to link your bank account with your Netspend account. My recommendation is to scan it with your phone and save it in Google Drive or Evernote.
Now, follow the directions to activate your card. You should default to the “pay-as-you-go plan.” Stay on this plan since it has no monthly fees. We don’t care about the usage fees because we’re never going to use the prepaid debit card. Make sure that you’ve also activated your online banking account as well.
Once you’ve activated the card, put it in a safe or a drawer for safekeeping. You’ll never use that card again, but you’ll still want to keep it just in case.
*IMPORTANT: Do not try to link your Netspend account to your bank before you’ve received the card and activated it. Your bank will likely deny the transaction, and then you’ll have way more of a hassle to deal with.
4. Link Your Bank Account With Your Netspend Account.
Now that your Netspend account is activated, we’ll need to link it to your regular bank account. For Ally bank account holders, go to Transfers in the top bar of your Ally bank account. Then click on Manage Other Accounts. Then click Add New Non-Ally Account. For account type, choose Checking.
Then enter an account nickname and the routing number/account number for your Netspend account. For the nickname, I typically name it by the brand of card I received (i.e. Netspend, Ace Elite, Western Union, etc). Your external bank account screen should look something like this once you’ve linked all of your accounts:
Once linked, your bank will probably send some test deposits for you to confirm. When the account is confirmed, you’ll be able to transfer money from your bank account onto your Netspend prepaid debit card.
*Note: While uncommon, a small number of people have had issues with linking their bank account to Netspend. I think this can sometimes happen when your bank tries to pull the trial test deposits back before they actually make it onto the card. This results in the transfer getting rejected for insufficient funds, and then your bank might block Netspend as a security measure. There are a few solutions around this, which include:
- Use another bank that lets you automate small monthly or bi-monthly transfers; or
- Use a bank that doesn’t do test deposits, put some money onto your Netspend card, then link your bank with the primary bank you want to use (like Ally).
I’ve personally set up ten Netspend accounts and have never had any issues with linking Ally to Netspend, but some folks have, so it’s something to think about.
5. Transfer Money From Your Bank Account Onto Your Prepaid Debit Card.
Next, transfer money from your bank account onto your prepaid debit card. For the Netspend, Ace Elite, Western, Union, and H-E-B card, the savings account should become available once you transfer any amount of money onto the card (remember to transfer at least $40 on your first card in order to snag the referral bonus).
For the Brinks card, you’ll need to transfer $500 in order to activate the savings account. Some people have reported that the Brinks card no longer has the savings account option, so if you find that to be the case, use the Netspend MLB Prepaid Card, which has no transfer requirement to activate the savings account. Since we can get 5% interest on up to $1,000, I recommend putting the full $1,000 onto each card, if possible.
After you’ve transferred money to the card, you should now be able to gain access to your savings account. In your Netspend account, go to Move Money in the sidebar, then click on the option that says Savings Transfer. There should be an option to activate your savings account. Remember, the money in your savings account is FDIC insured, so your money is subject to the same protections as any other bank.
*Note: When you first move money onto your Netspend card, they might send you an additional Netspend “Premier” Card in the mail. Don’t activate that card. Just stick it in a drawer once you receive it and ignore it.
6. Transfer Money From Your Prepaid Debit Card Into Your 5% Interest Savings Account.
You’ve now got money in your Netspend account, but it’s still sitting on the prepaid debit card. Now that we’ve activated the Netspend savings account option, we just need to transfer the money from the prepaid debit card into the savings account.
Go to Move Money, then click Savings Transfer, and then transfer all of the money from your prepaid debit card into your savings account. Your savings account should now have a balance of $1,000. Your prepaid debit card should have a balance of $0.
7. Set Up An Automatic Transfer of $1 Every 2 Months Into Your Netspend Account In Order To Avoid Any Inactivity Fees.
Success! You’ve now got $1,000 in your FDIC-insured savings account earning 5% guaranteed interest! Now you don’t need to feel so bad that your money isn’t working for you.
We’re not done yet, though! The only fee we need to worry about is an inactivity fee. Netspend charges an inactivity fee if there’s no activity in your account for 90 days. They don’t count withdrawals as an activity, so we’ll need to set up an automatic transfer of $1 onto the prepaid debit card at least every 90 days in order to avoid that fee.
To be on the safe side, I set up an automatic transfer of $1 every 2 months. To set this up in Ally, log into your Ally account and select Make a Transfer. Then schedule a transfer of $1 from your Ally account into your Netspend account. For frequency, set it to transfer the $1 every 2 months. By doing this, we’ll never have to worry about any inactivity fee because there will be a $1 deposit onto the debit card every 60 days or so.
One thing to remember is that, if you’re automating your $1 transfers from a savings account, you’re limited to 6 transfers per statement period by federal law. As a result, if you’re using a savings account to do your automatic transfers, you’ll need to stagger them out over different months so that you don’t hit 6 transfers in one month (i.e. do 5 transfers in 1 month and 4 transfers in another month).
The easier way is to do your automated $1 transfers from a checking account. You can set one up in Ally at the same time you set up your savings account. I set up an Ally checking account and have all of my $1` transfers scheduled for the same day every 2 months.
8. Repeat The Above Steps With Each New Account.
You’ll need to do the above steps four more times if you want to put the full $5,000 away with Netspend. If there are two people in your household, each of you can open up five total accounts, for a total of $10,000 ($5,000 for each of you) in your Netspend accounts.
You’ll need a different username for each account, so what I recommend is using the username for your first Netspend account, then putting a different number at the end (i.e. username1, username2, username3, etc).
Here are the remaining four cards you’ll need to open:
- Ace Elite Prepaid Debit Card
- Western Union Prepaid Debit Card
- H-E-B Prepaid Debit Card. The one thing to note about the H-E-B card is that it comes with a $2.95 activation fee. They deduct this right out of your account, so the account starts off in the negative once you sign up. The $2.95 activation fee is worth it because we’re going to get much more back in interest. (Update: folks have told me that there is no longer an activation fee for H-E-B cards, which makes this even better).
- Brinks Prepaid Mastercard. They require you to deposit at least $500 to activate the 5% interest savings account. (*Note: Some users have reported that the Brinks card no longer offers a savings account. If that’s the case, use the Netspend MLB card as your 5th card).
- Netspend MLB Prepaid Debit Card. This is another “flavor” of the primary Netspend card. Some people have stated that the Brinks card no longer has the 5% interest savings account, so you’ll instead want to open this Netspend MLB card as your 5th card if you find the Brinks card doesn’t work.
Remember that while it might take a little bit of time for all your cards to arrive, the actual process of setting up each account only takes a few minutes or so. It won’t take you long to set all these up.
If you’re a two-person household, you can have your spouse follow the same steps at the same time as you do. Start with the first card and move on down the line.
*Troubleshooting. A few readers have indicated that they sometimes get stuck when trying to get a 4th or 5th card. The solution, according to folks in the comment section, is to apply for the 4th and 5th cards with your browser in incognito mode.
*H-E-B Debit Account. The H-E-B Debit Account is a debit card from H-E-B that comes with a 6% interest savings account. You’ll earn 6% interest on the first $2,000 in your account. Importantly, the H-E-B Debit Account is considered a separate product from the H-E-B Prepaid Netspend account. That means you can have both the H-E-B Prepaid Netspend account AND the H-E-B Debit account.
If you’re opening the Netspend accounts, you should also open the H-E-B Debit account to gain another $2,000 of mega-high-yield savings. Follow the same steps as with the Netspend accounts (including automating a bi-monthly or quarterly transfer into the account to avoid inactivity fees).
Here’s a post with more detail about the H-E-B Debit Account and how it works: The H-E-B Debit Card 6% Interest Savings Account.
Quick Recap
To quickly recap the process of setting up your 5% interest savings accounts with Netspend:
- Set up an online bank account with a bank like Ally.
- Sign up for your Netspend account.
- Get your Netspend debit card in the mail and activate your account.
- Link your bank account with your Netspend account.
- Transfer money from your bank account onto your Netspend debit card.
- Transfer money from your Netspend debit card into your 5% interest savings account.
- Automate a $1 transfer to the debit card scheduled for every 2 months.
- Repeat the same steps with the remaining four cards.
- If you have a spouse, follow the same steps with your spouse.
If you follow these steps, each person in your household will have $5,000 earning 5% guaranteed interest per year. In the end, your household should be able to put away up to $10,000 earning 5% interest.
Once you’ve maxed out every 5% interest account available to you, it should look something like this:
A quick pro tip. One easy way to keep track of your 5% interest accounts is to download each mobile app to your phone. That way, you can easily see your balance in one spot. I put them all into one folder that looks like this:
In What Order Should You Open These Accounts?
There are five total 5% interest accounts that we can open per person. Thus, you’ll have a total of 5 cards per person if you’ve opened up every possible card.
In terms of the order in which you should open these accounts, I recommend the following:
- First, sign up for a regular Netspend card, fund it, and snag a $40 bonus. If you use my sign up link here, you’ll get a $40 bonus once you deposit $40 or more (note, I’ll also receive $40 as a referral bonus). Make sure that the code 1450481187 is in the Referral Code section of the sign-up form in order to qualify for the $40 bonus. At this point, you can put away $1,000 earning 5% interest.
- Second, use your Netspend referral code and refer your spouse or partner to Netspend. If you do that, you’ll get another $40 referral bonus and your spouse will get a $40 signup bonus. Altogether, that’s a cool $120 for opening up two Netspend accounts ($80 for you and $40 for your spouse). You’ll now have a total of $2,000 earning 5% interest.
- Third, open up an Ace Elite prepaid debit card. You should now have $3,000 earning 5% interest.
- Fourth, open up the Western Union prepaid debit card. You now have $4,000 earning 5% interest.
- Fifth, open up the H-E-B prepaid debit card. The one thing to note about the H-E-B card is that it comes with a $2.95 activation fee. They deduct this right out of your account, so the account starts off in the negative once you sign up. The $2.95 activation fee is worth it, though, because we’re going to get much more back in interest. You should now have $5,000 earning 5% interest.
- Sixth, open up the Brinks Prepaid Mastercard or the Netspend MLB Card as your fifth card.
- Finally, repeat the Ace Elite, Western Union, H-E-B, and Brinks or Netspend MLB cards with your spouse. You now have $10,000 earning 5% interest.
If you don’t have a spouse, then just ignore the steps involving a spouse and do the steps that apply only to you.
Remember, take it slowly. Don’t open up the next card until you have the previous card fully set up. If you have every account set up and maxed out, it should look like this:
How To Withdraw Money From Your Netspend Account
If you want to withdraw money from your savings account, you need to do the following steps.
Any money in your savings account must flow through your prepaid debit card first. Remember how we saw the money flow into the Netspend savings account? It should flow the opposite way when you’re withdrawing money from the account. Think of it as looking like this:
The other key to remember is to do the withdrawals from your normal bank account. The only action that should happen in Netspend is transferring money from your savings account onto your prepaid debit card and vice-versa. Any money being pulled out of the account should always be pulled from an external bank account.
An example will help to explain it:
Let’s say we want to take out the full $1,000 from one of our 5% interest savings accounts. First, I’d go into my Netspend account and transfer $1,000 from my Netspend savings account onto my Netspend prepaid debit card. Then, I go into my normal bank account (Ally bank in this case), and schedule Ally to withdraw $1,000 from my Netspend prepaid debit card. That’s it.
Just make sure if you’re withdrawing money that the money has been moved out of the savings account and onto the debit card. Your bank can’t pull money directly out of the 5% interest savings account. If you attempt to pull money without any money on the debit card, you’ll probably get hit with a fee for insufficient funds.
Just think of the debit card as a funnel. Any money that you want to pull from or put into the savings account must first flow through the prepaid debit card.
If you want more information, I also wrote this post that goes into a bit more detail about how to withdraw money from Netspend: How To Transfer Money From Netspend To Bank Account.
Other Things To Note About Your Netspend Account
A few other important things to note:
- Interest Is Paid Quarterly. That means you’ll see interest post around January 1st, April 1st, July 1st, and October 1st of each year. The account terms also state that if you close the account before the interest is earned, you lose the interest for that quarter. If you want to close the account, try not to do it before you’ve collected the interest for the quarter.
- There’s No Hard Credit Pull. Netspend doesn’t do anything with your credit. No soft pull. And nothing appears on your Chex reports.
- Do Not Use The Prepaid Debit Card For Anything! Put it away and never use it. The only thing I did once I received it was to activate my account.
- Use Your Regular Bank Account If You Want To Withdraw Any Money. Remember, the prepaid debit card account acts as a funnel. Any money going in or coming out must go onto the prepaid debit card first. Don’t do anything in the Netspend account other than move money between the prepaid debit card and the 5% interest savings account. When you want to get money out of your Netspend accounts, you need to make sure the money is on the card, then initiate the withdrawal from your regular bank.
- You Can Only Earn 5% Interest On The First $1,000 In Each Netspend Account. Each individual Netspend account is limited to 5% interest on the first $1,000 in the account. Anything above $1,000 in each account earns just 0.5% interest. If you want, you could just keep the interest in there. It won’t destroy you to have a little extra in the accounts. What I like to do is each time the interest posts, I withdraw all of it and bring each account down to $1,000. If you wanted to make it easier for yourself, you could just withdraw all of the excess money once per year (that’s what my wife does). You could even just leave it in there since everything above $1,000 in each account earns 0.5% interest, which isn’t a terrible rate.
DCU: An Additional 5% Interest Savings Account
One other mega-high-yield savings account that I’ve opened to complement my 5% Netspend accounts is a DCU Primary Savings Account. This account offers a 6% interest rate on up to $1,000, has no monthly fees, and has no hoops to jump through. The account is with a normal credit union, so it’s just a normal savings account with a really high-interest rate on up to $1,000. Since it’s a totally free savings account, it’s also a good place to park some more of your emergency fund money. I would recommend everyone also set up a savings account with DCU in order to get a little more return on your extra cash.
There are a few things to note about DCU:
- First, to sign up for DCU, you’ll need to make a one-time, $10 donation to Reach Out For Schools (this is the cheapest donation you can make to join this credit union). You don’t have to pay this donation each year – only the one time when you set up your account. This isn’t too much of a barrier, but it essentially means you’re paying $10 to get access to this savings account.
- Second, DCU allows you to fund your account with up to $250 from your credit card. This can be helpful if you need to hit any credit card spend.
- Finally, DCU is a soft pull on your credit report, so you don’t have to worry about any hard pull.
If you’re already setting up the five Netspend accounts, you should also set up a DCU savings account to maximize your 5% interest savings accounts.
Here’s a post I wrote with step-by-step instructions on how to open your DCU account.
Why Doesn’t Everyone Use A Super High-Yield Savings Account?
One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of people are interested in getting more interest on their savings but still won’t take the step of actually setting up these 5% interest accounts. Here are the most common reasons why people don’t utilize these accounts and my counter-arguments:
Reason 1: This looks like a lot of work. This is probably the number 1 reason most people don’t use these accounts – they think it’ll be a lot of work to set up. The thing is, the real work is done in what you’re doing right now – reading and understanding these accounts. Once you’ve done that, the actual process of setting up each 5% interest account doesn’t take up much time.
For me, the actual time I invested in setting up each account was 10 minutes or less. I literally got all of my accounts set up faster than it would take me to watch a dumb YouTube video. It’ll take you longer to plan your next vacation than it will take you to set up these savings accounts.
Reason 2: I don’t want to juggle multiple bank accounts. Another common excuse. A lot of people tell me that they don’t like the idea of having so many bank accounts. Yes, it’s true that you’ll need to open up multiple accounts in order to maximize your 5% interest savings. However, since you should be using these accounts to hold your emergency fund, you’ll never actually have to mess with the accounts other than if you want to withdraw the interest or if an emergency actually comes up. Remember, if you’ve followed the steps outlined above, then everything is already automated. You can basically treat all of these 5% interest savings accounts as one big savings account.
I personally look at my accounts four times per year in order to withdraw any excess interest. Most people can probably just look at them once per year or even never if they want. Even the excess interest you earn will still earn 0.5% interest, which is still good enough for most people, especially if the rest of your emergency fund is earning 5% interest.
Reason 3: I’m scared about being charged fees. I never really understood this argument. The only fee anyone would ever actually have to worry about is the inactivity fee, which you’ll never be charged if you’ve set up an automatic bi-monthly transfer. Even if you were to somehow get charged a fee, you’d still come out ahead given the interest you can earn.
Reason 4: This sounds too good to be true. It’s not. I’ve already explained how I do it and it’s worked out great for me. There are tons of other people out there doing the same thing. Plus, I’ve literally listed the exact step-by-step directions you need to follow if you want to do the same thing.
Reason 5: This type of interest rate can’t last. Another common reason that I’m not sure how to react to. I guess my thought is, why wouldn’t you take advantage of something while it’s still there? In any event, there’s nothing to suggest that these 5% interest accounts will disappear one day. They’ve been around for over half a decade now. They don’t take that much work to set up. And, once they’re set up, they take no work on your end.
Get Yourself A 5% Interest Savings Account With Netspend
And that right there is the definitive guide on how to earn 5% interest on your emergency fund with Netspend. It might look like a lot of work, but trust me, it’s not. The only real work is reading this post to understand how this process works. The good thing is that I’ve synthesized everything for you so that you don’t have to figure it out yourself like I did.
Some takeaways:
- The Perfect Emergency Fund Account. I think this is the perfect account to use for an emergency fund. A household could open up 10 total accounts (5 between each person) and fund each account with $1,000. That’s a total of $10,000 earning 5% guaranteed interest. It would take five times as much money saved away to earn the same amount of interest. And if you are able to combine these with four to eight Insight cards, you can save even more into 5% interest savings accounts!
- It’ll Help You Avoid Using Your Emergency Fund In Non-Emergencies. The good thing about keeping your emergency fund here is that you’ll be less tempted to use it unless there’s a real emergency. It just adds another small layer between you and your emergency fund, yet it still remains liquid and readily accessible.
- Your Money is Still Liquid. If you’re worried about liquidity, keep a base emergency fund (maybe $500 or $1,000) in your normal savings account. That way, you don’t have to worry about waiting a few business days for your funds to arrive.
Yes, it takes a bit of time to set these accounts up. You do have to sign up for them and then wait for the cards to arrive. But the actual time you have to spend activating and setting up these accounts is pretty minimal. And once set up, you never really have to touch the accounts again. The extra interest makes it well worth the effort it takes you to set these up.
Set it up once and you’ll have an emergency fund that beats inflation every year, potentially forever! Plus, I always like telling people that most of my emergency fund earns 5% interest.
Ready to try it out? Sign up for a Netspend card here and get a $40 signup bonus.
This post may contain affiliate links. Financial Panther has partnered with AwardWallet and CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Financial Panther, AwardWallet, and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. The site does not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
More Recommended Ebike/Scooters
Check out these other ebikes and scooters I've reviewed:
- Urban Arrow Ebike – Last year, I made one of the largest purchases I’ve ever made – I bought a $9,000 electric cargo bike from Urban Arrow. In my Urban Arrow review, I will discuss what it is and why I decided to buy this bike, as well as discuss how impactful a bike like this can be on your journey to financial independence.
- Troxus Explorer Step-Thru Ebike – The Troxus Explorer Step-Thru is a fat-tire ebike that I’ve had the pleasure of riding for a while now. It has amazing power, great looks, and awesome range. If you’re looking for a great fat-tire ebike that offers a lot for the price, the Troxus Explorer Step-Thru is definitely one for you to consider. Check out my Troxus Explorer Step-Thru Review.
- Hovsco HovBeta Ebike – The HovBeta is a folding ebike with great specs and a lot of interesting features, and importantly, it’s sold at a good price point. I’ve had a blast commuting with it and using it to do deliveries with DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. Check out my Hovsco HovBeta Ebike Review.
- Vanpowers Manidae Ebike – The Vanpowers Manidae is a fat tire ebike that I’ve been riding as my primary winter commuting bike and have also been using it to do food delivery with apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. After clocking in a decent number of miles with this ebike, I wanted to write a post sharing what my experience with the Vanpowers Manidae ebike has been like. Check out my Vanpowers Manidae Review.
- Sohamo S3 Step-Thru Folding EBike Review – A Great Value Folding Ebike – The Sohamo S3 Step-Thru Folding Ebike is an entry-level folding ebike that offers a lot of value for the price point. I’ve been riding the Sohamo S3 for a while now, putting the bike through its paces, and I have to say, this bike has exceeded all of my expectations. Check out my Sohamo Review.
- KBO Flip Ebike – The KBO Flip is an excellent bike. I’ve had a great time riding it and think it’s a versatile bike that can be used for a lot of purposes and can fit a variety of lifestyles. It’s worked out great for me as a general commuter bike and as a food delivery bike. Check out my KBO Flip Review.
- Hiboy P7 Commuter Ebike – The Hiboy P7 is an excellent electric commuter bike that’s offered at an affordable price point. The range and speed of this bike are both very good, so you won’t have any trouble getting anywhere you need to go with it. As a food delivery vehicle, this is also good – with how much range it offers, you’ll be able to work all day on a single charge. Check out my Hiboy P7 Commuter Electric Bike Review.
- Himiway Escape Ebike – The Himiway Escape is an interesting bike for anyone looking for a moped-style ebike. If you’re a gig economy worker, the Himiway Escape is particularly interesting and it’s possible to think of it as an investment, especially if you can opt to do deliveries with the Himiway versus using a car. It’s not cheap, but you can definitely make your money back when you compare the mileage you’ll put on your car versus using an ebike. Check out my Himiway Escape Bike Review.
- Espin Sport Ebike – The Espin Sport is a good ebike for someone who is looking for an ebike that feels and rides more like a regular bike. There are many ebikes that are really only bikes in name. In reality, they’re basically electric mopeds. The Espin Sport, by contrast, is a bike you could probably ride without the battery and you’d feel like you’re just riding a regular bike. Check out my Espin Sport Review.
- Varla Eagle One Scooter – The Varla Eagle One is an excellent scooter that can make sense for a lot of people. It can work as a primary mode of transportation. You can use it to work on gig economy apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. And it can also be a recreational vehicle if you’d prefer to use it for that. Check out my Varla Eagle One Review.
- Varla Falcon Scooter – The Varla Falcon is an excellent scooter that offers a good amount of power at a lower price point compared to more powerful scooters. It’s not exactly an entry-level scooter, nor is it a high-powered scooter. I think it fits somewhere in-between those two categories – an intermediate scooter if I had to give it a category. Check out my Varla Falcon Review.
- Hiboy S2 Scooter – The Hiboy S2 is an excellent entry-level commuter scooter that's perfect for someone looking to save some money in transportation costs and improve their commute. Check out my Hiboy S2 Review.
- Hiboy S2R Scooter – The Hiboy S2R is one of the more interesting electric scooters I’ve been able to test out. It’s not a high-powered scooter, but for an everyday transport option, it’s very useful, especially given some of the unique features that it has. Indeed, for the price, the Hiboy S2R might be the best value scooter I’ve used. Check out my Hiboy S2R Review.
- Fucare H3 Scooter – The Fucare H3 is a fun scooter and I’ve enjoyed testing it out. For a daily commuter or quick trips or errands, the Fucare H3 is probably the scooter I’ll use. It’s portable and easy to maneuver, so it’s just easier to take on the road when I need it. Check out my Fucare H3 Scooter Review.
More Recommended Investing App Bonuses
For additional investing app bonuses, be sure to check out the ones below:
- M1 Finance ($100) – This is a great robo-advisor that has no fees and allows you to create a customized portfolio based on your risk tolerance. You also get $100 for opening an account. Check out my M1 Finance Referral Bonus – Step-By-Step Guide.
- SoFi Invest ($25) – SoFi Invest is an easy brokerage account bonus that you can earn with just a few minutes of work. Use my SoFi Invest referral link, fund your SoFi Invest brokerage account with just $10 and you’ll get $25 of free stock. I also have a step-by-step guide for the SoFi Invest referral bonus.
- Webull (20 free stock shares) – Webull's current promotion gives you 20 free shares valued between $3-$3,000 each if you open an account using my referral link. Here’s a guide I wrote about how to earn your free shares using Webull.
- Moomoo (15 free stocks) – Moomoo is a free investing app currently offering 2 different referral bonuses if you open an account using a referral link. Read my Moomoo referral bonus guide for more information.
- Robinhood (1 free stock) – Robinhood gives you a free stock valued between $2.50-$225 if you open an account using my referral link.
- Public (1 free stock) - Public gives you a free stock valued between $3-$70 if you open an account using my referral link.
More Recommended Bank Account Bonuses
If you’re looking for more easy bank bonuses, check out the below options. These bonuses are all easy to earn and have no fees or minimum balance requirements to worry about.
- SoFi Money ($325) – SoFi Money is a free checking account from SoFi. They’re currently offering a $25 referral bonus if you open a SoFi account with a referral link and deposit $10. You can also make an additional $300 as well if you complete a direct deposit. This is a good bank that is also 100% free, so you won’t have to worry about managing this account. Here’s a post I wrote with instructions on how to earn your SoFi Money bonus: SoFi Money Referral Bonus: Step By Step Guide.
- Upgrade ($300) – Upgrade is a free checking account that’s currently offering a $300 referral bonus if you open an account and complete a direct deposit. These bonus terms are easy to meet, so it’s well worth doing this bonus as soon as you can. Here’s a post I wrote with more details: Upgrade $300 Referral Bonus – Step By Step Directions.
- Fairwinds Credit Union ($175) – Fairwinds Credit Union is offering a referral bonus for users that sign up using a referral link. Fairwinds has no fees or minimum balance, so this is a particularly easy bonus to earn. Since this is a smaller credit union, my gut instinct tells me this offer won’t be around long, so if you’re in a position to meet the bonus requirements, grab this bonus before it’s gone. Here is my step-by-step guide on how to earn your Fairwinds Credit Union bonus.
- Chime ($100) - Chime is a free bank account that offers a referral bonus if you use a referral link and complete a direct deposit of $200 or more. In practice, any ACH transfer into this account triggers the bonus. This bonus is easy to earn and posts instantly, so you’ll know if you met the requirements as soon as you move money into the account. I wrote a step-by-step guide on how to earn your Chime referral bonus that I recommend you check out.
- US Bank Business ($800) – This is a fairly easy bank bonus to earn, since there are no direct deposit requirements. In addition, you can open the Silver Business Checking account, which comes with no monthly fees. Check out how to earn this big bonus here.
- Fifth Third Bank ($200) – This offer is limited to customers in the following states: Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, and South Carolina. If you don’t live in one of those states, you won’t be able to open an account online but you can still open an account in-branch if you happen to be visiting a city that has a branch. This is a fairly easy bank bonus to earn, especially since there are plenty of data points showing what will trigger the direct deposit requirement. In addition, you can open the Fifth Third Momentum Checking bank account, which comes with no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements. Read my guide on this bonus here.
- GO2Bank ($50) - GO2Bank is an easy bank bonus that I recommend people take advantage of if they have an easy way of meeting the direct deposit requirement. I like that it’s easy to open the account and that the bonus pays out quickly. Check out my step-by-step guide on how to earn your GO2Bank $50 referral bonus.
- Current ($50) – Current is a free fintech bank that’s offering new users a $50 referral bonus after signing up for an account using a referral link. Current is an easy bonus to earn and also gives you access to three savings accounts that pay you 4% interest on up to $2,000. That means you can put away up to $6,000 earning 4% interest. That’s very good and makes Current an account I recommend to everyone. Check out my step-by-step guide on how to earn your Current Bank bonus.
- Novo Bank ($40) - Novo bank is a free business checking account that’s currently offering a $40 bonus if you open a Novo business checking account using a referral link. In addition to being a good bank bonus, Novo is also a good business checking account. It has no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements and operates a good app and website. Indeed, it’s the business checking account I currently use for this blog. Check out my post on how to easily open a Novo account.
- Varo ($25) – Varo is a free fintech banking app similar to Chime or Current. It’s currently offering a $25 bonus to new users that open a new Varo account with a referral link. The bonus for this bank is very easy to meet, all you need to do is spend $20 within 30 days of opening your Varo account. Check out my step-by-step guide to learn how to earn this bonus.
Kevin is an attorney and the blogger behind Financial Panther, a blog about personal finance, travel hacking, and side hustling using the gig economy. He paid off $87,000 worth of student loans in just 2.5 years by choosing not to live like a big shot lawyer.
Kevin is passionate about earning money using the gig economy and you can see all the ways he makes extra income every month in his side hustle reports.
Kevin is also big on using the latest fintech apps to improve his finances. Some of Kevin's favorite fintech apps include:
- SoFi Money. A really good checking account with absolutely no fees. You'll get a $25 referral bonus if you open a SoFi Money account with a referral link, and an additional $300 if you complete a direct deposit.
- 5% Savings Accounts. I'm currently getting 5.24% interest on my savings through a company called Raisin. Opening a Raisin account takes minutes to complete, it's free, and all of your funds are FDIC-insured. I explain how it works, why I'm now using it to store my emergency fund and any other cash savings I have, and why I recommend everyone check it out in this review.
- US Bank Business. US Bank is currently offering new business customers a $800 signup bonus after opening a new account and meeting certain requirements.
- M1 Finance. This is a great robo-advisor that has no fees and allows you to create a customized portfolio based on your risk tolerance. You also get $100 for opening an account.
- Empower. One of best free apps you can use to monitor your portfolio and track your net worth. This is one of the apps I use to track my financial accounts.
Feel free to send Kevin a message here.
Anyone else get the $5 dollar deposit to one o their NS accounts? I got a text on 19 Sep from Roy S. CEO but without disclosing who it sent it.
The text said: We appreciate you! As a thank you, we have added $5 to your account for you to use on your next purchase. Sincerely, Roy S., CEO
I looked up the short code number of the text and it shows that is was sent from NS. I had to search all 6 NS accounts until I found the $5 posted to the MLB NS account. I moved it to the savings instead of leaving it in the spend account.
When the interest rates drop below 5% APY I will refund all the 5% NS savings accounts. The only NS account I left funded is the H.E.B Debit $2000, 6% APY account.
I just received a secured message from Netspend that their fees are changing effective 5/18/2024. The one that is of interest to us is their inactivity fee, which now requires an activity every 60 days (instead of previous 90 days).
“Inactivity Fees: While the Inactivity Fee will remain the same at $5.95 per month, the
timeframe to begin assessing the fee will decrease from 90 days to 60 days of inactivity.
You can avoid this fee by using your Card or Card Account for transactions, withdrawals
or loads”
Time to update the article, @Financial Panther 🙂
Thanks for the heads up. At this point, Netspend is obsolete now with rates where they are now. 4% or more with regular high-yield savings accounts from Ally, Discover, or Marcus by Goldman Sachs. 5% or more using Raisin (in-depth post about Raisin here)
I still have my Netspend account open and have money go in and out of it to avoid fees, but I don’t have any money in Netspend anymore.
I’m not sure I follow why you’re saying they’re obsolete? Aren’t they still getting 5%? I thought that they were, though now that I check mine and P1’s earnings from this most recent quarter, it looks like they got the full 5% and I got something less…which is odd. But I don’t recall getting any notification of a drop in interest rates.
It still gets 5% but it’s not worth the hassle of setting up when you can get close to 5% with no work with a normal high-yield savings account, and can get over 5% with Raisin with no limits. If you’re already set up and aren’t doing anything with it, then its fine, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone go through the hassle of opening a Netspend account if they haven’t already done it.
The fine print says they’re not going to allow Bank Transfers anymore, but it’s vague and I don’t know if they mean incoming, outgoing, generated from the Netspend side, or generated from external (via Ally for instance).
Can’t see how they can legally disallow bank transfers initiated externally though. Pretty sure all the banks have to let you withdraw if initiated via the ACH system.
This is what the notice says about money transfer. Seems like they are going to charge a fee if you initiate a transfer from an external bank or am I reading this wrong ?
– Money Transfer Service Fee: We will implement a new $3.00 fee for outgoing money transfers from your Card Account initiated through a third-party service such as Venmo, CashApp, PayPal, Western Union or other similar money transfer services. Money Transfers under $20.00 will only be assessed $1.50. This fee is charged in addition to the signature purchase transaction fee.
It’s the opposite of what you are stating. It’s a fee for non-bank transfers – they make it clear that this involves third-party apps. So, you want to put in Venmo – pay a fee. You want to transfer from Netspend to Bank Of America, no fee.
Thanks! Assume if you initiate a pull transfer via Bank of America – so using BofA to pull money from Netspend to BofA – you’re still reading that as outside of this new fee? Thanks again for your take.
Yes, I don’t interpret anything where fees are connected to a standard bank transfer.
As an aside – I understand where FP is coming from with these accounts. The have limits and are a bit quirky. I have the vast bulk of my money in Popular Direct which was 5.4% and is now 5.15%. BUT, these savings rates in standard brick and mortar banks will not last forever. Once the prime rate comes down so will interest rates. So, having these Netspend buckets available for the future is still good practice, IMO.
Watch your HEB debit card account, i got an unauthorized charge and I have never used my HEB card anywhere. Another website someone said the same thing. I reported it stolen online and it just deactivated the card, hopefully they can’t touch the savings portion.
I had the same experience
Looks like this is for an “all access” debit card and not the regular card which is the one I have. So you’d have to apply for a new card. I wonder if there are any fees associated with the new card. Talking to Support was a bit of a nightmare so I gave up trying to get more information.
Yeah, from the Deposit Account Agreement document for the card, the fees look pretty similar as the other cards. The biggest difference looks like the “all access” debt card has is a $5 monthly usage fee.
The netspend savings account from netspend.com now shows on their website it earns 6% if you have $2,000 or less. The fine print says the APY is accurate as of July 1st, 2023 so I think it’s a recent change. I think that means the MLB savings account is the same too. It looks like Western Union, HEB prepaid, and Brinks is still 5% up to 1,000.
IT looks like the 6% $2k is for the NetSpend ALL ACCESS account not the regular account.
Navy Federal now has a 15-month CD at 5% APY. Can open with as little as $50 up to a maximum of $250,000 and can add funds at any time.
“The Special 15-Month Certificate (Share Only) has a $50 minimum balance and a $250,000 maximum balance. Additional deposits are allowed at any time, subject to the maximum balance. Dividends earned are not included in the maximum balance allowed. Once the promotional rate is applied to a purchased certificate, it will remain in effect for the length of the product term. Penalties apply for early withdrawals from certificate accounts. Other restrictions may apply. “
For those that use Current app, wondering if you’re supposed to get a 1099-INT form for gained interest or you just report it from the bank statements. I never got a 1099INT form, but thought they were supposed to if gained interest is above $10. They mention a 1099-MISC and say it’s given if you received $600 or more in bonuses, but nothing about a 1099INT form. I thought all banks had to give 1099INT forms for gained interest of $10 or more. Do you add up gained interest from the account statements to report on the tax return instead since they don’t provide a 1099INT form?
I just went through the run around with Current online chat. They just repeated that they weren’t a bank. “Current interest is not a annual percentage yield or a savings account. Current Interest will be reported on
IRS Form 1099-MISC (or Form
1042-S, if applicable)”. I said then why can’t I get that form mailed and they said they just don’t do that basically (for less than $600 interest). I told them every other bank seems to email one out even for very low amounts of interest, but that didn’t go anywhere (they’re not a bank, yadayada). So if we want to know if (and how much) it was reported, then I guess we’ll have to contact the IRS. I’m pretty sure Current uses Choice Financial. I don’t know if we could get it from them.
I had the same thing – a run around with them (theyliterally had no idea what I was talkingabout and kept repeating what was on their website) and then I asked IRS – technically they are not a bank and so they do not have to send out a 1099-INT. So if you don’t get a 1099-INT you don’t have to report it – is what IRS told me.
I have been having the issue with getting Ally to link to my NetSpend accounts since early fall. I have 4 accounts each for myself and my husband, but I haven’t been able to get the 5th one to link and have had numerous emails into Ally Customer Support with no resolution. I did get the accounts funded from other bank accounts, but I don’t seem to have an account where I can pull funds from NetSpend like Ally allowed me to do. How do I avoid the inactivity fee?
I had (most of) my netspend accounts connected successfully to Ally for years and they were fully automated to avoid inactivity fees. Now, last week, Ally closed my account and I can’t even open a new account with them!? They would not tell me a reason and customer service did not have one but I am guessing that they did not like that I had netspend accounts. Every connected account was in my name and all transactions were legitimate but now that option is gone 🙁 Has anyone found other good hub banks? Most of my checking accounts won’t even connect, let alone to more than 5* accounts maximum. Any feedback would be much appreciated, I’m looking for a free checking that will connect with at least most of the netspend accounts for transfers and serve as a hub. Thanks.
Trust me open CCU acct. and you will have no problems. I have over 10 acct. Connected, no problems. I even schedule transfers that go from one bank to another using this bank! They refund all ATM fees at the end of the month so you can take out money from anywhere. They give interest on your checking account balance. They also have a cool holiday savings account. Trust me can’t go wrong….
Consumers Credit Union
I seem to be having an issue finding a bank where I can take the money out.
I added money through a local bank, but that bank doesn’t let me do the ACH in reverse. I have tried Ally, PNC and another local bank. Each one will not let me add the Netspend accounts.
Are there any other ways to move the money out? Even if it costs, I could just do it once a year and eat some of the earnings.
Not that I know of. Banks have been having issues with Netspend accounts. If the ones you tried won’t work, others likely won’t either. Sounds like new Netspend accounts have been flagged for some reason. Maybe the bank can tell you why. It shouldn’t cost you anything. At some point, banks may figure the issue out.
Just want to add that I tried to link my Ally account with my Netspend account and kept getting error messages from the Ally site. After doing some googling, it looks like Ally no longer links to Netspend accounts! At least Ally has some good savings and CD rates.
Just saw UFB Direct with 4.11 APY with Best Money Market Account, no fees and no minimum and the rate is good up to 100K. Not sure if I have missed any fine print though, still looking into it myself.
Their reviews don’t sound very good when I looked it up on google.
wow – yeah – Nerdwallet was fine but enough individual experiences that makes it seems less than ideal.
So, the Netspend accounts now seem to be hit or miss when connecting to another bank. I can no longer connect Netspend to my Ally hub, but, I was able to connect a new MLB Netspend account to a legacy bank (Citizens First Bank, where I also got a $300 new account bonus).
I already have four other Netspend accounts attached to Ally, but honestly, I have been mostly dumping larger sums into iBonds and into Current at 4% because of the $6000 max.
Current just changed requirements. To keep the 4% you have to auto deposit every month (payroll deposit). It’s not a lot but I decided to remove my entire $6k from Current. Ally works fine with no auto deposit and the difference in interest rate is negligible at this point.
Some banks I think are having issues with setting up the Netspend external bank account transactions. I had mine set up with Ally a while ago, but any new ones may have issues. I tried linking it to another local bank I have and was having issues setting it up recently. I had to call them and tell them it is a legitimate account of mine with Pathward. They have been having problems with Pathward accounts, which is used by Netspend, Western Union, and HEB so they disable the external account when trying to set it up. Should be able to call them and let them know you do have a legitimate account with Pathward.
Ally won’t allow me to link to my netspend accounts at all.
I have mine linked to Chase.
Navy Federal Credit Union has 12 month CDs at 4.85% APY, and 7 year CDs starting at 4.2% APY, in case anyone’s interested.
I really appreciate all of this great information. Thank you for putting it all in one place.
I have a few questions about the Netspend accounts.
I think that the Netspend account charges a $5.95 fee for inactivity. Am I reading this wrong?
Inactivity Fee $5.95
Per month. Fee applies if there are funds in the Card Account and the Card Account has had no activity, i.e., no purchases; no cash withdrawals; no load transactions; and no Balance Inquiry Fee, for ninety (90) days. If enrolled in the Monthly Plan and your Card Account has had no activity as described above, this fee applies instead of the Monthly Plan Fee.
Is there another way to avoid this and just leave the money in the account? I know that I would make more from interest but would still like to avoid this and not pay any fees if possible. $5.95 x 5 x 4(quarterly) would eat into the overall interest accrued if I just leave the money in the account for a year.
Is this avoided by transferring money out and paying that $1.95 fee for bank to bank transfers? Is there another way to avoid this and just leave the money in the account? I know that I would make more interest
Bank Transfer – Outbound $1.95
Per transfer of funds via ACH from your Card Account to your bank account at another financial institution. This is a third-party fee and is subject to change.
Most people just set up an automatic ACH transfer initiated from another bank like ally to the netspend account for like a penny (in my case a dollar) every two months. That takes care of the inactivity fee. Haven’t received an inactivity fee since I opened it well over a year ago.
Thank you very much! I see that in the article now. Don’t know how I missed that.
Discovered recently that my Brinks Netspend account was locked due to one of their fraud prevention policies. If they detect login attempts to more than four different Netspend accounts from the same device on the same day they will lock the fifth and subsequent attempts.
This came up because I was doing a periodic interest sweep from all 5 of my Netspend savings accounts to transfer the accumulated interest into another interest-bearing account. I didn’t quiz the representative regarding ways to get around this check, but she did ask whether I used a VPN, etc during her validation checks. So, a word to the wise, either stagger your login to that fifth account by a day or use a different device to avoid this headache.
Don’t you have to be a T-Mobile customer?
I should also note that Eric pointed out that Ally’s savings account is a higher %age rate (just checked, it’s at 3.3%) and they’ve waved limiting accounts to 6 withdrawals and the fees accociated with that. So it sounds like that’s even better. I finally have a reason to try Ally.
Just thought i’d mention it was well.
No. You don’t have to be a T-Mobile customer to have a T-Mobile Money checking account. The rate as of December 22, 2022 is 2.50% APY for ALL accounts.
There is a higher 4% APY rate for people who are T-Mobile customers and want to jump through hoops to get it. But the 2.50% APY is on ALL account.
Ally has a higher 3.30% APY right now. But I cannot get it to link to any of my NetSpend accounts, so I’m going to give up trying. I’ve been using T-Mobile Money to transfer to all my NetSpend accounts for years. The only option is to transfer monthly though, as they don’t have an option to send bi-monthly (every 60 days) or more.
Other than the ability to set up transfers every other month, I don’t understand why so many people are using Ally. While it is a convenience not to have to think about the account for 60 or so days, it seems to me that interest is what we’re all about. With T-Mobile Money, the interest is 2.25% on a CHECKING account – with no hoops to jump through. No minimum balances. No direct deposits required. No using debit cards for a number of transactions. And it’s a CHECKING account, which means we’re not limited to the 6 withdrawals a month that savings account are limited to.
So am I missing something?
Most of the issues you list don’t apply with an Ally Bank savings account. There is no minimum balance, no direct deposits required, and no debit transactions required. There is a 6 withdrawal limit per month on their savings accounts, but they are currently refunding the fee per: https://www.ally.com/bank/online-savings-account/
Their online savings account is currently offering 2.35%, but they also have a special deal where newly added money left there for a few months is effectively earning over 6% for a few months: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/ally-bank-bonus-earn-up-to-500-1-of-deposit-new-existing-customers/.
Ally savings account is making 2.35% right now. I don’t need more than six transfers out of savings a month, but I do need larger transfer sizes which Ally beats everyone else I have tried with. They have very high limits on your transfer amounts like $250,000 a day but just in the last month (week?) they seemed to have changed how they post these limits. They use to have a small chart. Now you have to go somewhere else (that looks temporary) and it just says “higher limits up to 250k”.
Ally also lets you connect with more banks (like 20) than places like WELLS FARGO as far as I can tell. And WELLS FARGO transfer limits can be like $5000. I’m not sure but Wells Fargo may have raised their posted daily and monthly limits recently (I’m seeing 15000 and 25000 daily and monthly limits respectively right now, depending on the transfer type; maybe it has been these amounts for a long time). These are general limits and not specific to my account.
Ally phone support!:
Recently I’ve experienced multiple phone support wait times on Ally of like an hour and a half! A little worrying.
And T-Mobile does have hoops to jump through: must register for perks and make at least 10 qualifying transactions per month using their T-Mobile MONEY card and/or instant payments to friends.
No, that’s only to earn the 4% interest rate. It is now 2.5% APY for all account holders. The hoops you’re talking about is only for those who have T-Mobile accounts besides, and are willing to jump through those hoops to get the higher %age rate.
(I haven’t checked Ally today to see if they’ve increased their again too).
As it turns out, my Ally Savings Account has an interest rate of 2.35%. No hoops to jump through. No minimum balance. No direct deposit required. No using debit cards for a number of transactions. Technically limited to 6 withdrawals but they have now waved the fee for going over 6. Looks like the only thing you’re missing is that extra 0.1% interest. 🙂
Discover is currently not accepting new applications for checking accounts, which is what they are calling their Cashback Debit account. You mentioned the $25 minimum for transfers but Discover also notes a $30 fee for outgoing wire transfers. Would these $25 periodic transfers to Netspend in order to avoid inactivity fees be considered wire transfers and subject to the $30 wire transfer fee? You can open a Discover savings account but I would think your subject to the limit of 6 transactions per month.
This happened to me, too, after already linking accounts previously. I spoke with Ally and they indicated that the bank associated with the routing number has been flagged by Ally as being open to possible fraud. They further explained that it doesn’t have the safety and fraud prevention measures in place that they deem necessary. That is why the routing number is coming up as invalid. There is nothing that can be done to override it or anything. Trying to validate the account through small deposits won’t work. I asked how this can be since I already have accounts linked and they said that they won’t de-link accounts but you won’t be able to link any going forward to that routing number, at least using Ally. Any ideas if there are other routing numbers that these cards can be issued against?
When Ally hasn’t worked, I’ve used Discover. Transfers have be minimum of $25 there, but its easy enough to set up a bi-monthly $25 transfer in, then $25 transfer out.
I opened a third account using MLB Netspend. No issue opening account, card arrived within a week and no trouble activating the card. However, when I tried to set up Ally to link I received an error message – this happened multiple times. I also noticed that Netspend no longer uses Metabank, the bank is now listed in my Ally account for the other Netspend accounts as Pathward, National Association.
I don’t know if this is having any impact, but I’ve never had any prior trouble. The routing number is the same as before and the account number has the same basic format. I also tried to connect with my main legacy bank (TD Bank), but it wouldn’t even recognize the routing number.
I’m going to try and make a small deposit from my payroll account and see if that works.
Hi, does anyone know if all these banks provide 1099INT forms to report on taxes for any gained interest? It’s my first year doing it so wondering if they send one out. Thanks!
Yeah, they all send 1099s
Confirming availability of the 5% Savings account on Brinks Prepaid MC. It was activated for me after the first $100 test transfer.
Question: The savings account agreement states that 5% is paid on the first $5,000, not the $1,000 stated in the website footnotes. Can anybody confirm which limit actually applies?
Same success with Ally sending a penny to my maxed out savings accounts. Never any issues at all.
Has anyone tried recurring ach transfer of 1 cent to the prepaid cards to prevent the inactivity fee? I am trying this with Tmobile money but was wondering if it worked for sure.
As long as you can link it, you’ll be fine. Just give it a shot and if it doesn’t work, try again with a different bank.
Yea, that’s what I do with Ally bank and it’s been fine.
Thanks for the confirmations. I have been able to link with Tmobile money and can do recurring transfer of 1 cent.
I have Netspend and Elite set up so far and now processing Western Union without issue yet. I’m curious to see what order people have been opening the cards and that ends up triggering something on their end to close accounts.
I’ve heard one of the cards on the list was switching to metabanks which would make 4 of cards with the same bank going over the 3 card limit. I only remember reading this on doctor of credit so I cannot confirm. And it was not about Porte. I will look to see what I exactly read.
I guess it read about the change earlier in this thread.
Also Elements high interest checking account is able to link with these accounts without issue and can send a penny.
Had trouble linking one of the Netspend accounts to my Ally accounts. Kept on getting an error telling me the routing number was invalid. Called Ally who told me that the bank associated with the routing number has been flagged by Ally as a frequent source of bank fraud so Ally won’t allow you to link it. So now I have an activated Netspend account with no way to transfer money to it. Has anyone else had this problem? Any other banks that people have successfully linked to their Netspend bank account?
On a related note, Ally customer service also told me that there is in fact a 20 account limit for the number of linked accounts you can have. Has anyone else heard of this?
I have four Netspend accounts and have never had any issues at all either opening them up or linking to my Ally hub account. It seems so hit or miss for people who have trouble with Netspend. I have never tried to link Netspend with any other bank, but I was aware that Ally as a 20 account limit.
I got a call from Ally Fraud Prevention the other day asking about all the $1 Metabank transfers. I explained the situation and he indicated he’d heard the same from multiple customers that morning. Now that Ally knows what’s going on, perhaps they’ll “unflag” Metabank and start allowing accounts to be linked again? Not sure. They didn’t unlink my existing accounts or block my transfers, though…
Wanted to add a data point for Penn Community Bank. The following were required:
1. Open a free checking account with $25
2. Make $1000 in real payroll direct deposit within 60 days
I completed the two requirements and a juicy $350 bonus was delivered to my account in four business days.
The account must remain open six months.
Easy as could be. It seems you may have to be a Pennsylvania resident (based on another reader’s experiences) but that is not stated in the small print.
https://www.penncommunitybank.com/CashBonus400/
The site says it ends 7/23 but that is wrong. An ad in local paper last week for this with a new end date.
I couldn’t disagree more. Initial setup took a couple hours. Then it’s 15 minutes every three months. Wife and I have 26 of these high interest savings accounts and we earn around $1,800 a year in interest. I don’t know about you but $1,800 for an EASY hours worth of work sounds TOTALLY worth it.
Eric, if you don’t mind me asking, what comprises your 26 accounts? I assume you and your wife each have the 5 Netspend accounts (5 being the most accounts Netspend will let be open per social security number) plus the H-E-B Debit, which would be 12 of the 26 accounts. I understand that Insight has shut down the 5% accounts so what are the other 14?
4 Digital Credit Union (one for each of our two kids) – $4k at 6.17% APR
4 Service Credit Union – $2k at 5%
4 Blue Federal Credit Union – $4k at 5%
2 Current – $12k at 4%
2 Workers Credit Union – $2k but their interest is only 3.56%
Thanks for sharing this Eric. For people who complain about difficulties with Netspend the easiest way to get started with these types of account is is to simply open a Current account and right there you have $6k to work with at 4% – if you have a spouse now you have $12k. That’s a great place to start an emergency fund.
blue federal is not $4k at 5%. It’s only $1k at 5% and the tiere go down from there.
i see i misread the comment. but i don’t see a way to remove mine. so….
To complicated. Not worth all the nonsense and hip-hops to get this done. Laughable really that people actually have the time for this. By the way this comment will not be posted. No counter narrative need apply.
For some reason i can’t link my Ally bank account to Netspend, any ideas? i tried Schwab and it said not supported and I got discover to work but they have a high minimum transfer so I couldn’t just do a dollar
For me I have Ally bank take the money out of Netspend. Not the other way around. Doing it through Ally, I’ve had no problems.
Sorry if I was not clear, all of these were from the other banks not netspend. When on Ally’s website and trying to add netspend it says “cannot be verified”
I’d try different things to troubleshoot it. If you have to enter a password, make sure it’s the right one. I think you can also go another route to set up where they send micro deposits in 2-3 days to verify. Before that you could try using a different browser. That could be an issue.
I’m having the exact same problem. I enter in the routing number and it recognizes Pathway, enter in the account number and click continue, get the message about sending two small test deposits, but as soon as I click submit, immediately a message comes up that tells me it cannot verify the info.
I can’t get past the H-E-B Prepaid card. I try and sign up for it and I get a response that my submission can’t be approved at this time. Anybody else get this and, if so, how do you get around it? I tried incognito mode but that didn’t work.
I was having this issue too. I thought it might be because I had already opened the HEB Netspend account. I tried again more than 30 days after, and it let me open the HEB Prepaid account. Hope this helps.
I have a question that I’ve long been wondering if I’m doing things correctly. So, first, thank you is long overdue – so thank you!
Now, I’ve been doing $1 transfers to each of my cards once a month since that’s the way my bank works. Then I wait a day or two to see it appear in the prepaid card balance. I then transfer it into the savings connected to the card and wait another day, because I’ve always assumed we had to do that in order to qualify to get the interest, and to avoid fees. But I’ve always wondered if I have to do that step. Is it enough just to transfer the $1 to the prepaid card without transferring it to the savings, and then retrieve it again from my bank’s website? Or have I been doing it right all along by transferring it to the preapid card, then to the savings, waiting a day, and then transferring it back to the prepaid card to retrieve it back from my bank?
Yes, you only need to transfer to the prepaid card in order to avoid the inactivity fee. Not savings.
I use Ally and transfer $1 every 60 days. Then quarterly when I login in to transfer the interest from Savings to Spend account. After that I pull out the interest + transfered amount. The most each account would have minus the interest is $2.
HI,
YOU MENTIONED THAT YOU WERE ABLE TO USE DISCOVER TO MAKE DIRECT DEPOITS TO OPEN THESE SAVINGS ACCOUNTS. PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW I CAN ALSO DO THAT.
THANKS, GLEN CRUZEN
I AM AWAITING YOUR REPLY.
Wow. 22 minutes after your question? Patience is a virtue.
As of June 2022, it seems that the Western Union prepaid card has an outbound transfer fee of $1.95 for ACH transfers, which I did not find out until receiving the card, activating it and reading the terms upon trying to initiate a bank transfer (does not appear in the fee schedule on the website). It’s unclear to me if the outbound fee is assessed if the transfer is initiated from another bank, but it’s not worth it to me to find out, especially if I’m automating transfers in and out to avoid inactivity fees. I haven’t opened this card, but the Brinks Prepaid Mastercard also has a $3.00 per transfer fee for ” Transfer of funds via ACH from your Card Account to your bank account at another financial institution.” However, I have been able to open two separate accounts via the regular Netspend Prepaid Card, activate them, and deposit money into savings without issue, so maybe that’s a workaround for the cards with outgoing fees. I’ve also opened the Netspend MLB account that has the same terms as the regular Netspend account.
Also, both the H-E-B Debit card and Western Union cards have an incoming and outgoing limit of $300 per day and $500 for any 30 day period, just something to be aware of if using this as an emergency fund. Although, I mistakenly thought the $500 limit was per calendar month and not for every 30 days, so I was actually able to deposit $1000 to the H-E-B Debit in less than 30 days and the transfer went through (initiated external transfer from my credit union). I did email them to ask if the limits only applied to transfers initiated via their website and not to transfers initiated externally, but they never replied… Haven’t yet tried any outgoing transfers.
Thanks for a very informative website! Feels good to finally build a proper emergency fund and actually have it earning some interest!
FYI, there’s no fee if you initiate the transfer from an external account, per the directions in this post (i.e. doing an ACH pull). Hundreds of other people have done the same too without issue. Have had this account for 6 years now and have never paid a fee. This isn’t a new fee – they’ve had it since the account was created over a decade ago. But it doesn’t apply to ACH pulls.
Ah, gotcha! Thanks for the quick reply, I did not realise the fee didn’t apply to ACH pulls. In that case I’ll keep the account and initiate all transfers externally. Appreciate the help and the informative website!
PS: Here is what I was referring to about 5% on $5,000…
Rate Information
Variable Rate
• Interest Rate -Tiered Variable Rate
• If your average daily balance is $5,000.00 or less, the interest rate paid on the entire balance will be4.91% with an annual percentage yield of 5.00%.
• An interest rate of 0.49% will be paid only for that portion of your average daily balance that is greater than $5,000.00. The annual percentage yield for this tier will range from 5.00% to 0.54%, depending on the balance in the account.
My guess is it’s a typo. But if someone wants to try and then do the math for us, I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong!
I just opened my Brinks Card and was activating the Savings account today when I noticed something that caught my eye. The Truth-in-Savings disclosure says in one place that 5% interest will be paid up to $5,000 in average daily balance (not $1,000). See language below.
Of course, at the top of the agreement, it does say only $1,000 will be paid 5%, so I don’t know if this is just a typo/sloppy editing or has anyone actually got paid 5% on more than $1,000 in balance?
Thoughts, @Financial Panther @Kevin?
Where can I find account number for Netspend savings account? I want to setup transactions from Ally directly to Netspend savings account
You cannot link your Netspend Savings to Ally. Instead, you will link your Netspend Prepaid account with Ally and then push your funds from Ally to Netspend Prepaid account. Once the funds are in the Prepaid account, you will need to do an internal transfer from Netspend Prepaid to Netspend Savings. That transfer is instantaneous.
When you’re in your Netspend account, go to “Account” tab on the left of the screen. On that page it will have the routing and account number needed to set up transactions.
When you’re in your Netspend account, click “Account” tab on the left of the screen. On that page you’ll see the routing and account number needed to set up the transaction.
Not sure what the deal is, but my husband’s accounts with Netspend have been very difficult to activate. The first Netspend was okay and we got the bonus and saving account setup, but the second (H-E-B) and 3rd (Ace Elite) have triggered some kind of security issues. We have to call them, then upload documents (driver’s license, utility bill, AND ss card), then call them again, then verify more data. I doubt we’ll try another one, I’m afraid they will close them all! Plus, like others, I don’t like the ss card requirement. I wouldn’t email any of the documents, but they finally gave me a link to upload them securely. The DO have such a link, even the one customer rep insisted that they did not.
I have tried to follow the instructions to set up the Netspend and 4 other related accounts. When I fill out my information, pick my card design, and click sign up, the cursor just turns into a spinning wheel and (so far, at least) never goes to a confirmation page. I waited to see if it went through and I would get something in the mail despite the page not loading, but no luck so far. Any suggestions? Has anyone else had this happen? Is this just not really an option anymore through the Netspend accounts?
I have opened four accounts with the most recent in January. I have had no issues at all.
I haven’t had that issue. Only issue has been for one card they locked my account for some reason so I couldn’t activate it. I just moved on to another card and was fine after that and have 2 cards activated so far. I’d try another browser such as Safari, Chrome etc. That can sometimes be an issue. Can also try to move on to sign up for another NetSpend card to see if it goes through.
I had the same issue. Spinning into the abyss. Try using a different web browser to request the card. The brave browser did not work for me. Google chrome did not work for me. Microsoft edge did not work for me. I have done four of then via my iPhone thru the safari browser.
HS – nice to know that it should still work.
Oh, I hadn’t thought about the browser, JJ! I will try that.
Anon, I’m using Brave. I’ll try Safari first since that’s what worked for you.
Thanks, all!
Update: Using Safari on desktop, I was successful opening the Netspend, Ace Elite, and HEB Prepaid accts. For MLB and Western Union, I got the message, “We are unable to complete your request at this time,” even when I tried it in a Safari private/incognito window. With the HEB Debit acct, I was unable to complete the signup process (creating username, password, etc) in Safari, but it gave me a different message saying that I had already requested a card and it would arrive in 7-10 days, so I’m not sure whether that one went through or not… Right now, I’m thinking I’ll try the ones that didn’t work again in a day or two and see if they go through then. Fingers crossed!
I was able to link my Mango card as a funding source inside my Serve account, pull money from Mango, then push it to my checking account without any fees.
I’ve also read that you can avoid the $3/mo fee by not leaving any funds in your card account, but I have not confirmed this yet.
Hi, looks like I somehow got two Netspend accounts. Not with Elite, Western Union etc. yet. I activated the two Netspend back account, but can you have to Netspend bank accounts with different account numbers earning 5% interest? And can you get 5 Netspend bank accounts with different account numbers earning 5% or have to go the route of using Elite, Western Union etc.?
Thanks
Has anyone had success transferring their money back to their Chase Checking account?
I need the money in order to pay off some of my bills right now and tried using the method noted in the article above:
1) I moved all but $25 (randomly decided to leave $25 in each account) from my 4 Netspend accounts from Savings to my never used Prepaid Debit accounts.
2) I requested 4 separate transfers from these accounts to my Chase Checking account via Chase, but these were marked as failed and Chase froze access to my Checking and Credit Card accounts until I called in today.
When I spoke to Chase on the phone, they told me I’m not able to do this and that it would cost me a $25 transfer fee. Does anyone know a workaround or at least the “lowest fee” way to get my money back into my Chase Checking?
Thank you!
It has been widely suggested to use a hub account, such as Ally, to move money back and forth from Netspend (or other high-yield accounts) back to a traditional account. I have never had any problems using this procedure to move money in either direction and have never had a charge.
Okay thank you! I read about that above but was wondering if Chase wasn’t being fully honest with me. Will try that!
I think they are catching on to people doing this because I only got two of the extra cards to work when applying. A third one worked but now says my account has been locked. My wife could not get any of them to work after doing the initial Netspend account. Has anyone else had this issue? I am hoping the two cards I do receive will activate so I can at least have those accounts to gain the interest from. We will see once they arrive.
I was on my second card with Elite and once I got it, I tried to activate it, but said my account was locked. I called and they want me to send SSN, ID, and address to verify something. Not so sure it that’s safe to do over email.
Agreed – definitely not safe! I brought that concern up to Netspend multiple times in email and over the phone and said no other financial institution has asked me for sensitive information without an safe encrypted option. They did not ever address the concern, and literally kept repeating a script asking me to send my info. I was curious what others thought. I have decided I won’t be risking sending sensitive info through email.
I won’t either. I moved on to see if setting up other cards will work. Got the Western Union recently and that worked so not sure what the issue with Elite was.
I am not exactly sure if this is posted else were. But I learned the hard way about other things being connected to Netspend. I did not know Porte bank was connected to them. As I already have an account with them, which I feel I don’t want to any more because of the change they made to the savings account, I am not eligible to get the referral bonus. So it would be best to make sure you are not already connected to something that is associated with Netspend as not to get false hope about the bonus. I feel cheated and stolen from honestly because I feel they should want to make that abundantly clear so there will be no confusion. And I feel it something they are hiding under things. So Just be careful about that. I feel worrisome about using there saving feature because it seems like they hide things, but I want the interest rate so I am conflicted.
Currently I have 4 cards- Ace Elite, Western Union, and Brinks, and HEB. When I received my 5th card- NetSpend and tried to activate it. I was told my profile was blocked by its back office. That means I cannot apply any Netspend cards anymore. Does anyone know how to resolve the issue?
Today Ace Elite and NetSpend VISA locked out my wife’s account. They were vague about the reason, but at first said they detected a VPN that was banned. I have a suspicion that the Billy button from InboxDollars has done something to my FireFox browser. I am going to uninstall it to make sure.
Today out of the blue I received a Netspend Prepaid Mastercard. I already have 5 accounts (Netspend Visa, MLB, Ace Elite, Western Union and H-E-B Debit). Should I try for #6?
This one is probably like the MLB card. It also advertises a 5% savings account.
I’m highly suspicious as I had to go through a government agency referred by the FDIC to get a phone number for MetaBank where I could actually reach a person. Of course, they were dumb as a box of rocks and a supervisor was supposed to call me in 2 hours and never did. Can’t reach any humans related to NetSpend which of course is a third party so the bank is of no use and the FTC sued them and paid out 10 million in refunds in November. I have no confidence I will ever see my money again without a class action suit.
Hi! thanks for the detailed post. I started opening the Netspend account, and I read that there is a monthly plan fee of $9.95. I read the section called “Review the fees associated with your Prepaid Card” and it shows a list of other fees as well. I’m in the main website: https://www.netspend.com/card-order/ve/netspend-raf/?aid=RAF_1&site_id=RAF_OAC_URL&uref=1450481187&context_name=alpha_lg_raf&passive_referral_code=1450481187
Do you think now in 2022 there are more fees associated when opening new accounts than before?
thanks!
Use the pay as you go plan and there’s no fees. It’s all clearly laid out in the post. Nothing has changed in 2022
Really appreciate this info and the time you’ve taken to organize it and lay it out so beautifully. Question: Has anyone had trouble setting up the Netspend or HEB Debit accounts that you’re aware of? Both websites have been down all week with regards to setting up a new account. The Netspend account just spins and spins like its trying to submit my info but doesn’t go anywhere. The HEB Debit site is giving me an error message when I attempt to submit info: We are unable to complete your request at this time. I’ve tried on multiple browsers to no avail. Will keep trying but curious if you had any ideas? Thanks!
Does anyone know how to order ACE, MLB, or BLINK cards at a local store? I could not order any of these cards online. I went to CVS and a local grocery store to get Netspend and WU cards. I had to call to activate and it takes a few days to complete the process. So I think I am on some sort of blacklist for some reason.
Hi,
I signed up for my 5 accounts awhile back, and the debit cards I received are all expiring this month. I received new cards w/ new expiration months. Do I need to activate these cards? Thanks!
No you don’t need to activate them. At least I don’t think I’ve ever activated any cards after the first one
I also see an option for an upgraded Netspend account that pays 6% on $2000. But the fee is like $5 a month if I remember correctly. How does this compare with the free account?
All your extra earnings will be eaten up in fees. Stay away from the Flare account. See post by Larrabeedrill. https://financialpanther.com/h-e-b-debit-card/#comment-110778
Thanks for the heads up. And thanks for the post. I have all the netspend accounts and dcu. Great job
Is there anyone familiar with current bank. They are another fintech company. They have a feature called savings pods which are 4 percent apy and are fdic insured through Choice financial group and metropolitan commercial bank
Current is fine, but my understanding is the 4% account is targeted and most people don’t get it.
I was setting up my first Netspend account today, and was reading the terms for transferring money. It indicated a max of $100/24 hours transferred to Netspend, with a $200/30 day max. Also said it charged $4.95 to transfer money to bank from Netspend. If I have $1000 in Netspend savings, the charge to transfer interest quarterly will result in a net 3% interest. Am I missing something here? Did I read the wrong terms/documentation? Thanks in advance.
You need to read the post fully. You are missing just about everything. There is an entire section in this post on how to withdraw your money without fees.
I read that section. I’m also reading the documentation from Netspend. Are you saying there is a difference whether the withdrawal is initiated by Ally vs. being initiated as a transfer from Netspend to Ally? What about the deposit limits I mentioned? I’m just trying to do my due diligence before following financial advice I stumbled upon by googling a term from my favorite television show. I do love the name of the site!
Fair enough. Apologies if I came across as rude or curt – wasn’t my intention to do that. When you have a post like this one that’s 5 years old with 750 comments, you go through a lot of the same types of questions, so sometimes you just answer quickly.
So yeah, there’s a difference between an ACh initiated by Netspend vs. initiated by your regular bank account like Ally. No withdrawal limits and n fees so long as you withdraw from the external bank account. As to why that is, I don’t think a bank can limit what you withdraw from an outside bank account.
Been using these accounts since 2016 and have never paid a fee before or had any issue withdrawing all my money at one time,
Did anyone try the Azulos account? They offer a pay-as-you-go plan (free if you don’t swipe the debit card) that has a 5% APY savings up to $1k. Seems to be another Netspend, so I’m not sure if it would block anyone trying for more than 3-5. Link: https://www.amscot.com/azulosplus.aspx
If it’s a Netspend, then probably can’t get beyond 5 of them. I’ve had no luck anyway getting beyond 5.
For the $1 you deposit into your debit card account every 2 months, and the quarterly dividends, do you move them out the next day they are settled, to your external bank? Will there be a problem doing that?
I leave my bimonthly $1 deposits (to avoid inactivity charges) until it is time to withdraw quarterly interest payments. Even then, I make sure to always leave at least $1 in the debit card account. I think it is only prudent as the bank may decide to close an account that has a zero dollar balance. Although I get that your Savings account would not be at zero, but why give them an opportunity?
Thanks for the detailed tutorial!
This post is literally a gold mine!
5% of $5K is like $250/yr and depending on taxes about $125/yr, in perpetuity. Doesn’t seem that bad to maintain once all the systems are set up the first time to be able to get a little bit extra money over the long term.
Is Ally the only bank that allows you to connect an external debit card to transfer money out? I have three CUs I use and they only allow linking external accounts that have routing numbers. I can’t link a card. It is too difficult to get my money out. Customer service is useless. I won’t be applying for any more Netspend cards.
All of the accounts mentioned here have routing number of the bank and individual account numbers. So, you can really link it with almost any bank or financial institution for transfer (there may be some exceptions, but not many). The reason Ally is recommended as a hub account is that it allows you to link to multiple transfer accounts (>10), whereas you might be limited to up to 5 transfer accounts at other institutions.
I think it’s a little more hit and miss than that. It’s not just that Ally allows more linked accounts. Wells Fargo absolutely would not work for me. Neither did Discover online even after I called them. I had to use Ally. Your mileage may vary.
Does the order in which you open the accounts matter?
I did DCU then NetSpend, and would like to do the H-E-B debit account next for the 6% APY if order doesn’t matter.
Thanks!
The order doesn’t matter.
I opened HEB first and then Netspend, and now I can’t log into my Netspend account – it says “This looks like a H-E-B Debit account. Click here to be taken to the H-E-B Debit Online Account Center.” But the Netspend account doesn’t appear there. Do you know if it’s possible to get this fixed without shutting everything down and starting over with new accounts?
Final update for me on HEB Debit. After transferring money from my hub Ally account the funds appeared today in the HEB debit account. I was then able to open/activate the savings account portion and have transferred the money. For me, this process was absolutely no different than other Netspend accounts. It’s going to take me a while to fill the remainder of one regular Netspend account and this debit account. I don’t anticipate needing to open another account for about six months.
I’m sorry to see some have had HEB debit account issues. It’s very strange because my experience has been perfectly normal. My Ally hub account sent the two microdeposits and I was able to attach to the HEB debit account. I have now sent a deposit from Ally to HEB Debit which I believe will be finalized on Tuesday.
I currently have one regular Netspend and a HEB debit in my name and one regular Netspend in my wife’s name. I don’t have thousands of dollars to transfer right over to these accounts – so I take a bit from paycheck and all of my side hustle money (MTurk, Field Agent, TaskUp). Typically takes me about three months to get to $1000. I’m guessing most other people are just pushing $1000 all at once… could that be causing an issue??? Or your hub account?
Hi Everyone,
After opening and funding the first Netspend account and a Porte account, I opened an HEB Debit account. The card never came in the mail. I had to call customer service a couple times to get an answer as to why. CSR said that their risk assessment team has flagged my account for fraudulent activity and that I am no longer eligible to open any Netspend accounts. I am pretty bummed about this! I really had a lot of fun doing the math and calculating how much interest my super-high-yield interest savings accounts were going to net me. I was really hoping to be able to open five of these Netspend accounts and avoid losing my savings to inflation. But they cut me off after only one account! I wonder what the rationale for this is… they don’t run Chex inquiries but maybe they use EWS or LexisNexus. Or maybe its just random and I am unlucky.
Some other info:
My original Netspend account was not closed.
As far as I can tell, I followed the rules exactly. I only ever used Porte on my phone and Netspend on my computer and I always used Netspend in incognito mode. I waited to activate the card before funding the account.
Also, Netspend denied me the bonus on my first account. I sent a secure message and got a reply saying that they wanted the person that referred me to call Netspend to verify the referral code.
I applied for the HEB debit after only 2 netspend accts and had the same experience. Now because of the HEB closure, no further access to netspend products (The first two accts still seem to be valid) In my opinion DO NOT APPLY FOR HEB DEBIT no matter how nice the 6% sounds
Interesting update on my closed HEB account. I just got an apology email from HEB:
“Our records show that your Account was recently closed after being flagged for risk review. After additional assessment, we were able to reopen your Account on October 1, 2021.
We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused. As an appreciation for your continued use of your Account, we would like to offer you a $50.00 courtesy credit.”
Works for me, LOL
I also just received the same message. Will update the post with this new info
I got that email too (with them saying they reopened the account and are offering $50 courtesy credit for any inconvenience). I called them. It was ridiculous talking to them on the phone. I’m surprised I got through. I never got the card I ordered in the first place so I didn’t have a card number. I still couldn’t login to the app with the credentials I saved (it just said wrong username or password). Without a card number I can’t try to do the “forgot username” or “forgot password” because they both require a card number. The guy on the phone was flat out rude from the get go. Honestly it all started sounding pretty shady. After a long back and forth (I had to explain the situation at least 3 times), he was finally going to cancel the previous card (that I never got) and send a new one, but by then I had had enough. I told him to just cancel the account altogether (that I never had ANY access to!). Horrible experience. Good luck to anyone that tries to cash in on that $50 card credit. I seriously doubt that’s going to go over without a hitch.
I just called HEB CS and they credited me the $50 and are sending me a card. I can see the $50 in my account and I can see under “card settings” that then new card is (hopefully, at least) to be delivered by the 4th. Victory! LOL
I never received my heb card (the one from hebdebit.com). I can’t get through on the phone because every option requires the last 4 digits of the card number (even the option that is supposed to support a never received card). Ridiculous. I sent email and they simply said I must call on the phone. I currently have the Netspend and the ace elite cards.
Hmmm… that’s not good. I will provide an update on mine in a few days
Quick note… I was nosing through my HEB Debit account and there is a note that says my card estimated arrival date is Tuesday 9/21. Stay tuned.
You can use your social security number if you don’t have the card. But if the card didn’t come, that’s a bad sign and it’s likely that they you are now “ineligible for any new Netspend accounts due to what has been flagged by our risk assessment team as fraudulent activity” (as the CSR put in on the phone to me).
They haven’t told me that yet but I’m guessing that’s exactly what happened. And I’m guessing that means I can forget about trying the other 3 cards now.
My HEB Debit card arrived today 9/21 exactly as stated in my account. I successfully activated the account, linked it to my Ally hub account and am waiting for the two microdeposits to show up in a couple of days.
Everything has worked fine – sorry to hear others have had issues.
Hi…I opened the account and am still waiting for the card. I received an email last night that has a promo in it:
“Qualify for a $10 credit when you add at least $100 to your Account within 45 days”. Then it refers to small type at the bottom which reads, “To qualify for offer, you must be the named recipient of Netspend’s offer and an existing HEB Debit account holder and fund at least $100 to your account no later than 45 days from the date of this email. Your receipt of this offer is the date that the offer is emailed to you, as determined by the system-generated timestamp. EXCLUDES DIRECT DEPOSIT. A credit of $10 will be credited to your account within 10 business days.”
Ah, thanks. I’ll have to go back and check my emails to see if I got one. Thanks!
Hi everyone,
HEB debit card is currently offering a $10 credit if you fund at least $100 to the card within 45 days of opening the account.
Not as good as the $20 referral, but still free money.
Thanks for the info! Where do you see the promo? I see the $10 for making a mobile deposit with check funds, but it doesn’t say anything about 45 days. Is the one you are referencing different?
I checked my YNAB and see I recorded interest for 3/31 and 6/30. Next ones should be on 9/30 and 12/31. I’ve had the accounts since 2017 and they have paid as expected every time. 4 times a year.
Thank you! Perfect. My Covid brain probably missed that in the fine print.
Did anyone get any interest in their savings accounts for these cards over the past month?
The interest is applied quarterly
New card https://www.hebdebit.com/: 6 APY for first 2k. Doesn’t count towards 5 cards limit with netspend.
I’ll update this post with this new info, but just an FYI, this card is hit or miss if you already have 5 netspend accounts. My account was initially opened, then immediately closed the next day. Customer service couldn’t help us, but I have to assume it’s got to do with the 5 Netspend cards I already have. Others have reported the same issue.
That being said, should make sense to open the HEB Debit Account instead of the HEB prepaid account for the higher interest and more high-yield space.
The exact same thing happened to me. I’ve had all 5 netspend cards for over a year now, and with this new heb debit account it was closed 2 days after I opened it. I never tried to link an account or transfer money over or anything.
where do you see that it does not count towards the 5 card limit ?
Dear Kevin,
Thank you so much for the great financial tip with the Netspend account. I just opened mine using your referral code and we have both already gotten our bonuses! One question, I also referred my sister who didn’t see a place to put the code (assuming it would maybe be on the next screen). Without realizing it, she completed the application without putting in a referral code. I tried to call Netspend but couldn’t get anyone. Do you know if she’ll be able to try it again and actually use the code?
Thanks!
Janice
And lesson learned…read all the comments before proceeding. After fully activating my first card, I attempted to sign up for the remaining four. No problems with the 2-4, but when I tried the 5th (the Netspend MLB card) it said it couldn’t be processed and now my original Netspend account is locked. I guess I should have just done one at a time…all the way through all the steps…before moving to the next.
It’s not hard for you to close them but I think why would you close.
Also a huge fan! I just stumbled upon Cashero, which offers 5% as well.
The reason FP says to be cautious is they obvious are not FDIC insured and are located in Estonia.
I can confirm that Wells Fargo and Discover online bank don’t work for connecting to Netspend/Metabank. Wells Fargo allows a connection with metabank but only for payments *to* Wells Fargo. I was on the phone with Discover and they don’t allow a connection to metabank. She just said it’s not compatible (on a list they keep of not compatible banks for external connections).
I got the Netspend card account set up no problem, but with every other card from netspend I got, the account was locked and customer service said there was evidence of fraud so no more cards for me. Somewhat annoying.
This happened for me too! Very annoying, time consuming
Does anyone know how to access the Netspend statement of accounts? I can log in, but I cannot locate my statements. It is as if they are hidden. I have not upgraded my account.
After logging into your Netspend account, do the following.
1. Click on “Account” icon in the left menu.
2. Scroll down till you see “Help and Support”. Click on it.
3. Click on “Statements”.
4. You can then select either your Prepaid account or Savings account.
5. Statements are organized by month per year.
Hope this helps 🙂
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I was able to access the statements thanks to you!
How do you close your DCU and Netspend accounts? There is no penalty for doing so, is there?
You can close them whenever – but why would you?
There is a new one called HEB Debit ( hebdebit.com ), not to be confused with the older HEB Prepaid. It says it has a 6% savings account on up to 2k. I don’t see any monthly fee (unlike the 6% netspend all-access, which does have a $5 monthly fee). Not sure what will happen when I try to activate it (already have 5 netspend cards). If I am unable to activate it, I’ll try to get them to close one my old cards for it.
Also there is a new 5% one, Control Card Prepaid ( https://www.mycontrolcard.com ). It is the typical netspend 5% savings account on up to 1k, similar to other netspend cards. It probably falls under the 5 netspend card limit too.
Not like the other Netspend cards. This one has a monthly fee that you cannot waive.
https://www.mycontrolcard.com/what-it-costs/
did you get the new heb card? how did the experience go?
Hi!
It looks like Ally allows to send $0.01. So you can send $0.01 every 2 months not $1.
Hi Kevin!
Huge fan! I just stumbled upon Cashero, which offers 5% as well. Have you heard of this?
Hey, never heard of it. I did a quick google search and looks like it’s not a bank or FDIC insured. I’d be hesitant.
I just recently opened the MLB account, activated the card after it arrived, linked the account to Ally, verified the two small deposits, and then transferred money to the card. After the transfer was complete I went to open the Savings account and transfer the money to it and the Savings Account option wasn’t available, as in I couldn’t find the option for it anywhere in the app or on the website. Called customer service and was told the MLB card does not have the option for a Savings account. Anyone else had this happen? I wonder if this is a new thing or if the customer service rep just didn’t know what they were talking about.
I ended up calling customer service back and apparently, as it turns out, I opened an MLB The Show Prepaid card instead of an MLB Pre-paid card. Go figure. Who knew there were two MLB cards. I’m in the process of transferring the money back to Ally and starting the MLB process over with the correct MLB card. Silly me.
Hi, does anyone know if I take money out of this account briefly (to hit a bank bonus), does that forfeit the interest for that quarter, or is it prorated? Thanks!
It’s just based on your average daily balance I believe.
I tried to follow you instructions to set up a netspend account.
The first problem I ran into was that the street space will not accept any entries – numbers or letters.
The second thing is I clicked on the “fees” link and there are a whole bunch of fees that are charged for everything – including $5.95 “inactivity fee” and a bunch of others.
Is your article out of date or what?
Thank you for your time – jim brown
I was able to open 4 accounts, but the 5th will not allow me too. Just started in April or so
@Steve / @FP, I was able to open Netspend, Ace Elite and Western Union. However, when I applied for H-E-B, everything seemed ok initially but the card never arrived. When I tried to login to online account, it gave me a message that the account was locked out and to call Customer Service. So I called them. That’s when a “supervisor” said that the Compliance Department had cancelled my account because of 3 “active” accounts limit.
Did you do something different than the instructions posted here? Did you run into any problems? I’d like to get the 4th (and the 5th!) account set up, if there is a way around this roadblock.
Thanks!
If you follow the instructions, there will be no fees.
Hey Jim,
No clue about your first issue – that sounds like a tech issue or something with your browser. Try a different browser or restart your computer.
You should also thoroughly read this post. There is literally an entire section that explains how to avoid the inactivity fee that you are worried about. This is not a post you skim – if you want to do this, you need to read all 5,000 words in this post.
It looks like Netspend will only allow me to open 3 “active” accounts 🙁 I just had a very long conversation with one of their supervisors and according to him, Netspend Compliance Department would close/lock out any additional accounts beyond 3 if they are associated with a single SSN. So, it looks like I will have to make do with the first 3 on Kevin’s list here (wish I had found this earlier, when you could open 5 or even 6 accounts!)
By the way, if anyone has faced this situation and figured out a workaround or a solution, please let me know. Thanks.
Looks like Brinks again has Savings account? please confirm.
https://www.brinksprepaidmastercard.com/#disclosures
9 The Savings Account is made available to Cardholders through Republic Bank & Trust Company; Member FDIC. To participate in the Savings Account program, Cardholder must consent to and continue receiving communications from us in electronic form. If Cardholder is subject to Internal Revenue Service backup withholding at the time of the request to open a Savings Account, the request will be declined. Interest is calculated on the Average Daily Balance(s) of the Savings Account and is paid quarterly.
If the Average Daily Balance is $1,000.00 or less, the interest rate paid on the entire balance will be 4.91% with an Annual Percentage Yield (APY) of 5.00%.
If the Average Daily Balance is more than $1,000.00, the interest rate paid on the portion of the Average Daily Balance which exceeds $1,000.00 will be 0.49% with an APY of 0.50%, and the interest paid on the portion of the Average Daily Balance which is $1,000.00 or less will be 4.91%. The APY for this tier will range from 5.00% to 0.54%, depending on the balance in the account.
Hi! I’m in the process of opening my accounts, currently finishing to fund the Ace Elite, and I encountered an issue with Discover Bank that I thought I should share here. I’ve just finished a long call with Discover customer support after having issues transferring from my account to the Ace Elite card. They themselves also didn’t understand what was going on because the linking had gone through the 2 small transactions verification without any issue, and the account had an “Active” status on their end. Turns out the reason why I couldn’t transfer money is that Discover Bank simply stopped authorizing transfers to any account held by Metabank, which serves as the backend for the Ace Elite card, as well as other Netspend cards I believe: unfortunate considering I’ve been a very satisfied Discover customer until now. Hopefully, I have accounts at other banks with whom I know I can schedule transfers to/from Metabank accounts, but you should all know that having a sole banking account at Discover Bank won’t make you able to set this up.
Things may have changed, but I believe Discover used to require external bank transfers to be of at least $20.
I followed these steps and things are working smoothly except for one issue with the MLB card. I activated the card and added it to my online bank, and the verification deposits successfully went through. However when I tried to transfer my final 1000, the transaction was canceled and the MLB account was suspended from my bank. They told me it was because the ABA number was invalid and the Federal Reserve rejected the transfer. I reached out to support on the MLB side over a week ago and heard nothing back. I noticed that all the other four accounts have the same routing number but this one was different. Any ideas?
I received an ACE Elite email today outlining changes to their cardholder agreement effective June 13th, including an account transfer limit. This could be problematic if you use these accounts as an emergency fund.
“Additionally, we added the following limits for Account-to-Account Transfers:
$1,500.00 Per day, incoming or outgoing; maximum of four (4) transfers.
$2,500.00 Per rolling seven (7) day period, incoming or outgoing; maximum of ten (10) transfers.
$3,500.00 Per rolling thirty (30) day period, incoming or outgoing; maximum of forty (40) transfers.”
Don’t think it means what you think. That’s only if you initiate from Netspend side which you would never do. ACH pull from external account and you can pull it all out at once.
You’re correct. Thank you for the correction.
Great to know! thanks!
Hey everyone, I found that One Finance is a pretty good substitute for transferring 1 cent to keep the Netspend accounts active and it can be set to once a month. One problem though is they don’t allow you to edit the account name so it’s more recognizable so I keep the last 4 digits in a bank account list document on my PC. The other cool thing I found is that it can transfer money right into the Savings account directly so I don’t have to transfer from the prepaid debit account when the funds come!
Thanks for the suggestion. Sometimes people have issues with linking to Ally or whatever other account they’re using, so can be nice to have a backup option.
Netspend won’t accept VPN’s – it’s against their TOS. That may be why you’re having trouble.
they allow you to have 6 savings accounts at 5% interest?
Hi Lynne – they allow you to have only five active debit cards, but they don’t limit the number of actual accounts you have with them.
This is fine with me since I don’t actually use the debit cards and just the savings accounts.
In my case – when I got my latest account, the WWE-branded one, they disabled my HEB debit card but I got to keep my HEB savings account.
Just curious, but if your HEB Debit Card is deactivated, how will they let you transfer money into, or out of, your Prepaid account (to avoid inactivity fees, withdrawing interest, etc.)?
Or, are you saying that only your actual card is deactivated so that you can’t swipe it anywhere, but your online access to both Prepaid and Savings accounts is still active?
In my case – the actual H-E-B debit card was deactivated from being able to swipe in person, but the associated Savings and Debit account remain accessible.
This is hit or miss whether you can get 6 savings accounts. I tried for 6 before and found that I couldn’t get the 6th one to activate. Some have pulled it off. I wasn’t able to. So, it’s not a guarantee you can do this. No harm trying though.
Agree, may be worth trying , but not guaranteed. As with most things in life, “your mileage may vary” 🙂
Is it possible to do the above setup with a Netspend WWE account? I couldn’t figure out if there is a savings account and how the fee schedule compares.
Hi Adam – yes its possible, and the WWE card is just like the rest of them.
I personally have the following setup:
– Netspend Visa Prepaid
– Western Union Prepaid
– ACE Elite Prepaid Debit
– H-E-B Prepaid
– Netspend Prepaid Mastercard [MLB]
– Netspend Prepaid Mastercard [WWE]
When I’m ready, I’m definitely getting the WWE card (only have Netspend right now and waiting on ACE). I want the Macho Man design.
How do you keep track of when your interest payments have been deposited to you account(s)? Does Anytime Alerts notify you via text message?
Easy! No matter when you sign up, interest is paid:
Jan 1st
April 1st
July 1st
Oct 1st
I just put it in my calendar.
Interest posts at the beginning of each quarter. It’s the same 4 days every year. Jan 1, Apr 1, July 1, Oct 1.
Question, is the interest is not paid on a monthly basis? For example if I have $1000 in the savings account, at the beginning of each quarter i’ll receive $5 or so?
Kevin,
First and foremost, thanks for this amazing website “Financial Panther” and the wealth of information. Really appreciate it! 👍🏾So onto business… I opened the first three accounts Netspend Prepaid, Ace Elite and Western Union yesterday one behind the other. Easy breezy! Each took 2 or 3 minutes and I used the same email address. Every account fully setup and didn’t activate any of them. Got to HEB ……🤦🏾♂️ that’s when the dreaded message came up about ” We Are Unable to Complete Your Request”! I used a VPN, went Incognito and used three different devices. No success whatsoever.🤦🏾♂️🤷🏾♂️ Since this is happening with multiple people, I’m not sure what the solution is. I’ll wait a few weeks and try again. It may be help for those opening new accounts to wait maybe a day or two between each card. Not sure if that will help. Thanks again!
Thanks Claud. Usually, I tell people to take it one card at a time too. And yeah, it can be hit or miss. Not sure why some people have issues with the last few cards.
You’re welcome Kevin. Thanks for the response back. So Kevin, I want to make sure I understand this clearly because I don’t want my friends or anyone else to make the silly mistake I did!🤦🏾♂️ When you say, “take it one card at a time”, do you mean apply for the first card (Netspend Prepaid), let the card arrive, activate it, create the savings account, fund it and then start the process all over again for the remaining four?🤔 The entire process for all five Netspend accounts could potentially take a few weeks depending on delivery time of the physical debit cards. I know most folks won’t care as long as they can get all five. I just want to make sure what I did, which was applying for all the accounts back-to-back in the same hour is not advised. Or maybe I was just one of those unfortunate few that could only get three accounts instead of five.🤷🏾♂️ Please clarify Kevin when you can.
Yes, I mean get each card fully activated before you move to the next one. Yes, it will take time. Patience.
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/iulzrt/mega_high_yield_savings_mysa_earn_26_on_limited/
Are any of these worth considering?
I have Service FCU and haven’t had any problems. I tried to get Blue FCU, but I was dinged for having too many bank accounts.
I’ve got a post with the other 3-5% options. Check it out here: Where To Get 5% Interest Savings Accounts Now That Insight Is Gone
I transferred 1k into my netspend savings account almost 2 months ago and have yet to get that $20 signup bonus. Does it usually take longer than that or did the referral link just not work?
I was not able to get the HEB prepaid card or the MLB one. I got an error that said unable to process your request when I just entered my name and address. Is anybody else having this issue? I was able to open the other 3.
I keep receiving an error message during the sign up process saying “we are unable to process your request at this time”. I am using the referral link. I have tried clearing cookies, using different browsers, changing the color of card selection, changing the direct deposit method.
Has anyone else experienced this?
I called Netspend and they said the only other way to apply for a card is at one of their retail partners (none of which are accessible to where I live)
Appreciate any insight
Hi! An update to step #5. I just had to figure this out so I thought I would share the solution I found.
For the instant transfer from Prepaid Card to Savings Account, NetSpend has seemingly made this less intuitive by burying the option, making it not so obvious how to do so.
1) Choose “Account” from left sidebar
2) Choose “Savings” under the Account Services category
3) Choose “Savings Transfers”
4) Choose “Instant Transfer”
5) From Prepaid to Savings
Hope this helps someone!
Jeremy, thank you so much for posting, your instructions were a lifesaver! I thought the savings option was gone!! I was trying every which way, and couldn’t figure it out so thank you so much for this update. It seems Netspend has updated yet again, so I thought I would share these extra couple steps as you did, in case this would be helpful to anyone. I now have my first account FINALLY set up!
1) Choose “Account from left sidebar
2) Click on “Savings” under Account Services
3) For me was “Enroll in Savings”
3A) Agree to the Savings Agreement
3B) W-9 Certification
3C) Enroll in Savings
3D) Fund My Savings Account
4) Select Instant Transfer
5) Move From Prepaid to Savings
6) Click Transfer Money
7) Confirm
Hello Everyone,
Simple bank is closing down and now I need a new bank to transfer funds to and from my nestspend accounts (automated).
Can I used a Fidelity cash management account?
Appreciate all suggestions!
Hey Adam, while Simple is closing, it’s converting to BBVA. I believe the account is still free and will still have the same account number and routing number. If you’re using it for automating your $1 in and out of your netspend accounts, I’d probably just leave it open to see if it still works.
BBVA I found wants $2-$3 fee to transfer via ACH. I am closing my account that transitioned with them because of that.
Has anyone gotten a 1099 from Netspend for the referral bonus (either as referrer or referree)? I have not and just wondering if this is typical.
I got my 1099 although for some reason, it’s way less than what I actually earned. Not sure why or how they even got the number they put on my 1099.
Just a heads-up to say two things:
1) Keep your address updated in the app
2) God help you if you ever need to contact customer service
I won’t delve too deeply into this, but I hadn’t checked on my Netspend accounts for quite some time, so I logged in recently to move the interest and update our address since we moved last year. Things went smoothly on most accounts, but when I tried my Ace Elite, it said it was locked and I needed to call CS. First agent told me it couldn’t be unlocked since the address they had (my old one) was no longer on my ID or any billing statement from the last 60 days. She pushed me to close the account, but after doing so told me they’d need to mail a check with the balance to the address on file — which was, of course, my OLD address. After TEN phone calls over two days (all to their CS hub which is clearly in India and staffed by undertrained reps who follow the same script), they supposedly updated my address and mailed a check after I verified some personal information and recent account transactions (why couldn’t they do that in the first place and keep the account open with my new address?). I still haven’t seen that check 10 days later, so I’m giving it until the end of the week before I get the CFPB involved. These accounts have been neat for earning high interest on money I wasn’t using, but I’m seriously considering draining them because of this experience.
Awesome instructions list, I really appreciate it. I create my first Netspend last week. Literally that night I checked my mail and received a Netspend ad card in the mail with my name. It’s a Mastercard. This week my actual Netspend card arrived and I successfully activated it. (It’s a VISA). Any clue what Netspend card this Mastercard falls under? The documents aren’t anything special and just say Netspend, not MLB, ACE, etc.
I’m not actually sure. Probably don’t activate it though and just stick to the ones you know are connected to your account.
Warning: Don’t ever have a third-party FAX NetSpend (even with a release form signed by you) to verify your financial information. I did that recently, and then after I applied for a Porte account, NetSpend permanently closed all five of my NetSpend accounts as well as my new Porte account (which had just been approved). They put a notation on my accounts that that they cannot be reopened and that I’m not eligible for any future NetSpend accounts. What happened to me may never happen to you, but I would suggest that before you open a Porte account you call NetSpend and, as discreetly as you can, ask if there are any concerning notations on any of your NetSpend accounts.
Kevin,
I am in the process of following your process for setting up the Netspend / 5% accounts.
For my Ally checking and savings account regarding my spouse’s accounts I was able to add 1 service credit union, 1 DCU, and then I started the Netspend accounts. I was able to add 3 Netspend accounts and transfer but on the 4 Netspend western union the transfer got suspended. The reason the rep stated is that you can only transfer to accounts you own unless you have a joint account. Not a big issue but now I have to fill out a form, return it and she can be added to the account within 5 business days. Then she will have to have her own login and initiate the transfer. This might add some additional steps to your Netspend article. Maybe include when setting up an Ally account adding a joint account from the beginning? Jus scrolling up from the most recent comments looks like someone else had this issue.
Ally bank is asking for a copy of my monthly statement from Netspend. I don’t see where I can access it. Anyone able to point me in the right direction? Thanks!
If you call NetSpend, they will email you any statements you want. One rep can email you statements for all of your NetSpend accounts. You just have to give the rep each of your card numbers and verify your identity for each card. Be careful to give the rep the email address that they have on file for you. If you give them a different email address, you won’t be able to receive any statements by email for a period of time.
Something strange has happened. I used to be able to find the statements online. They have disappeared now.
Hey Financial Panther,
I am considering doing the netspend thing, but I found out that I can get 3% APY on up to 15,000 with Porte. That’s a difference of $100 a year on 5k. Do you think it’s worth it to have the added complexity of netspend for $100 a year? Over 5 years that would add up to $500, which isn’t nothing, but I’m wondering if it’s worth it. Would love your opinion on the matter.
Thanks!
I’m not FP, but I wanted to chime in. Only you can decide this. For my part, it’s worth it. I have 10 Netspend accounts (5 mine, 5 wife’s), and once you set them up they require almost no time or management. I honestly probably haven’t even checked in on mine in over a year — or longer. You open them, transfer the $1000 to the savings account, set up a $1 auto-transfer every 3 months to avoid fees, then know your money is safe and earning 5%. I also have an HM Bradley account that earns 3%, and I’m not even thinking of shutting down Netspend. They’re really on autopilot until I need that money for an emergency or something.
Thanks for the input. But don’t you check it quarterly to withdraw the interest?
Nope, I’m too lazy even for that, lol! I’m in it for the $10,000 earning 5% interest — or roughly $50/card per year. I can’t be bothered to log-in to 10 accounts every few months to pull out $13 from each. Maybe annually if I remember. I don’t want a thousand dollars sitting in there earning no interest, but a couple hundred seems no big deal to me. Each their own, though! Good luck!
I use too withdraw every quarter, but now I just let it sit their until next tax season when I’m validating interest earned. You do still earn interest on above 1,000 but its very small and I don’t remember.
Hey Shane,
Outside of the initial setup, the Netspend accounts run themselves. I spend 5 minutes per quarter moving the interest out of my accounts. Everything else is automated. If you wanted to, you could easily check on it once per year or never if you wanted. In terms of complexity, I don’t think it really adds any, especially when you think of the Netspend accounts as one big pool of money.
Thanks for the response FP. I already got my netspend card in the mail, so why not try it out. I just started the process for linking my normal bank account to the card. And I used your referral 🙂
I got this email after the verification deposits were made from Ally to Netspend:
An ACH debit payment is currently pending on your Card Account. An ACH debit is generally a request from a biller to send a payment using your Routing Number and Account Number.
The payment has not been debited from your Card Account due to an issue with the payment and/or your Card Account.
This ACH debit request is scheduled to be returned by 5 PM Central Time on 02/16/2021. This means your ACH transaction will not be made.
Ally suspended my ability to make transfers and told me I need to contact Netspend.
What might be the issue?
This happened to me, and the issue wound up being because even though me and my husband were both co-owners of the saving’s account I using to find the Netspend account with, I had used his account log in details to transfer the money to my accounts. The transfer was denied. I had to create a log in just for me through our saving’s bank’s website, and then from there, transfer the money. So my issue was one of attempting to transferr money from an account log in that only had my husband’s name attached. And metabank, which is the bank of Netspend, will not allows transfers into the account without the owner of the Netspend accounts also being the one on the account which is doing the transferring……and it also could have been the other way around…perhaps it was my saving’s bank who denied the transfer due to the discrepancy. Either way, that was the reason. I hope you find out what it was. Can you call metabank or your home bank to find out the exact cause?
Anyone know if you are allowed to combine the 5x 1099-INTs from Metabank on your taxes? Like list it as Metabank $245 instead of 5 different Metabank $49 ?
Netspend website…when I enter my information and click get card, I don’t see any confirmation that my information has been accepted and processed. Should I be looking for a confirmation, or just wait on the card to come?
It’s been a while since I last ordered a card so I don’t remember if there’s a confirmation screen. Probably just hang tight.
where do I go to apply for the Ace Elite Prepaid Debit Card
Western Union Prepaid Debit
H-E-B Prepaid Debit Card
Brinks Prepaid Mastercard Netspend MLB Prepaid Debit Card?
There isn’t a link leading to those cards in the article is there?
How come you add/link your Netspend account to Ally as a checking account? Isn’t it a savings account?
Does it take time for the test deposits to show up on my Netspend account? To clarify my own previous qeustion, your prepaid card/initial account is a checking account but the 5% savings account is activated after you verify deposits and make a transfer correct?
Correct. Once you move money onto the card, the 5% account will be activated.
Netspend gives you two accounts–one checking and one savings. Savings is the only one that earns interest, but Checking is the only one you can actually link to other banks.
So, you link your bank to the Netspend checking account. Once your money’s in the checking account, you immediately move it to the savings account. Never actually leave any money in the checking account–it won’t earn anything.
But remember: Only use your bank’s website when moving money in/out of Netspend. The ONLY time you move money with the Netspend account is to move it between Netspend checking(debit) and Netspend savings.
Otherwise, they will charge you a fee.
Think of the Checking(debit) account as a lobby. It doesn’t do anything, but you have to go THROUGH it to get to the building.
You’re linking the card to Ally and the card is more like a checking account.
Has anyone received a 1099-INT tax form for 2020? This will be my first year to receive them from the 5 prepaid accounts, and I’m wondering when they are normally mailed. Thanks.
I received them all a couple days ago. They all came at once.
I liiiiiiterally just came inside from getting them all in the mail. Five from all the pre-paid debit cards and one from DCU. I then opened my email and saw your question. 🙂
I received all of them on the same day. Remember, the banks are Metabank or Axos. The 1099-INT will have your account number on it, so you can cross-reference if you need to.
Is there an activity requiement for DCU and is there an automated deposit feature, as well?
Nope. It’s a free account, so open it, put in the $1,000, and forget about it.
I used your referral code and transferred money. How long does it normally take for the referral bonus to post after the initial deposit?
I think it’s usually pretty quick.
You said you got approved immediately for a DCU account, but mine asked me for my Social Security card. Seems like many people in the comments are uncomfortable with sending that. Thoughts?
I wouldn’t be concerned. It’s just an identity verification thing. DCU is a federal credit union chartered under the Federal Credit Union Act and governed by the National Credit Union Administration, which is a federal agency. You don’t have anything to worry about.
How do you keep track of or get notified when a certain credit union or account’s interest rate gets lowered?
Usually, they’ll let you know (they might even have to let you know). Otherwise, you just have to sort of pay attention.
There are more prepaid cards out there who give you 4.71% interest (the stated ‘5% interest’ here is wrong, it is 5% APY).
But I wont tell anybody, all you would to is talk it dead.
My wife and I have 14 prepaid cards in total (7 each), each with a savings account of a $1,000 balance. Am working on card number 8 for myself now.
We would really appreciate if you can share the other prepaid cards that offer 5% APY besides the ones discussed here.
Thanks.
I signed up for a Netspend account, never got around to setting everything up, was mailed a Netspend All-Access card, and am setting that up now. Looks like the savings account on All-Access is 6% of up to $2000. Any catches I’m missing here?
“If the Average Daily Balance is $2,000.00 or less, the interest rate paid on the entire balance will be 5.87% with an annual percentage yield (APY) of 6.00%.”
https://www.netspend.com/bank-account/
Check out the deposit account agreement under the green sign up button….you will see that the All Access service is $5 a month. That may impact whether or not you think that it’s worth signing up for.
Thank you, Daisy! I completely missed that. Cancelled the account just now.
No the monthly fee is actually $4.95. But you would still earn $60.60 subtracting the monthly fee. $120 a year interest – $59.40 (monthly fees) = $60.60 with $2000.
Great information!
Do you have a referral code for your DCU account? If so, they have a $20 bonus.
Thanks!
IIRC that bonus isn’t for the 6% savings. IIRC it’s for loans/checking. I know savings won’t get it because I was going to refer my wife.
Hey, I don’t have a referral. I never opened the checking account so I don’t think I have a referral.
Thanks! Sorry I didn’t read enough if the “fine print” at the site.
I finally got to step 6 in your process with the first debit card. So we both got the $20 bonus.
I started applying for the other debit cards and ran into a bit of trouble with the Ghostery plug-in on Firefox. I got all the way to the “get your card” and the website just spun endlessly. I paused Ghostery, refreshed the page and reapplied successfully.
The only issue I had after that was applying for the MLB card – it said “unable to process your request at this time.” Not sure what the issue might be, but the link went to the NetSpend website where I already have an account. Should I try the “open in an incognito window” trick?
Does the HEB card still offer the 5% savings option? It’s the only one of the 5 suggested cards that doesn’t mention it on the sign-up/splash screen?
No sense in applying for that one if they removed the savings account option.
I haven’t heard anything about the 5% going away on that card.
Soon it will if you all don’t stop jecking about it all the time.
Just shut up and enjoy it.
Hi Kevin, I just activated my husbands first card and currently awaiting the trial deposits. Question, I will be using an Ally joint acct. I am the primary. Do you think there will be a problem depositing the $1k into his card? Should I be doing it from an Ally account that is only in his name?
I think probably not, but I’m not sure as I don’t have a joint ally account. My thought with these is to always do what you can to avoid any issues, so I’d probably lean towards have him create his own Ally checking account, then move the money there and then onto the card.
Okay, thank you. I already started the linking process and hopefully, that won’t cause any issues. And if it does, I’ll try again with his own acct.
Hey Rhonda – my husband and I also have a joint Ally account, which we’ve used for all out Netspends. Unless something’s changed, you should be good to use that for all of them, provided you respectively have your own 5 Netspends.
I ran into problems and it has been a headache. I opened up a Netspend under my husband’s name. I did not know that the link and transfer had to be done while logged into my husband’s Ally profile. I thought that since we had a joint account, I could just do it. Our external transfer service got suspended 4x’s. Four times! Even though I only did the attempt once. I had to explain on four different occasions the same issue over again. LOL I love you Ally and appreciate the security but that was annoying. I ended up using another bank account which charged me a $1 transfer fee but everything went smoothly.
FYI, I had an issue with this… that is, depositing $ from Ally to Netspend with a joint Ally account. When putting in the transfer into my wife’s Netspend PPDC, Netspend blocked it (and locked my account) when i transferred from ‘my’ Ally account – even though it is a joint account, since i logged in it recognized the transfer as coming from me.
SO – when you are transferring into a PPDC in your name, make sure you login to Ally with your name when you setup the transfer. When transferring to a PPDc in your husbands name, have him login to Ally. Good luck!
T-Mobile Money requires you to be a customer to receive 4%. At least that what it says on their website
https://www.t-mobilemoney.com/en/home.html
Porte’s app won’t even let me get past the Password Selection page of their application. I hate to be an old person, but I absolutely do not trust app-only banks that don’t even have a website. I’ve tried two (Porte and Varo) and had major problems with both.
Hey guys,
I just opened a Porte acct. I tried linking it to my Schwab acct but I’m getting a routing number error. Do you guys have any issue linking this Porte acct with your other banks?
Haven’t tried this card myself yet, but looks like Netspend has a new card called “Porte” ( https://www.portebanking.com ). It has a 3% savings account on up to 15k, just need to DD $1,000 to unlock it. Not sure if it is a 1 time DD like other Netspend cards, or if it is a monthly requirement.
I am guessing it will share the same hard 5 card limit that other Netspend branded cards are on, but maybe someone can be the guinea pig on this and let us know 🙂
Hi Philipe – I’ve signed up for it and, like my Netspend prepaid cards, am using the high-yield savings account. You’re correct about the $1K DD unlocking the savings account, and its only requires you to sign up once.
The direct deposit doesn’t need to come from your employer either – I was able to push a $1K ACH transfer from Navy FCU, and it counted.
I’ve got six active Netspend accounts and was able to activate the Porte debit card without issue.
How do you have a 6th Netspend account?
Thanks! I’ll look into Porte, although Kevin’s “bad experience” makes me nervous.
I hate to be that guy, but everywhere on the internet says port requires an ACH of $1,000 PER MONTH. Yet a few people on Financial Panther have said it’s just once. Are we SURE it doesn’t have to be monthly?
I dont think it needs to be monthly. My savings account was opened once I did $1000 ACH into it and it looks like it’s a 3% account. My bad experience wasn’t that bad other than (1) they locked my account and it was sort of annoying to get it unlocked, and (2) I never got my referral bonus even though I met all the conditions.
I opened a Porte account. However, I had a bad initial experience which makes me wary to use it. Two things that made me unhappy. First, my account got locked for “suspicious activity”, then it took me some time to get my account unlocked. Customer service was fine, but they kept unlocking it, then it’d just immediately get locked again.
Second thing, I used a referral link for a $50 bonus and met all the requirements. They never paid me though. My friends and family I referred also didn’t get their bonus. So, that does not make me happy either.
Hi Kevin – yeah I signed up for Porte last month, met the requirements and still haven’t gotten the $50 bonus. Some readers on Doctor of Credit have speculated that customers who have prior Netspend Accounts may be ineligible – which is pretty lame.
Thanks for the great info. The 5 cards went slowly but smoothly. DCU and HM Bradley accounts also in place. It is a bit annoying that I seem to be limited to transferring $2,500 at a time in or out of HM Bradley, and I am considering moving from my credit union, but this was tremendously helpful and much appreciated. Maybe I will test a 6th card down the road.
Use a bank account like Ally and link it to HMBradly. If you do an external pull, you can pull out as much as you want at once.
Hi! Is the interest rate 3% for Porte?
Yes. But you must also deposit at least $1,000 each month to qualify.
You don’t have to do 1k each month. You just need to do 1k one time to activate the 3% savings account.
Note, I had a bad experience with Porte and have little faith in it. Not comfortable at all tying up any money in that account at the moment.
For 3% accounts, I’ve been using HMBradley.
Other than Ally for regular banking and HM Bradley for 3%, do you have a list of your favourite high-interest banks? Even if they aren’t as high as 5%?
P.S. Thanks so much for this article!! Two weeks ago was my first interest payment!
Right now, I have my emergency fund in the following:
10 total netspend accounts (5 for me, 5 for my wife).
2 DCU accounts (1 for me, 1 for my wife; I heard I might be able to open one for my son too, so I might do that also).
2 Service Credit Union accounts (1 for me, 1 for my wife)
1 St. Mary’s Bank account (currently trying to open 1 for my wife as well).
I have this post here that lists all the 5% interest accounts. I think I’ll write an updated post that organizes this info a little bit more.
I think I missed the St. Mary’s one. What is the interest rate?
It has a 5% interest rate on the first $500. Currently there’s a $100 bonus promotion going on as well, which makes opening this account more attractive. There are reports that some people that aren’t local to the credit union are getting denied, but I’m not local and opened it with no problem. So, your mileage may vary.
Hi Michael – I’ve been using Evansville Teacher’s FCU / ETFCU as my primary checking since May 2020 and it’s been a good experience so far. Can qualify for a membership with a one time $5 donation to a school they sponsor. Requires 12 debit card transactions and one ACH deposit per month, but they pay out 3.3% APY up to 20k and they haven’t dropped their rates… yet…
Has anyone had an issue with any of the banks wanting to verify your identity?
My current Western Union account is locked (was unable to log in) so when i called they said that i have to provide some documentation – a government issued ID and proof of address. Sent those, and now they’re asking me to email a copy of my social security card! Sounds so scammy… Frankly it doesn’t matter if it was Wells Fargo, i wouldn’t email my SSN card to anyone…
Any advice is helpful, thank you!
I would not do that! It definitely sounds like a scam. Did you check the email address? Maybe it is not even from the bank in the first place. The bank has other ways to confirm identity, but I have NEVER had a bank ask me for my SS card.
For anyone who hasn’t gone through the above process – i want to make sure you know that this plan (using PPDC’s to get 5% interest) is NOT a scam. It works, i’m just having difficulties with this one account. I’ll update once Western Union gets back to me!
Odd. No, I haven’t seen that. The registration of all 5 cards worked fine for me.
Thanks for sharing this Kevin!
– I followed your steps and applied for and funded five Netspend accounts over the course of the last year, along with a DCU Savings Account.
– I noticed a couple weeks ago there was a new “flavor” of Netspend Prepaid Cards branded for WWE, and decided to go for it just to see what would happen:
– Application went through without a hitch, the online account setup went the same as the Netspend Original, HEB, and MLB cards
– Upon receiving the card on Friday, I attempted to activate it and got a pop-up that read “To resolve an issue with your card account, please call customer service at 1-866-387-7363.”
– I talked to the CSR who told me that if I wanted to activate my WWE card, I’d have to disable one of the five other cards.
She suggested deactivating the HEB card. I agreed and she unlocked access to my WWE account, which I confirmed while she was still on the phone.
– Today I successfully funded my WWE Savings account, and I still have access to both my HEB Savings/Spend account through the website/app, just can’t use the HEB debit card. Since I live in California, this didn’t bother me as there aren’t any HEB stores nearby.
This worked out for me (so far), but as with many things – Your Mileage May Vary.
Chris
Interesting. I’ve never had success getting a 6th Netspend account, but nice job.
I had the same issue. I had to call and they deactivated one of my other debit cards so they could activate the card for the new account. I have 6 Netspend accounts as well. The limit must be a Netspend thing because I’m now seeing MetaBank as a backing bank for more online only banks unless MetaBank has recently changed their policy.
Yup – recently got a Porte Bank Prepaid debit card, making that seven total MetaBank-backed high-yield savings accounts I actively use
Just curious but you can still move funds through the card in or out of the HEB account (i.e. $1 amount moved in and interest moved to your connected bank account(s))?
Hi lil – yes, I still have full access to ACH in and out of the H-E-B spend account, just can’t use the debit card (of which I never used anyway).
great! thanks! am skipping porte but i just discovered that tmobile doesn’t require you to be a customer to get 4% on the first $3000, plus 1% for amounts over $3000.
They don’t?
you have to set up a tmobile id if you don’t have one, and to get the rate you DO have to transfer $200/month into the account (did not say DD). But I imagine you can transfer it back out periodically. so giving it a whirl. just linked the account and transferred funds and will set up a recurring transfer into it.
I just checked their site:
Plus, T-Mobile wireless customers with an eligible postpaid plan who register for perks and deposit at least $200 a month earn 4.00% APY* on balances up to $3,000 and 1.00% APY after that.
Hi everyone, I was about to open an account with H-E-B, but I cannot see that H-E-B still offers a 5% savings account. Perhaps this was changed recently? Can anyone else confirm this by looking at their site? If so, I hope all of you with an H-E-B card are still able to get 5%! Thank you.
They do. I did the $5 bonus for depositing a $100 min check using code ‘Promo5’.
The only sucky part is they sit on the deposit for 10 days, but hey, 5% in 10 days…
I have the HEB card.
Here’s a unique thing about it: you can use the Cash Card (https://cash.app/app/VTWFXHX) to add money at HEB for a 10% discount using the Cash Card ‘Boost’ feature. Which in itself is worth it as they have saved me a ton buying gift cards, reloading my Arch Card (that was 50% off), etc.
When you reload at the store, HEB also does not charge you a reload fee.
Scenario: You activate the 10% boost on the Cash App. (10% off up to $75) and reload your debit card with $75. It only costs you $67.50 to do it. And the 10% is applied immediately. You just made $7.50 in a few minutes.
Further: refer the spouse and you both do it. Plus you get referral bonuses.
Alternately, use the 10% off for groceries but if you don’t need $75 in groceries, put the difference on the debit card or buy a gift card.
A step further: sometimes HEB gives a bonus HEB gift card when you buy $50 of certain gift cards.
I’ve actually got a video series I’m doing on Cash App, Fuze, and gift card tricks. 🙂
I’m just calling the playlist ‘Money’ but there’s also a Fuze specific one.
Hey thanks!
You’re delightful.
DELIGHTFUL!
Dear Kevin,
You are awesome!! This was exactly the type of thing I was looking for!
And talk about CLEAR instructions! I see why you warn not to take the steps too quickly. It’s hard to get excited about such a great scheme and then have to wait a week for the card, 3 days for the micro transactions and 3 more days for money to move. I am presently Philip J. Fry. Shut up and take my money!
Anyhoodle, once the FIRST Netspend account is all set up and the bonus $20 finally hits, can I then sign up for all four other accounts AT THE SAME TIME? Or do I still need to go in order?
Or should I learn to be more patient in general?
You rock,
Michael Ottinger
Hey Michael,
I still recommend signing up one by one. That’s how I did it and it’s how I avoided any problems.
You can sign up for DCU right away though if you’re itching to get moving. Get yourself another $1000 at 6.17% without any hassle. There’s also another account called Service Credit Union that can get you some more 5% space that you can sign up for. I wrote about it in this post: Where To Get 5% Interest Accounts
I just transferred $1000 into the netspend savings account. I received $20 for using Kevin’s referral link. I made the external transfer into netspend using a Discover Savings account. 2 small verification deposits were needed for account verification…no issueswith that. I did initially transfer money from my joint discover savings to my netspend account using my husband’s log in details….we each have our own log in details to get into the same account….and it was rejected. I had to go into our account using my log in details to get the transfer done. I just thought since both our names were on the account it would work no matter whose log in details were used, but that was not the case.
In the savings account agreement, it does state that if at any time you opt out of receiving electronic communications, they will close your savings account. They also reserve the righ to require a 7 day notice before making a withdrawal from savings……..things to know.
I am now at the process of awaiting verification via trial deposits. I have a savings with Discover Bank that I am able to link over 10 external accounts to. It is to my knowledge that I can make no more than 6 external transfers a month, so I can still avoid the inactivity fee by scheduling the $1 transfer to the card and then into savings and not worry about exceeding the monthly outbound transfer limit each month. I am bit worried about the trial deposits posing a problem, but in the event that happens I will just go with Ally. Not really interested in adding yet another bank account to my many number of bank accounts, but I suppose there won’t really be an alternative aside from Simple Bank. I will let you know how it goes with the Discover Savings Account transfer.
A good guide, but with many flaws.
E.g. Insight is still offering 5% on their savings (read the instructions/Terms & Conditions), but you have to purchase their black colored card in a retail store and activate it there. I cancelled my original Insight account and did just that, and am earning 5%.
One other thing that I experienced is that Netspend did not allow me to activate a 5th card. Once I finally got a hold of a representative (who legally spoke English but was extremely hard to understand), he told me that they would have to deactivate one of the 4 other accounts in order to do so.
As he was unable to explain what consequences this would have, I declined and am sticking with my 4 accounts.
Where did you find the insight black card in store. I have been to numerous stores, cash checking places but havent found one yet. Where did you find it?
It means on one of your Netspend accounts you have more than one card attached. It needs to be removed or deactivated.
I ran into that issue because I walked into a H-E-B store to get the card which is a temporary card. Then they sent one through mail and both were on account.
I ended up closing the account and a week later calling saying my card not working. They replied it was closed. I said then there was miscommunication. They reopened the account and only one card was sent out. It’s been a long time so I think this is how I ran into that issue.
Netspend also tries to send upgrade cards so it’s possible one of those is causing your 5th issue. You need to get any additional activated cards on an single account removed/deactivated.
Maybe reporting the 2nd card lost Online or something will work versus trying to do what I did going through customer service closing and then reopening. Messing with customer service just blows. I’ve had to call them off and on to unlock accounts etc.
It’s really a pain for single 1k accounts.
Warm Regards
I called Insight and the representative said the black Insight card is only sold at certain stores and the interest rate for the savings account is 1% right now. Not sure it is worth it to open an account in store for 1% since their rates are dropping just like regular banks. Who knows when or if it will go back to 5% or if the rate will go lower than 1%.
If anyone is interested, you can call 1-888-796-1516 and speak to a representative. You can give them different zip codes near you to locate a retail store that sells the black Insight card. If you don’t have an account with them, it costs nothing. If you do have an account with them, they do charge a fee ($1 I think).
FWIW I just tried netspend.com, was able to login (with a text-message code), everything worked for me.
Thanks, good to know.
I don’t have any accounts yet, I’m trying to sign up for one but can’t get past the first page.
Just wondering if anyone else has the same issue during sign up. I even tried signing up without the referral link and it still wouldn’t proceed.
Is the Netspend site down or something?
I’ve tried using the referral link over several days on several devices and the page just hangs after I click “get my card” (loading icon just stays forever without proceeding).
Try incognito mode perhaps? That’s my go-to solution when there’s a website problem.
I tried that on both my phone and laptop, nothing seems to work (both Chrome and Firefox private browsing). It just hangs. It happened a couple days ago when I first tried and I’m still having the same problem today.
Whoops – looks like I opened them to fast and now my accounts are locked 🙁 Be careful!
I don’t think they are limiting accounts based on address. I just ordered my 5th card (accidentally ordered another Netspend instead of MLB Netspend). Each of my accounts has a different username and I used one email address for the first three cards and a different email address for the last two cards.
Yep, I have it, the 7 WD/month requirement includes bill pay which gets me to 7 easy. There’s also a $50 bonus if you keep it open 90 days etc.
I’m sure they can reduce that rate (like any bank), but right now there are a LOT of places to get more than that for pretty large amounts of savings. A few examples that I personally am using: https://www.varomoney.com/savings-account/ (1.21% unlimited), https://www.presidential.com/ (2.25% to 10k then 1.25% unlimited), https://www.t-mobilemoney.com/en/home.html (4% up to 3k, then 1% unlimited).
Wow, I haven’t heard of Presidential. 2.25% on up to 25k sounds good. But it does require a direct deposit (anyone know if Airbnb qualifies?) and at least 7 withdrawals. Obviously designed to get people to use the account rather than park money in it. Do you have this account? How do you manage the seven monthly withdrawals? Just ACH transfers back and forth?
Sure I have accounts that pay 2.02% today(GM right notes not FDIC insured) but rates are dropping like a stone. That Presidential account looks interesting though. Reminds me of a rewards checking account. I’m sure they could reduce the rate but when have any of the prepaid debit cards ever done that? That was my point it’s very unlikely that interest rates will change on these accounts and very likely that rates will be going lower on all others.
To each his own I guess, but I figure why not get higher interest when you very easily can? It takes me less than 30 minutes to open an acct at a new online bank, and it’s almost effortless to ACH money around these days so if you’re willing to keep track of things you can make a lot more than .5%. By the way all of my accts are FDIC insured, personally wouldn’t bank without it.
@Kieth: Right agreed I’m not moving any cash into the Netspend accounts as long as I can beat .5% anywhere. I was just thinking ahead have you not noticed rates dropping like a rock everywhere. By next month the top rate could be 1% or less on the top MMA/savings account. Another interesting account is Affinity plus FCU 2.02% on up to $25,000 but .75% on everything else. only requires a direct deposit of $500 and a one time $25 fee to join. Less hoops than Presidential. I think I may get that account next.
Sly I think you are incorrect. It is an even 2% up to $2,500, NOT $25k. Then 0.10% on every amount higher than that. That is their Smart Start Savings account. Not worth it IMO.
Note that T-Mobile Money only gives 4% if your phone service is with T-Mobile. Definitely a must use if you’re a T-Mobile customer. Unfortunately, I have Verizon, so can’t use it.
With interest rates in regular savings/MMA accounts quickly approaching 0% in a race to the bottom it got me thinking about the Netspend savings base interest rate above $1,000. While .5% does not seem like a great rate today things could quickly change. What if in 6 months or a year the highest yielding accounts only pay .45% or .25%? What if the FED takes rates negative? To that end I was just curious as to what the cap is on the Netspend savings account if anyone knows? I like to plan ahead in the event of a worst case scenario.
Is there any fraud protection? If I open one of these accounts and a bad actor gets in and charges stuff to the prepaid debit card, am I out of luck?
The bank account is FDIC insured, so nothing to worry about there. The fraud protection on the prepaid debit cards is about the same as a normal debit card. But, because you will never use the card for anything and it’ll just sit in a sock drawer in your house, there’s almost no way anyone can card numbers can get exposed. So, I wouldn’t worry too much about fraud.
I recently got my first netspend card activated and setup for 5% on 1000$.
I am unable to link the card to Personal Capital though. Its been a few days now but the PC keeps saying that there is some issue with the website and should resolve automatically in a few days.
I was able to link it to Mint without issues.
Anyone having or had issues with PC and NetSpend, please advise.
I was finally able to link my NetSpend account to Personal Capital, but it only shows the card account, nothing from the attached savings account shows up in PC.
Kevin, please confirm personal capital can show the details from savings account attached to the netspend card? If not, do you manually maintain it in PC? please advise.
Thanks.
I’ve never linked Netspend to Personal Capital. Personally, I wouldn’t bother with linking.
That’s surprising but maybe something’s changed. I forgot to mention that I used a different email for each account, adding ns, wu, ae, heb, mlb to the end of my regular gmail.
Looks like there is now a limit of only three accounts? I was going down the list and had no issues opening the first three but now when I try to do the H-E-B and MLB ones I get a message that they can not be processed. Anyone else running into this? Any way to get around this and get all five accounts?
Hmm…this is concerning. I know that one of the reasons I’ve always done these five different accounts was because the first three (Netspend, Ace, Western Union) use MetaBank as the bank holding company. The last two (H-E-B and Brinks) used Axos Bank. My understanding was that it was a limit of three accounts per bank, which is why you had to do 3 with Metabank and the other 2 with Axos. Recently, H-E-B switched over to Metabank. And then Brinks stopped working, hence the switch to MLB, which apparently also uses Metabank. I’m not sure if this 3 limit rule actually applies because I know others have opened all 5. If anyone has any datapoints, please share.
I have 5 accounts all at Metabank (Netspend, AE, WU, HEB, MLB). @Michelle please note my earlier comment about browser/cookies — it looks like the accounts can interfere with each other during setup, so using a different computer and/or private mode might solve your issue.
Thanks for the datapoint Keith. I’ll add this info to the post.
Thanks for the info but unfortunately that did not help. I did private mode, used a different device and even tried using a different email at sign-up in case that was triggering it. I guess three accounts are still better than none. I’ll probably try again in a few weeks.
Same here. Three so far only.
At what setup step are you getting stuck? I just ordered my HEB card today. I used a different web browser in private mode and used a different email account than the first three cards. So far so good.
I was able to get the first 3 also, but could not get the next 2. Also, I referred my spouse and could not get her accounts. I went incognito, but no help. I wonder if they are limiting accounts to the same address.
I don’t think they are limiting accounts based on address. I just ordered my 5th card (accidentally ordered another Netspend instead of MLB Netspend) and I’m waiting for it to come in the mail. Each of my accounts has a different username and I used one email address for the first three cards and a different email address for the last two cards.
Not sure I can help much, I just opened the 5th one today (WU). They all worked for me.
I have three NS accounts I applied for directly from the NS website, and all three are paying 5% on the savings. Has anyone tried to hit the five per user limit going through NS alone?
I haven’t, but if you do it, let us know how it goes.
I wonder if Astra could be used to automate the $1 transfers to avoid the inactivity fee?
https://astra.finance/
Not shilling for Astra, just looks like a possible solution.
Also used your referral for the first Netspend card.
Hasn’t arrived in the mail yet, but looking forward to the whole process 🙂
Very good tutorial you have here.
Thank you
Thanks DT. Interesting, never even thought about Astra for automating the $1 transfer. It looks like you can link some of the Netspend flavors to Astra, so this could be possible for at least some of the Netspend cards.
Hi! Thanks for posting this, I’m excited to get everything set up. I successfully set up Netspend and Ace Elite as external transfer accounts in Ally, but Ally is not recognizing the routing number for the Western Union card.
I’ve quadruple checked the routing number and it’s correct. I receive the following error “The routing number is invalid or not supported. Please check the routing number you have entered or enter a different routing number.”
I tried setting up an account with Simple, but was not approved. The automated message says they cannot say why it was declined.
What should I do? Try to add the WU card to Ally again later? Any recommendations for other banks since I couldn’t sign up for Simple? My credit is not great.
Hmm…not sure why that’s happening. Try this:
Open an account with Chime. 100% free bank, no fees, no minimums. Never heard of anyone not being able to open a Chime account before. I think it’s a good bank account. I actually use it for all my side hustle income. If you use my referral and do a deposit from another bank into Chime of $200 or more, you get $50 also.
Then, with Chime, you can link your Western Union card to it. The only issue is that Western Union doesn’t appear on the bank list when you try to link with Chime. BUT, Netspend does appear. If you add Netspend, then enter your Western Union log-in info, it’ll work.
From there, you should be able to put money onto your Western Union card via the Chime bank account. Only issue is that Chime, as far as I’m aware, doesn’t have the ability to do scheduled transfers, so you’ll need to figure out another way to avoid that 90 day inactivity fee on the Netspend accounts.
Let me know if that makes sense.
OMG, I funded my account on March 30. On March 31, I got like $0.27 from 30-31. I check it today (May 13) and there is no interest earn through April. What’s wrong with my account. Please help!
Netspend pays interest quarterly. You get paid the interest on January 1st, April 1st, July 1st, and October 1st.
It’s quarterly. I’m so dumb, please delete my post 😛
No, don’t delete this post! Other people will have the same issue! [glances away] …asking for a friend…
I’m glad your post was not deleted! Don’t ask me why I feel that way… 😂
About the way to avoid inactivity fee, you say, “Netspend doesn’t count withdrawal as an activity, so we’ll need to set up an automatic tranfer of $1 onto the debit card”, but their fee schedule says differently about the inactivity fee, “inactivity fee applies if the card account has no activity, i.e. no purchases, no cash withdrawals, no load transactions”. Are you sure the ACH transfer of $1 onto the debit card will waive the inactivity fee?
I don’t remember exactly, but I think I always assumed that the withdrawals didn’t count as activity. The way I see it, it’s easy enough to automate the $1 transfer anyway, so I’d rather just be safe than sorry.
After the automatic transfer of $1 onto the debit card, can I transfer it from the debit card to the 5% interest savings account, or transfer back to my external bank account?
Is it ok for the debit card to have $0 balance ?
Yeah you can leave it with $0 balance. I don’t leave anything on the card.
FP, I think they may be on to you…
3 weeks back I started applying for the Netspend Card: There were website errors, I re-entered application info after resetting the browser several times, no confirmation, then kept repeating my efforts every other day. After about a week I received an email that my application was received and the card was in the mail. I guess one of my attempts worked… pfew.
1 week back I received the card: It could not be activated online, with my computer or my phone, following all the instructions. Turns out you need to use the phone auto-dial system. A couple hours of fumbling around, this method finally worked. (Note: Their customer service number 800-314-8247 plays an automated recording that is condescending and ridiculous – so much that i have to laugh. They basically ascertain that you, the caller, are living in despair due to COVID, but rest assured, they are working hard to make the world better for you… but if you actually need help, hang-up and find help elsewhere. Check it out for yourself!)
Registering for online access: The last few days I’ve been trying to do this, since it is needed to set up ACH. It could not be activated online, with my computer or my phone. There were errors redirecting me to their customer service line. Finally, during regular business hours, and only an hour on hold I reach a person. Then another 30-40 minutes going back and forth with her. While discussing the problem with me, she asked “why my purpose to online access?” which after a few minutes of contemplation, I replied “so I can transfer funds to my account so I can spend it.” She tried to get me to forget about online access and suggested I instead give her my bank account info to get the funds on the card. Of course I didn’t do that, and insisted we get back on track and help me get online access. In conclusion, all she could offer was that she would “elevate my request” so that someone else would help me in 3-4 days.
This is where I am now. I’ve put so much time into this that I want to see it finished. On the other hand, this is all looking so fishy, I’m thinking I should bail.
FP, I used your referral link, so you and I should each get the $20 bonus. But if someone noticed that all your referrals are using the savings account and not spending cash, someone may have put a stop to it. What do you think?
Carl
Hmm. Usually Netspend doesn’t have too many problems. Not sure what’s going on with your end. I haven’t heard of too many issues as yet and I still get referrals, so it might just be a random one-off thing with your situation.
Tried again a few days later, and Activated! Hmm, maybe switching my password to something without symbols helped, resetting the computer. Dunno, it doesn’t make sense it didn’t work from 3 different machines before, so maybe their system just needed a couple more days to process. “Back in my day we never had to wait for computer systems to process” – Any Grandpa
On to the next trial… ACH setup: HSBC (Premiere Checking) didn’t accept the routing number, but Chase Checking accepted it. Hopefully the trial deposits aren’t registered as the initial deposit, which I intended on making at least $40 to meet the bonus criteria.
Hi,
Is there any reason this is limited to only 5 accounts.
I found the paypal prepaid is also thru netspend and Bancorp? Any particular reason, why we cant use paypal prepaid and add another account for 5% on another 1000$?
Adding the link to paypal prepaid: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-prepaid-mastercard
It’s limited to 5 accounts for whatever random reason. I tried to get a 6th account once and it didn’t work.
PayPal does not offer a pay as you go plan. Only plan is a $4.95 monthly plan fee.
Has anyone had any issue recently trying to login into these accounts? All the links I had saved are no longer working and neither are the apps. Not sure if its just occurring to me.
Nevermind. I figured out the issue.
So you need to put in 1k to earn 5% interest. Anything over 1k, you will not get 5% interest. What happen if I put in 1k for 1 year and make $50. Then I will have 1,050 for next year, Does that mean I’m forfeit to earn 5% interest? Since it’s $1,050 not 1k? Does this make sense on what i’m trying to ask?
Thank you,
Vivian
If your balance was $1050, you would still earn 5% on $1000, but not the extra 50.
Bob, thank you so much, it really clarify what I’m asking,
Hey Vivian, I think someone answered already, but you earn 5% on the first 1k, and everything above that earns very little, like 0.5%. You can go over and it’s fine. You just don’t get 5% on anything over $1,000.
I was looking at the H-E-B fee schedule recently, and it lists a fee for moving money from your prepaid account to your regular checking account:
“Me-to-Me Transfer – Outbound $3.00 Per transfer. Transfer of funds via ACH from your Card Account to your bank account at another financial institution.”
Does anyone have experience with this?
You move the money from your external bank account – an ach pull.
Remember, you should do nothing with the card or on card website other than moving money between the card and savings account. Make sense?
This is good hack, several of my bank accounts work this way. For example US Bank charges $3 to login to my account and transfer money (“push”) to another bank, but if I login to another bank and transfer money from US Bank (“pull”), there is no fee.
Exactly.
Yes, it makes sense now. No fee for pull.
Ok, got some good information over the phone: basically the online/browser application for the separate cards will notice if you have applied/logged-in for other cards and sometimes refuse your application/lock you out. This can be fixed with a (VERY LONG) phone call, but a better strategy would be to use a private browser tab for each every account, both applying for cards (this fixed my problem with getting the MLB card) and logging in to use the accounts.
FWIW it appears that the mobile apps don’t have this issue, but note that MLB does not appear to have a separate mobile app, it’s in the netspend app you just have to have a different userid.
I just went to check on my quarterly interest and they had a notice that the Netspend HEB card changed from Axos Bank to Metabank in January.
It looks like we don’t have to change anything, it says “Any direct deposit of funds, as well as any automatic payments you have authorized will NOT be affected.” My monthly $1 transfers for the past few months have all posted.
They did change my account number slightly (added 4 digits to the front) and the routing number has changed to Metabank’s, so it might be something you will want to record.
Interesting. Doesn’t seem like it impacts transfers. I pulled my interest for the quarter with no problem and my bi-monthly $1 transfers have also been going in with no problem.
Do you have to transfer $1 to each of the five cards every 90 days to avoid inactivity fees? Or just to one card? Thanks!
You have to do it for every card.
And does each card have it’s own savings account with a 5% interest rate? Or do they all funnel to one netspend savings account?
Each has its own
When trying to sign up for the WU, HEB, & MLB cards, has anyone had issues trying to order them?
I fill out the information to order a card, review the terms, etc.., and click “get my card” at the end and all that happens is an empty red rectangle appears above “get my card” and below my email address.
I had the same issue with the first netspend card and had to find a location to physically buy one but I was able to get the Ace card online without any issues.
I activate my new Netspend card today, then signed up for AE, WU, and HEB. But when I tried MLB I was denied. Anybody else tried that one in the last few days?
Well now all 4 of my netspend accounts say they are locked when I try to login. When I tried doing fingerprint on the app, I got a text: “There may be a problem with your Netspend card. Please call 1-866-387-7363 before using your card.” Hmm.
This happened to me when I tried to check all my accounts at once. I had to call and talk to someone to get them to unlock my accounts. My suggestion would be to spread out logging in over a few days.
Thank you! You were correct that they cleared it up with a phone call, they stated they just needed to some “additional security verification”. I was a little worried I might have triggered some sort of rejection by doing several Netspend accts on the same day, but apparently not.
So did you open MLB successfully? I understood you opened Netspend, AE, WU, and HEB on the same day.
Yes, when I finally used a private browser mode I was able to open MLB.
Anyone started pulling out money(5k, 1k) from savings accounts(5k and 1k) due to alarming rate of market falling/virus-spread and this prepaid banks may get into possible bankruptcy situation?
No need to worry about that. The bank funds for the 5% interest accounts are held in FDIC insured banks – Metabank and Axos Bank. Even if the banks went bankrupt, your funds are insured up to $250,000.
So I just made my first transfer into my new Western Union account. When the transfer ($1,000) arrives in the account I get two text notifications from WU. One is for the $1,000 deposit hitting the account. The other says that my “account has been upgraded to Premier.” and links to https://www.wunetspendprepaid.com/account/premier.m. The terms there indicate 5% interest on up to $5,000:
“If the Average Daily Balance is $5,000.00 or less, the interest rate paid on the entire balance will be 4.91% with an annual percentage yield (APY) of 5.00%.”
So it looks like I can now get 5% on up to $5,000? Anyone know more about this?
At first glance, looks like that’s only for the $5/month fee plan? Or can we continue on the “pay as you go” plan and pay no monthly fee?
Looks like you’re probably right, thanks russ.
This is interesting. Are those terms correct? I don’t have a Western Union card and I can’t even find a mention of this on their website. The link just takes you to the login page. Even if there is a unavoidable $5 monthly fee it’s still worth it $5,000 x 5% = $250 -$60(fees) = $190/yr. vs. $1,000 x 5% = $50.
Can anyone confirm these terms?
No one answered you here, so I’m curious if you ever found out on your own, and, if so, what the results were.
Hello Kevin, can you send me your referral link of Netspend MLB. I am interested in opening this one soon. Thanks.
Have you done the regular Netspend one yet? If you have, you can’t get referrals for the other Netspend type accounts.
So, it appears Netspend is changing at least some of its new accounts to Axos bank rather than Metabank.
Here’s what happened: I’ve been working my way through setting up these cards, and I’m up to the HEB card. The card arrived, I activated it, and when I went to link it to my Ally account I noticed on the paperwork that came with the card it had Axos bank routing and account numbers. Ok with me, as long as it still has a 5% savings account, BUT… My online account page shows Metabank routing and account numbers. The routing numbers are completely different, the account numbers are the same except that Metabank has 7000 in front of it. I called customer service and explained the problem, and was told to use the Metabank numbers, even though the paperwork I received says Axos.
Here’s the problem: As directed, I tried to link the Metabank numbers to my Ally account, but the trial deposits never came through, Then a day or two later, I got a message from Ally saying they couldn’t verify my account. So now I’m trying to link the Axos numbers but I haven’t seen those trial deposits either, and every other time I have initiated trial deposits from Ally they usually happen within an hour or two.
That’s all I know for now. I’ll update as information becomes available.
I think the HEB card has always been Axos. Each year, I get five 1099-INTs from my Netspend card. Three of them are Metabank and two are Axos.
You’re right. I was able to link using the Axos numbers. Given the conflicting information from Netspend, and the two sets of numbers, I assumed that I got caught in the middle of a transition.
How is everyone qualifying for membership with DCU? I live in Hawaii and can’t figure out how I could possibly qualify… Help!
When you set up your DCU account, you pick eligibility based on membership in an organization. You can then make a $10 donation to a nonprofit called “Reach out for schools.” If you do that, you are now a member of a participating organization and then you can open your account. You do this during the signup process.
Hello, i am having trouble linking my Brink’s PPDC to my online savings account. I just called Brink’s, and they said that the PPDC can only receive money, but not send money – so when my online bank sends the trial deposits, my Brinks card is receiving it, but not sending the test deposits back when my online bank requests it. Has anyone had any issues similar to this? Did i order the incorrect Brink’s card? Thanks in advance! -Max
Hmm. I haven’t had any issues, but note that Brinks these days doesn’t seem to work for the 5% interest accounts. Use the MLB Netspend card instead. I’d say close the Brinks card and do it again with the Netspend MLB card.
Thanks FP!
So…I made an assumption that the new card I had received in the mail was my Ace Elite card, so I activated it, only to realize after the fact that it’s the Premier card…which I now see that you are advised NOT to activate it. Does anyone know the consequence of what happens when you do activate this card? Or what I can do to rectify this situation? Have I royally screwed up the process?
I think it puts you on some sort of paid plan or something. Probably log into your account and see how to go about going back to the “Pay As You Go” Plan which is free so long as you do all the stuff I say to do.
Even before you suggested that, I checked several times, and have since…and, thankfully, it still is on Pay As You Go!
We’ll see if any other surprise occurs, though.
I can also confirm you can open a net spend MLB card and the original net spend at the same the time. I believe net spend allows you to have 5 accounts regardless of which off springs you chose to use. You could theoretically probably just open 5 netspend accounts with use five different user names (just like the insight method). Brinks is definitely not usable anymore for new customers (I have dozens of data points to confirm this)