Key Takeaways
- Opening a high-yield savings account is crucial if you want to make sure your money out-earns today’s elevated inflation rates.
- Access to Zelle, a service that allows quick bank-to-bank transfers, is useful for sending money to friends and family.
- Not many of the best high-yield savings accounts offer Zelle, but we found three that do—with rates up to 4.50%.
- If you have access to direct deposit, you may even be able to earn 5% with our bonus option.
The full article continues below these offers from our partners.
Why a High APY Plus Zelle Is So Useful
Earning a strong return on your savings is not only smart, but with current inflation, it’s essential—otherwise, your money loses value over time. Fortunately, the best high-yield savings accounts don’t just beat inflation, they pay more than 10 times the national average savings rate.
But if you’ve ever split a dinner bill with friends or you share utilities with a roommate, you can appreciate the convenience of peer-to-peer payments. While many savings accounts offer either a strong APY or fast, built-in money transfers—rarely both—we found three accounts that stand out by offering rates up to 4.50% and the ability to pay people with Zelle. (We also have one bonus option that’s a bit different, but pays 5% APY.)
Zelle is a peer-to-peer money transfer service that allows users to send money from one bank account to another through a computer or mobile device. More than 2,200 banks and credit unions offer Zelle, and the money is typically received within minutes. There are no fees for instant transfers, even if the sender and recipient use different banks.
Top-Paying Accounts That Offer Zelle
Among the contenders in our daily ranking of the highest-paying savings accounts, only these three offer Zelle.
Presidential Bank’s Advantage Savings – 4.50% APY
- Minimum opening deposit: $5,000
- Minimum balance requirement: Any amount
- Other details: Must open and maintain an Advantage Checking account to get the stated rate; otherwise savings account earns 4.00% APY
Poppy Bank’s Premier Online Savings – 4.40% APY
- Minimum opening deposit: Any amount
- Minimum balance requirement: $1,000 to earn the stated APY
- Other details: $5 monthly fee, waived with e-statements
Bask Bank’s Interest Savings – 4.20% APY
- Minimum opening deposit: Any amount
- Minimum balance requirement: Any amount
In addition to these three high-yield savings accounts, we have one bonus option—a high-interest checking account. You’ll need the ability to set up direct deposit in order to earn its high 5.00% rate, but if you can meet that criterion, this is another excellent Zelle option. Note that although this is a checking account, there’s no reason you can’t use it simply as a savings account.
mph.bank’s Free Account – 5.00% APY
- Minimum opening deposit: $25
- Minimum balance requirement: Any amount
- Other details: Earn the stated APY on balances up to $50,000. But to be eligible for that rate, the account must receive $2,000 in direct deposits per month.
More About Zelle
Zelle is easy to use, though it does require that both the sender and the receiver of the money enroll in the service. Previously, consumers could send or receive money from the Zelle app, but users must now access the service through a bank or credit union. Your financial institution may limit how much money you can transfer through Zelle per transaction and within a certain time period—whether that’s daily, weekly, or monthly.
Zelle is generally safe, utilizing authentication and monitoring much like your banking app. That said, Zelle does not offer payment protection or a way to undo a transaction if you send money to the wrong person. It also recommends that you treat Zelle like cash, and don’t use it to send money to someone you don’t know or don’t trust.
Tip
Zelle has a lesser-known feature: You can use it to send money to yourself, and it’s much faster than a standard ACH transfer. If you have accounts at two financial institutions that offer Zelle, you can set up Zelle at each one as long as you use a different email address or phone number for each Zelle registration. Once that’s set, you’ll be able to move money between your own accounts without waiting multiple days for your funds to transfer.
Find the Best Savings Account for You
When choosing a high-yield savings account, start by looking for one with a top APY to maximize your interest earnings. (Our ranking of the highest savings account APYs available, updated every business day, is a good place to start.) Rates can change, but starting high gives you the best return. Check for minimum balance requirements—both to open the account and to earn the highest rate—to ensure they work for your financial situation.
Daily Rankings of the Best CDs and Savings Accounts
We update these rankings every business day to give you the best deposit rates available:
Important
Note that the “top rates” quoted here are the highest nationally available rates Investopedia has identified in its daily rate research on hundreds of banks and credit unions. This is much different than the national average, which includes all banks offering a CD with that term, including many large banks that pay a pittance in interest. Thus, the national averages are always quite low, while the top rates you can unearth by shopping around are often 5, 10, or even 15 times higher.
How We Find the Best Savings and CD Rates
Every business day, Investopedia tracks the rate data of more than 200 banks and credit unions that offer CDs and savings accounts to customers nationwide and determines daily rankings of the top-paying accounts. To qualify for our lists, the institution must be federally insured (FDIC for banks, NCUA for credit unions), and the account’s minimum initial deposit must not exceed $25,000. It also cannot specify a maximum deposit amount that’s below $5,000.
Banks must be available in at least 40 states to qualify as nationally available. And while some credit unions require you to donate to a specific charity or association to become a member if you don’t meet other eligibility criteria (e.g., you don’t live in a certain area or work in a certain kind of job), we exclude credit unions whose donation requirement is $40 or more. For more about how we choose the best rates, read our full methodology.
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