USA Banks News

If you live in either the Seattle or Minneapolis areas, odds are you’re eligible to take advantage of top CD rates available from Wings Financial Federal Credit Union.

This rate leader has three good deals right now, all with a $500 minimum deposit:

• 24-month CDs pay 1.31% APY.
• 36-month CDs pay 1.71% APY.
• 60-month CDs pay 2.22% APY.

All of those certificates of deposit pay better than the top nationally available deals on our CD Rates Leaderboard.

The best of the bunch is the 5-year CD, which pays more than two-fifths of a percentage point better than the top bank deal available to all U.S. savers.

While these rates aren’t national, membership in Wings Financial Credit Union — which caters to airline employees — is open to more people than a typical credit union.

With a $30 minimum deposit, you can join if:

• You live or work in metropolitan Seattle-Tacoma.
• You live or work in the 13-county Minneapolis-St. Paul ar

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The Citi ThankYou Rewards Program is offering a 20% discount on select gift card redemptions for a limited time.

That means you can get $50 gift cards for 4,000 points and $100 gift cards for 8,000 points.

For instance, if you visit this Macy’s Gift Card Page at Citi ThankYou, you can view the discounts in the denomination pull-down menu.

Participating retail gift cards include Ann Taylor, Athleta, babyGap, Banana Republic, Foot Locker, Gap, Macy’s, Old Navy, Piperlime, and Sunglass Hut.

These gift card discount redemptions are available through May 17, 2012.

Take advantage of this special ThankYou Rewards program offer to redeem your ThankYou Points for gift cards at discount redemption rates.

Redeem your ThankYou Rewards program points for discounted gift cards for a limited time.

Britain has entered a fourth year of record low interest rates following the Bank of England’s decision to hold borrowing costs.

The move comes almost three years to the day after policymakers took rates down to 0.5%, the lowest since the Bank was founded in 1694, and embarked on the process of pumping electronic cash into a shrinking economy.

In the face of a sluggish recovery it has gone on to expand that programme of quantitative easing (QE) to £325bn, going into markets to buy up UK government bonds, known as gilts, and thereby injecting newly printed money into the financial system.

Meanwhile interest rates have stayed at the emergency level, defying the initial expectation in the City that the move would be short-lived, with borrowing costs predicted to have risen by early 2010 and reached 3% by 2012.

This month’s meeting concluded as expected with no change to rates or the QE programme.

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I’ve had online brokerage accounts at Fidelity and Vanguard for about three months now, and I’m still learning the ropes.

I’m getting a hands-on education in fixed-income investing, including buying and selling brokered CDs.

For the uninitiated, a brokered CD is a bank certificate of deposit sold to the public through a financial intermediary.

According to their disclosure statements, CDs sold by Fidelity and Vanguard are represented by “master certificates” held at the Depository Trust Co. Beneficial ownership of individual pieces by customers is indicated on the brokers’ records.

In some respects, a brokered CD is no different than a CD issued directly to a depositor at a bank branch or online.

It’s a bank’s promise to repay a specified amount on a specified maturity date and to pay interest on that amount during the CD’s term.

It’s also insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. under the same gene

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The American Express Membership Rewards program has increased the transfer value to Hilton HHonors points.

You’ll now get 15% more value from Membership Rewards points when you transfer them to your Hilton HHonors account.

For every 1,000 Membership Rewards points that you transfer to your Hilton HHonors account, you’ll get 1,500 Hilton HHonors points, which is a 15% increase over the prior exchange value.

Take advantage of this new Membership Rewards To HHonors Transfer Rate to earn 1,500 Hilton HHonors points when you transfer 1,000 Membership Rewards points.

If you’ve recently applied for an AMEX Membership Rewards Bonus, this is a good way to maximize your travel rewards when you transfer your points toward Hilton hotel stays.

You could also consider combining Membership Rewards points with the Hilton HHonors Bonus Card to earn enough points for even more free hotel stays.

Additionally, you can join the Hilton HHonors Dining Program to earn more bonus HHonors points for new members when you dine out at a local restaurant.

Earn 15% more Hilton HHonors points when you transfer American Express Membership Rewards points today.