Netspend, Brinks, Western Union, and Ace Elite are offering customers the chance to open a savings account with 5.00% APY on an average balance of up to $5,000. All four of these companies have the same requirements to open this savings account. To get started, you will need to open a prepaid card account with one of the companies. You will then have the option to upgrade your prepaid account to a Premier account. To do this, you need to have a total of $500 in ACH Direct Deposits from your ordinary checking account into the prepaid account. As soon as the money appears in your prepaid account, you’ll be upgraded to Premier and receive a new Premier debit card. Feel free to split up the $500 deposit into multiple transactions as long as you achieve a total of $500 in ACH deposits within one calendar month.
Opening and funding your account is extremely simple. The initial signup process for the prepaid card just requires you to provide your name and address. When you receive your card, you call a number to activate and then tell the company your Social Security number and other personal info. The prepaid card will have a routing number that you can choose to transfer funds from any regular checking account. Once you open you upgrade to Premier, the money you transfer to the prepaid card can then be moved to your new savings account. Funds cannot be transferred directly into the savings account.
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Prepaid Online Savings Account:
- Sign up Offers: Netspend, Brinks, Western Union, Ace Elite
- Rate: 5.00% APY
- Account Type: Premium Prepaid Card Account
- Availability: Nationwide
- Expiration Date: None
- Hard Inquiry: Unknown
- Opening Deposit Credit Card Funding: Unknown
- Direct Deposit Requirement: Yes, total of $500 in ACH Direct Deposits in one month
- Monthly Fee: There are two payment plans available:
- Pay-as-you-go plan. Under this plan, you pay $1 per signature transaction and $2 per PIN transaction. You pay no fees if you don’t make any purchases with the card.
- Monthly fee plan. It’s $5 for Premier cardholders and $9.95 for non-Premier cardholders. There are then no fees per transaction at all.
- Additional Requirements: The rate will apply to account with a balance of up to $5,000.
- Closing Account Fee: None
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How to Earn 5.00% APY:
- Open a prepaid card account with one of the listed companies.
- Upgrade your prepaid account to a Premier account by having a total of $500 in ACH Direct Deposits in a month.
- As a Premier member you will automatically have access to the savings account with 5.00% APY.
- The 5.00% APY will apply to a daily average balance maximum of $5,000. If you go above that, the excess amount over the minimum will gain interest at 0.50% APY.
This is a great chance to open a Premium prepaid card account with Netspend, Brinks, Western Union, or Ace Elite and enjoy a great savings account that earns a competitive interest rate of 5.00% APY! There are plenty of other opportunities to find the Best Interest Rates from our exclusive list nationwide!
 The Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card offers Companion Pass through 2/28/26 and 30,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. In addition, you'll earn 6,000 bonus points after your Cardmember anniversary each year. You'll earn: • Earn 3X points on Southwest purchases. • Earn 2X points on local transit and commuting, including rideshare. • Earn 2X points on internet, cable, phone services, and select streaming. You're able to redeem your points for flights, hotel stays, gift cards, access to events and more. This card does carry a $99 annual fee, but there are no foreign transaction fee. |
To upgrade to Premier to receive the 5% on up to $5000, you must pay a monthly fee of $5. If the card is not used during a month the monthly fee increases to $5.95. There appears to be no way to have the fee waived, which reduces that offer of 5% APY, down to 3.8% (when you subtract the minimum $60/yr in fees.) It’s still better than savings account rates, but you do have to use the card to avoid the additional $11.40 in inactivity fees, which would reduce that 5%, even further, down to about 3.6%. Not quite the 5% interest offer it originally seemed to be.
Netspend has a glitch with the Safari Browser. You can sign up for the card on Safari, but not for online access. If you attempt it on Safari, you’ll reach a dead end and have to wait for your card to arrive to sign up for online access. Sign up on Firefox or Chrome to get fully set up at once. Either work fine with the Mac OS.
There seems to be a discrepancy as to where that $500 to qualify can come from. Here it says payroll, social security or similar, as it seems to say on the bank website.
But the email said it could come from a “regular checking account”. From the email: “To do this (upgrade to Premier), you need to have a total of $500 in ACH Direct Deposits from your ordinary checking account into the prepaid account.” This can’t actually come from a regular checking, but must come from payroll, is this correct?
Also, can one sign up for 5% on $5000 at each of the four listed sites for a total of $20,000 earning 5%? Thanks!