Washington Mutual 12 Month CD Offer

Written by Nickel - 6 Comments

If you’re looking for a high yield savings alternative and won’t need to touch your money for a year, Washington Mutual is currently offering a pretty attractive 12 month online CD.

Here’s the scoop… The APY is 4.50% 5.00%, and the minimum to open is $1000. Also, there is an early withdrawal penalty of 90 days worth of interest — not huge, but your effective rate would take a hit if you don’t leave your money in place for the full year.

While WaMu has made their share of recent headlines, these CDs are FDIC insured, so just be sure to stay under the limits ($100k/individual/bank) and you should be fine.

I should also note that they offer a savings account that pays 3.75% APY. While you don’t need technically need an account with them to take advantage of the CD offer, having one makes funding the CD easier, and will also minimize downtime on the backend when the CD matures.

This 5.00% APY beats everything else on Bankrate’s list of top-yielding 12 month CDs by more than 0.5%, and is also substantially better than current rates for online savings accounts.

Published on September 4th, 2008 - 6 Comments
Filed under: Banking
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About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!

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Comments (scroll down to add your own):

  1. I tried to sign-up for WaMu’s 5% 12-month CD last month and so far it’s been a nightmare. I recommend staying away from this troubled bank. Bankrate.com gives them only one star in their “Safe and Sound” ratings. WaMu’s stock was trading at $35 a year ago, now it’s around $5. I should have trusted my gut, which told me, “this ship is going down, stay off it.”

    That’s been evident from their Customer Service. I can’t transfer funds to the CD, and they can’t figure why. The automatic online deposit/withdrawal verification worked without a hitch, but they can’t explain to me why one week later, my CD still isn’t funded. They e-mailed me (from India, I think) saying call their 1-800 number. I did. After 5 minutes of negotiating a frustrating automated menu system, I was told that I needed to speak to a customer service representative. Waiting time? 13 minutes. I’ve e-mailed them and told them to terminate the account.

    Comment by Run Screaming — Sep 4th 2008 @ 2:39 pm

  2. At Fidelity you can see lots of CDs (on the secondary market) over 5%. They are in increments of $1,000 and usually for more than one year. Since these are brokerage CDs there is no hassle buying them because your transaction is with the brokerage house which already knows your particulars.

    Comment by Zeke — Sep 4th 2008 @ 5:02 pm

  3. I still worry about investing in anything WaMu (checking/saving) because even though it is FDIC insured, how long will it take to get my money from FDIC when WaMu does go under? I heard it can take up to a few months and that doesn’t seem to be worth the 1-2% increase in interest.

    Comment by ahc99 — Sep 4th 2008 @ 9:19 pm

  4. ^I have similar concerns. :/

    Comment by EN — Sep 5th 2008 @ 1:44 am

  5. WaMu is offering the 5.00 percent APY CD again on the website. The rate is available for two terms, 12 and 13 months. In Northern California, the rate is supposed to be available at the branches, although I have not confirmed this. The rate offer is supposed to last until September 16.

    Comment by Another Reader — Sep 7th 2008 @ 8:52 am

  6. Personally, I was a extremely nervous about having the down payment for my house in a WaMu Online Savings account during the recent turmoil. Being aware that pulling my money out would have sped up their failure, I left it in. In the end, several panicked customers pulled out roughly $16 billion causing it too fail much earlier than expected. Since Chase rescued WaMu, concerns about how long it would take to get your money from the FDIC is no longer an issue. All deposits (FDIC insured or not) were sold to Chase and no FDIC funds were used.

    While I did have concerns about having access to my insured savings account and the time-line associated with accessing funds from the FDIC, an FDIC-insured 12 month CD shouldn’t really be as much of an issue if you know you’re putting the money away for a while (especially now that the accounts are backed by Chase).

    Chase is still allowing customers to sign up for WaMu’s 5.00% Online CD as well as their 4.00% APY Online Savings accounts. Overall, I was pretty happy with WaMu with the exception of the time it takes to transfer money into the account. Hopefully, Chase doesn’t mess with the rates too much and give me a reason to shop for another savings account.

    Comment by Ray — Sep 29th 2008 @ 9:30 am

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