Bank of America lets you Keep the Change, and then some
Bank of America has just announced a new program called Keep The Change. If you enroll, every time you buy something with a Bank of America debit card, they?ll round up your purchase to the nearest dollar amount ? and transfer the difference from your checking to your savings account. So if you buy something worth $4.57, you’ll get charged $5 to your checking account, but get the 43 cents straight into your savings account. So far, ho-hum. But, for the first 3 months, they’ll match your “change” 100% (so you’d get 86 cents in your savings), and 5% after that (45.15 cents).
Obviously, you need both checking and savings accounts at Bank of America. I do. You also need to physically walk in a branch to enroll, which I haven’t had the chance to yet. I think I will sign up and participate, but probably only for the initial 3 months and for smaller amd non-gas/grocery store/drugstore purchases.
Overall, not a bad gimmick to help encourage people to save some money, although moving the money back to your checking account is only a click away. More likely, this is a move to (1) keep people using their savings accounts with miniscule rates (0.50% APY currently), and (2) to encourage their debit card use instead of credit cards. Still, pretty clever.
According to the fine print:
The matching funds will be credited to your savings account annually [up to $250], within 8 weeks after the month in which the anniversary of your enrollment in the Keep the Change savings service occurs… Keep the Change is not currently available in Washington or Idaho.
See also this MSNBC article for another view.
October 5th, 2005 at 10:37 pm
Neat idea, but they’re only going to credit it annually, and a cap of $250 on the service. Plus, they require a minimum $100 balance. Is it just me, or is this just a sign-up bonus that you have to earn, and making you earn it over time? If it weren’t for the $250 cap and other little gotchas, I’d be stuffing my Citi and Amex Blue Cash into a drawer right now..
October 5th, 2005 at 11:17 pm
Actually, I got a $25 offer for opening my savings account at BofA : Link to old offer But, they haven’t given it to me yet, after some phone calls they didn’t have me in the promotion and I have to wait another 4 weeks. Sigh.
Getting almost a dollar back for small purchases that end up like $4.03 or something is OK, since I carry around the ATM card anyways, so it’s not an extra card in my wallet. Just have to remember to use it…
October 6th, 2005 at 5:11 am
BofA gives you 5% of the change, not of the full price. That’s hilarious. The maximum you get for any purchase is 5 cents.
Buy a $999.99 TV and get $0 cashback. Only at BofA! Hurry, offer expires soon! ROTFL.
October 6th, 2005 at 6:40 am
Figures… I just canceled my BOA account this week. I opened it six months ago for the $100 account opening bonus they were running at the time. You could pay yourself via PayPal $1.01 and receive the $.99 match a couple hundred times… too bad you have to wait a year to get the money out.
October 6th, 2005 at 8:37 am
Too bad BOA’s savings account’s rate sucks. I think i’ll stick with ING and Emigrant for my savings and BOA as my checking account..
October 6th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
By no means am I encouraging people to use BofA’s savings account. But it’s linked to my checking, so transfers back into checking can be done instantly online.
October 6th, 2005 at 8:21 pm
Seems to me that using a credit card is a better deal for a couple of reasons:
- cash back/rewards cards typically pay 1-2% of the purchase amount. I’d say my average purchase is $20-30 which works out to $.40-$.60. No telling where the average will end up with this deal unless you engineer your purchases, you could just as easily make $.01 as $.99.
- If I use the credit card I get to keep the money sitting in an account earning 3-4% for a minimum of the 20 day grace period.
I suppose if you’re willing to work at it this is a way o get a free $250 but it doesn’t really seem worth it.
October 8th, 2005 at 4:57 am
I have a BoA debit card and saving account. So to me it is going to change my spending habits. I don’t use credit cards at all so comparing it to a rewards program it is moot point for me.
August 7th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Keep the change is a good deal. Fact, to bypass 100.00 to open. you let BOA take 25 a month out of your cheking. It is better then most credit cards for 1 year. Everyone uses debit cards. You do not need to to leave this money there, but you must keep the 25 a month going every month. You get back 250.00 after 1 year plus 5% for the change part. Most people carry a little change with them. Not much to this, say the bill is for a night out is 40 bucks, your tip is 7 bucks add 1 penny to this and you have what about a .05 to your savings. But if you do the math to someone that does use the debit card alot. We say if you make 50 debits at the above example, 50 times 5= 2.50 times 12= 30.00 bucks which is more then 2.500 cd earning 5%for 1 year= 250.00+30.00=280.00 and the money is liquid to top it off unlike the cd.
January 16th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
[...] and debit card holders called Keep The Change. In fact, this has been blogged about by Wenchypoo, MyMoneyBlog, Million Dollar Goal, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, and many others. (Feel free to trackback or post [...]