Sallie Mae CDs …not just for students!

July 17th, 2010 Jonathan Chamberlain Leave a comment Go to comments

Sallie Mae CDs

Sallie Mae, up until recently, was solely a lending source for educational needs. While they still have a strong educational focus, they have now expanded their offerings to high yeild CDs and high interest savings accounts.

Sallie Mae Certificates of Deposit come in three varieties: 12 month, 36 month, and 60 months. As in most cases, the longer the term the higher the interest rate. Sallie Mae makes the difference in rates clear on their website www.salliemae.com/bank. Patience as usual is rewarded. The APY for the best CD rate is a whopping 3.00%. The rate for the 12 month CD account is 1.55%, which is still a super find.

The other great detail about Sallie Mae’s high interest CDs, is that you do have the option of receiving interest payments monthly, quarterly, yearly, or at maturity. The number of options offered by Sallie Mae, who is fairly new to the online banking scene, help clients find a tailor made solution to their savings goals.

A high rate CD can be set up online in about 10 minutes in a simple, four step process. With no minimums or monthly fees, these CDs really live up to the worry free claim made by Sallie Mae. All certificates of deposit renew automatically and Sallie Mae will remind you as the renewal date approaches. All accounts are FDIC insured.

As with most CD accounts, you will be zinged if you have to remove funds before the maturation date. The nice part here is that while the fee for the twelve month CD is equal to three months of interest, it is only charged on the amount withdrawn. The fee for the thirty-six or sixty month CD is a hefty 6 months of interest, but again it is only assessed on the amount withdrawn. I love this little detail because it gives you an incentive to leave as much of the funds in the account as you possibly can, rather than putting you in the “all or nothing” mind set.

While Sallie Mae remains a very focused bank, I think their high cd rates will draw more than just students to their new online bank. If you would like to see a brief overview of Sallie Mae Bank please take a look at our video post on Sallie Mae. We also have an in-depth bank review of Sallie Mae bank that explains more in detail who they are and what they offer.

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