Three years after the Federal Reserve started raising benchmark interest rates in the U.S., what the country’s biggest banks pay depositors is shockingly low. Like next-to-zero low. At Citigroup Inc., it’s 0.04 percent. At JPMorgan Chase & Co., it’s even lower: 0.01 percent.
How is that possible? Because clients haven’t seemed to care all that much about getting paid more. They’ve kept depositing new money anyway, so there was no pressure on these banks to push up rates and absorb additional costs.
But there’s a whole set of other banks out there -- generally a lot smaller, more digital and hungrier for new cash -- that are aggressively trying to lure depositors. In this universe, which includes American Express Co. and Marcus, the new consumer unit of Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc., savings-account rates of 2 percent or more are common.
Now, this might not seem like much in historical terms, but when compared to the Fed’s benchmark rate, at 2.5 percent, and the U.S. 10-year bond yield, 2.4 percent, it’s not bad, especially in an economy where inflation is a mere 1.5 percent. Some Americans seem to finally be taking notice. Deposit growth at many of these online banks is quickening.
While the flows into these lesser-known names isn’t of a magnitude that would have much of an impact on the nation’s top banks, they are starting to hurt the ones just a notch below these behemoths. Regional banks like Citizens Financial Group and U.S. Bancorp. Both of them have said in recent weeks that they’re finding it harder to attract deposits and anticipate having to bump up the rates they offer.
“First-quarter results probably will show a continued rise in deposit costs,” said Allen Tischler, an analyst at Moody’s. “Even if the Fed’s on pause and rates aren’t necessarily rising, not all depositors have taken advantage of rates that are higher today than they were a year ago. So there probably will be continued catch-up, particularly on the consumer side.”
The average rate on a checking account is still a measly 0.29 percent, up from just 0.24 percent a year ago, according to Informa Research Services.
“It went from really, really bad rates to just really bad rates,” said Ray Montague, Informa’s director of deposit-product research.
That’s one reason consumers have been slow to move their cash: Rates just haven’t been high enough to make a difference to the average consumer. For someone with $1,000 in savings, a large bank offering 0.05 percent pays out 50 cents a year in interest. Moving to a higher-yielding account -- say, the 2.25 percent offered by Goldman’s Marcus product -- would yield $22.50 a year in interest.
“Is it worth it for $20 to move your money? The answer is no,” said Gerard Cassidy, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “If you have $100,000, it’s worth it. I think what you’re finding with Marcus and these other products is the average deposit is quite large because it is that money that is moving to higher rates.”