The Best Bank Rates | Guide | How to Find Top, Best, Highest Bank Interest Rates

Guide to Finding the Best Bank Rates and Highest Bank Interest Rates

If you are going to put your hard-earned money in a bank account, you might as well earn some great money on it. This is why taking the time to find the best bank rates available is such an important thing to do.

The way banks make money is to charge you fees; the way you can make money off the banks is to find the highest bank interest rates you can for your location and amount of money you have to deposit.

To help you with the process of finding banks with the best interest rates, we have created your ultimate guide to great bank deposit rates for this year. We will offer the top resources and even answer questions such as:

What types of accounts offer bank interest rates?

How do you find the best bank interest rates?

What are the best bank savings rates? Checking rates? Certificate of Deposit rates? Money Market rates?

What are the best online bank rates if you want all your banking online?

What Bank Accounts Offer Interest Rates?

The four most common methods to earn the best interest rates banks offer are to open one or more of these four bank accounts at your bank of choice. We will focus on how you can get the highest bank interest rates for each of these four accounts below, so we decided to offer a general explanation on what each account offers.

Checking Accounts: Checking accounts contain your everyday money. Typically, your paycheck will be deposited into this account. Because of its frequent use, they do not normally offer the top bank account rates.

Savings Accounts: Savings accounts are where you put money aside for the future or to save up for big purchases. Because you do not use this account as frequently, you can more easily find some of the best bank savings rates.

Certificates of Deposit (CDs): CDs offer higher bank deposit rates in exchange for keeping your money for an agreed upon time. Because you cannot pull out your money until that term length has passed, banks often compensate with some of the best bank interest rates.

Money Market Accounts: Money Markets are quite similar to a regular savings account. Typically, the biggest difference is that the minimum balance is quite a bit higher. Since you will be depositing more money, you will often be compensated with higher bank deposit rates. Do not confuse money market accounts with money market funds, which can lose value.

How to Find the Best Bank Interest Rates

Since you now know what each bank account could potentially offer you, it is time to see which of them offers the best bank rates to earn you money as your cash sits there waiting for you.

Best Bank Interest Rates

The truth is that bank interest rates vary greatly; some of these variations can come from:

The particular time in the year
Your location in the country
How much money you deposit
What type of bank you choose
What is going on with world politics

This means there is never one single definitive account that always qualifies as the “top bank interest rate.”

In order to find the greatest bank deposit rates available, you will have to do a bit of research depending upon which account you would like to open. To make that process easier, we have gathered some of the top online resources to begin searching for the banks with best interest rates today.

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Best Bank Rates Overall

For most of this article, we will separate the four bank accounts into different sections, but if you are interested to see what accounts are offering the highest bank interest rates overall—no matter what type of account they are—we have gathered great resources for finding out just that.

NerdWallet: NerdWallet lets you find the highest bank deposit rates through their interactive search tool. You type in your zip code, the amount of money you want to deposit, and the deposit term you are interested in. With the filters open to all these account types, you will see a list from the highest bank interest rates and down.

Deposit Accounts: Deposit Accounts offers continuously updated reports on the top bank account rates throughout the country. Here you can see the best bank rates on checking, savings, and money market accounts. You can also find a link to check out the current highest CD accounts.

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Best Bank Checking Rates

Undoubtedly, when it comes to searching for high payouts from bank interest rates, your checking account will not top the money-making list. Many, if not most, checking accounts do not even offer bank deposit rates.

That being said, there are a few checking accounts that do offer some sort of interest rate incentive, and we want to offer a couple tools that will show you how to find the top bank interest rate for each of these rarer accounts.

MoneyRates: Through MoneyRates.com, you can use their tool to search for the banks with best interest rates for checking accounts in your particular area. Simply drop in your home’s zip code and see which banks in your area offer bank interest rates on checking accounts.

BankRate: On BankRate’s website, you can see their list of the best interest rates banks offer for checking accounts. You can find information like whether the bank is nationwide, number of required monthly transactions, balance cap, and, of course, interest rates.

Best Bank Savings Rates

When it comes to bank deposit rates, some of the highest yields can be found in regular savings accounts. The best bank savings rates can be researched through the following helpful resources:

The Simple Dollar: The Simple Dollar reviewed bank interest rates and discovered the best savings accounts for 2016. This is a great list to start off your research for this year. Their list is updated daily, so you can feel confident with the information.

NerdWallet: Similar to the list NerdWallet generates for the best bank rates overall, this interactive list of the best bank savings rates is a fabulous tool for staying up to date on rates. Put in your zip code and amount you plan to deposit to see up-to-date bank interest rates.

Best Bank CD Rates

As we mentioned above, a certificate of deposit (CD) tends to offer higher bank deposit rates since the bank will be keeping your money for a predetermined amount of time. Some of these CDs will have a term length as low as a few months (lower bank interest rates); others will have term lengths as low as many years (higher bank interest rates).

Keep in mind: if you pull your money out early, you will lose all the bank interest rates you have been gaining. Make sure to truly decide whether that term limit is possible, so you do not forfeit your earnings. If it is not possible, it is better to put your money in savings.

Here are two resources for finding the best bank interest rates on CDs:

MoneyRate: MoneyRate’s tool allows you to search various CDs with the best bank rates by different term lengths as well as different deposit amounts. You can customize your search even further by including your credit ranking and household income.

BankRate: This is a simple tool for finding the best interest rates banks are offering with their CDs. All you do is put in what term lengths you would consider, and see a list of bank interest rates on CDs.

Best Bank Money Market Rates

We have come to our final common bank account to earn a top bank interest rate. Unlike CDs, you can pull out this money whenever you need it, but like CDs, you can potentially earn higher bank interest rates with a money market account.

Best Bank Rates

Here are two resources on searching for the best bank rates if you would like to open a money market account at your bank.

Deposit Accounts: Deposit Accounts has a great interactive tool for finding the banks with the best interest rates on money market accounts. Simply include your desired deposit amount and click if you would prefer a bank or credit union. You will then be provided with the best bank rates.

NerdWallet: Just like our previous NerdWallet search tools, this Money Market search tool allows you to type in your zip code and deposit amount. The top bank account rates for money markets will then be listed for you to learn more.

Best Online Bank Rates

For some of you, you would prefer to get your bank deposit rates solely through online banks. If this is the case, we have found a few extra resources that showcase some of the best online bank rates you can currently find.

GoBankRates: This is a list from GoBankRates of the top online banks of 2016, a great place to start out your search for online banks and the best online bank rates for this year. It also lists the best bank savings rates and best bank rates on CDs.

Top 10 Reviews: This helpful list from Top 10 Reviews of online-only banks has a comprehensive list of interest rates available at each bank. This allows you to find quickly the online banks with the best interest rates on all accounts. The Top 10 Review’s rating system is also a helpful indicator if you should open an account there or not.

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How Will You Choose the Best Bank Interest Rates?

Now that we have seen all the wonderful online tools that will help you track the current bank interest rates, it will be time to make some decisions on which bank accounts will be for you. Here are a few questions to ask yourself first before choosing the bank with best interest rates for you:

What type of account? Depending on your needs or current income levels, you may want one bank account over another. Once you know what bank account(s) you are interested in, you can then proceed to find the top bank account rates.

Are you tight on funds? If you are living paycheck to paycheck, there is no reason you still cannot open an interest-bearing account. But you may want to pay attention to checking and savings over a CD or money market. Focus on getting the highest bank deposit rates on the accounts you can manage for the time being.

Do you have money to spare? If you have extra money, you should focus on some of the best interest rates banks offer for contributing higher dollar amounts. You will end up with the best bank rates.

Now all you have left to do is dig in and do a little research. Take a while to go through these resources. Before you know it, you will have decided on the right bank that will offer you the highest bank interest rates for your money this year.

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