$100 Bonus for 5.25% 12-Month CD at Netbank read and submit comments for this post

Update 9/28/07: NetBank closed by the FDIC. See post more details.

Netbank has updated their Drugstore.com promotion. Previously, the most you could get by opening a 1-year CD was a $25 Visa gift card. With the new promotion, you can now get up to a $100 Visa Gift Card. This requires opening a Netbank 12-month CD with a minimum deposit of $15K. You also have the choice of a $50 Visa gift card for a minimum deposit of $10K or a $20 card for a $5K minimum. The current APY of Netbank's 12-month CD is 5.25% APY.

Here's the Drugstore.com page with the Netbank link, and here's the Netbank promotional page. Be sure to sign up through this promotional page.

If you convert these bonuses into extra interest, the resulting APY would be approximated as follows:

Deposit   Standard  Bonus  Bonus     Total APY
          APY       Amount Interest  with Bonus
$15K      5.25%     +$100  +0.67%    5.92%
$10K      5.25%      +$50  +0.50%    5.75%
 $5K      5.25%      +$20  +0.40%    5.65%

In addition to this $100 bonus, you can also get another $150 bonus by opening a Netbank money market account and checking account for a total of $250 bonus. This is the same as before except that you now only need to maintain a balance of $1000 in the money market account for one month to receive the bonus $75. The checking account bonus is the same as before: $75 signup bonus for opening a checking account with a $50 minimum deposit and maintaining a balance of $500 for at least one month. As before, you can choose any combination of these bonuses.

For the money market and checking accounts, be sure to review the fees. I would recommend against the SuperValue Checking Account. It has a $3/month service fee for balances over $2.5K and a $9/month fee for balance under $2.5K. the interest rate for this account is only 2% APY. The NetValue Checking's APY is 0.75% without any balance requirements or monthly fees.

The money market account has a $5/month fee for balances under $500. Netbank's money market accounts have never had competitive rates. Currently, the standard money market account has an APY of 2.90%. You can increase this to 3.52% APY with some extra requirements, and up to 4.05% with an auto loan.

There's a $25 fee if you close either the checking or money market account within 6 months. After the first months there's still a $7.50 account closure fee.

Also beware of the online bill payment inactivity fees for the checking account. They charge $5/month after 3 months of inactivity or for balances under $3K.

Credit for finding this latest Netbank promotion goes to this FW thread.