$50 Bonus for Opening a Capital One Online Savings Account read and submit comments for this post

Capital One Direct Banking is offering a $50 bonus for opening an Online Savings account by 10/31/2008. It requires that you have at least $25,000 on deposit within 30 days of account opening. The offer code is BONUS50.

This bonus doesn't seem to be listed at Capital One's website. It was advertised in today's San Francisco Chronicle. The ad is available online here. The small print states that the deposits must originate from funds not on deposit with Capital One Direct Banking as of 10/4/2008. The bonus code must be provided at the time of the application. The $50 interest credit will be deposited to your account 4-8 weeks after 11/30/2008.

Capital One's Online Savings Account does have a competitive yield of 3.55% APY for balances of $10,000 and above. So having $25K in this account for a while won't be too costly (every month a 4% APY account earns about $9 more). For more details about this savings account, please see my account review. The one downside to this account is it has a slow ACH transfer service. Readers have reported transfers taking at least 3 business days to complete with a couple days in which the money doesn't earn interest.

4.51% 18-Month CD

Capital One also has a competitive rate on its 18-month CD with a yield of 4.51% APY and a minimum deposit of $5,000. It also has competitive long-term CDs: 5.05% APY for 60-months and 5.40% APY for 7-years. One downside to their CDs with terms of over one year, is an early withdrawl penalty that's based on the economic replacement value which could be more than 6 months of interest. I have more details of Capital One's CDs at this post.

Bonuses and Higher Rates for Costco Members

Also note that you can get higher rates on savings accounts and CDs along with a sign-up bonus if you're a Costco member. I have more details here.

FDIC and Financial Info

Capital One has two FDIC entities, however, I've been told that new accounts will be FDIC insured through Capital One, N.A. (FDIC Certificate # 4297). It's a large bank with $108.5 billion in assets and $72.5 billion in deposits based on 6/30/08 data. Capital One's rating at Bankrate is 3 stars (performing) based on 6/30/08 data. The rating at BauerFinancial continues to be 3.5 stars (good) based on 6/30/08 data.