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If you’re looking for a high-yield savings account with easy access, the UFB Direct account could be a good fit. With a competitive 5.25% APY and no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements, it’s a straightforward option that’s worth exploring.
In this article, we’ll break down:
Equipped with this information, you can assess whether this UFB Direct savings account aligns with your needs and is the best savings account for you.
A UFB Direct savings account may be right for you if you want to invest in high-yield savings that you retain easy access to.
Note that while UFB Direct offers a very competitive savings account rate, there are other investments with potentially higher returns — though they come with matching risks.
UFB Direct is also an online bank, so you won’t have access to branch support. This may be a deal breaker for those who prefer to do their banking in person.
Always consider any financial product in light of your personal budget and spending needs as well as your money management goals.
Pros and Cons of a UFB Direct High-Yield Savings Account
You can earn up to 5.25% APY with a UFB Secure Savings account, which is considered a high-yield savings account. As of April 2024, all balance tiers earn this competitively high rate, but that can be subject to change at any time.
Technically, the UFB Secure Savings account is considered a tiered product. That means the amount of interest you earn on your balance depends on your balance total.
According to UFB, its balance tiers in the past were:
Should UFB high-yield savings accounts return to the tiered structure to determine APY, accounts with higher balances may earn a higher APY than accounts with lower balances.
UFB Secure Savings Account
| APY | Monthly fee | Minimum opening deposit | Minimum balance requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5.25% | $0 | $0 | $0 |
This high-yield savings account doesn’t charge monthly maintenance fees. Nor does it require a minimum balance or minimum opening deposit. This lets you access the savings rate even if you’re starting small, and it helps ensure the interest you earn is profit and not eaten up with monthly fees.
You can get an ATM card to make it easier to access your savings. You can also make an unlimited number of transfers from this savings account without paying a transfer fee, but the total dollar amount you can transfer per day and month is limited.
The amount you earn with a UFB Direct high-yield savings account depends on:
The UFB high-yield savings account compounds interest daily and applies interest earnings in a single credit monthly. That means each day, the daily compound interest calculation applies to your balance. This can help you earn a little more than you would if interest was compounded monthly. It also means that if you carry a high balance for most of the month and then make a withdrawal for an emergency expense late in the month, you don’t lose the interest-earning benefit of that higher balance for the entire month.
To understand how savings can add up over time with a UFB Direct Secure savings account, consider the hypothetical examples in the tables below.
Interest Earned on $5,000 Initial Deposit and Additional Deposit of $200 per Month
| Years | Interest earned | Total balance |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $319.72 | $7,719. 72 |
| 3 | $1,395.00 | $13,595.00 |
| 5 | $3,103.38 | $20,103.38 |
| 10 | $10,610.13 | $39,610.13 |
| 15 | $23,804.02 | $64,804.02 |
This example assumes you do not take any money out of the account in the savings period. As you can see, the 5.25% rate really causes savings to add up. If you followed this savings plan for 15 years, you would only have contributed a total of $36,000 yourself, which means our profit on the account is more than $23,000.
Interest Earned on $1,000 Initial Deposit and Additional Deposit of $100 per Month
| Years | Interest earned | Total balance |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $81.11 | $2,281.11 |
| 3 | $448.63 | $5,048.63 |
| 5 | $1,114.37 | $8,114.37 |
| 10 | $4,302.92 | $17,302.92 |
| 15 | $10,170.37 | $29,170.37 |
Even if you have a reduced current ability to save, a high-yield savings account and sticking to a consistent plan results in some pretty impressive outcomes. In this hypothetical, you end up with almost $30,000 in savings after 15 years, but you only contribute $18,000 of that yourself.
To better understand how much you could earn, try using our savings calculator below. How to use this calculator read our guide article: savings calculator.
The average national deposit rate for savings accounts is 0.46% as of April 2024, according to data from the FDIC. Given this figure, the UFB Secure Savings account rate is more than 11 times the national average, making it a highly competitive APY.
The 5.25% APY also makes the UFB Secure Savings account one of the more competitive high-yield savings accounts, as competitors tend to offer products with APYs ranging from 4.25% to 5.5%.
The UFB Secure Savings rate is currently one of the highest on the market.
In this table, you can see how it compares to other high-yield savings rates as of April 2024.
| Bank | High-yield savings interest rate |
|---|---|
| Ally Bank | 4.25% APY |
| American Express | 4.25% APY |
| Barclays | 4.35% APY |
| Capital One | 4.25% APY |
| Discover | 4.25% APY |
| Marcus | 4.50% APY |
| SoFi Bank | 4.60% APY |
| Synchrony | 4.75% APY |
| U.S. Bank | 4.50% APY |
| UFB Direct | 5.25% APY |
Learn more about the UFB Direct Savings Account
Some of these banks don’t require minimum deposits or have balance tiers for earnings, but some do. The same is true for monthly maintenance fees.
If you are comparing a UFB savings account to another option in your quest to find the right high-yield savings account for you, make sure to compare other details too.
Features to compare include:
If you’re looking for the highest interest rates available, consider checking out these guides:
You can apply for a UFB Direct Secure savings account online. You’ll need to be a U.S. citizen or resident alien and be 18 years old or older to successfully open a savings account.
You need a government-issued ID to demonstrate these facts. You’ll submit your ID by taking pictures with your smartphone or by uploading a scanned file of the document.
You will also need to provide:
You will also need a way to fund your account. Typically, this is done by transferring money from an existing account. You need the bank routing and account numbers for that account to do so — you can find that information on your checks or in your account settings via your banking app or online portal.
UFB limits how much you can transfer into your account initially to open it to $250,000. Since this is the maximum covered by FDIC insurance on a single account, you may want to limit your total deposits to this amount anyway.
You get an ATM card with your UFB Direct Secure savings account. You can use the card to make withdrawals at more than 91,000 ATM locations. UFB Direct does limit the amount of cash you can withdraw at an ATM to $510 per day.
You can also use your card like a regular debit card to make purchases online and off, but you’re limited to $500 per day for these point-of-sale transactions. Remember, too, that the goal of a high-yield savings account is to maximize your savings. Limiting how often you think of this as a convenient source of funds for daily spending can help you work toward that goal.
You can also make withdrawals by transferring money from your UFB savings account to an internal or external savings account. According to UFB, bank transfers are limited to $30,000 in or out per day and $60,000 in or out per month. However, the total number of transfers you can make is unlimited.
You can transfer money to external accounts using options such as wire transfers or Zelle in your UFB online banking account or mobile app.
You can transfer money into your account from external checking accounts or provide your bank routing and account numbers to employers or others who make direct deposits to you. You can also use your ATM card to make deposits of cash at ATMs.
Other UFB savings options include:
This account provides competitive interest rates with no fees and is FDIC-insured up to $200 million. It is for high-net-worth individuals, and the minimum opening deposit is $1 million.
This account has an APY of 5.25%. With this account, you can write checks and you get a free debit card. It has a $10 monthly maintenance fee, but this can be waived if you have a balance of $5,000.
Yes, the UFB Direct Secure savings account is considered a high-yield savings account, which is simply an account with an APY that’s higher than average. The UFB savings account rate, as of April 2024, of 5.25% APY more than qualifies.
This savings account is best for people who would like to earn a high interest rate on savings and don’t mind conducting all of their banking online, via apps and at ATMs. UFB Direct is a branchless bank — or online bank — so you won’t have access to local branches and in-person customer service.
Yes, UFB Direct is a legitimate online bank that offers a variety of accounts, including savings and money market accounts. This bank also provides mortgage loans.
UFB Direct’s deposit accounts are insured by the FDIC. That covers up to $250,000 in deposits per member per account.
No, you do not have to deposit a minimum amount to open a UFB Direct Secure savings account. You also don’t have to carry a minimum balance to benefit from the competitive APY. However, the UFB Direct high-yield savings account is technically a tiered product, so the institution may return to tiered interest rates in the future. That would mean that accounts with higher balances would earn at a higher APY than accounts with lower balances.
You can withdraw money by using your ATM card at thousands of ATMs across the nation. You can also make withdrawals by making a transfer to an external account or an internal transfer to a checking account.
Sarah Stasik is well versed in personal finance thanks to her previous role as a Revenue Cycle Manager for a Fortune 500 healthcare company. Using her inside knowledge and expertise, Sarah often covers topics ranging from insurance and the economics of private healthcare to personal finance and small business management.
Over the past 12 years, Sarah has contributed to numerous publications in the personal and small business finance sector, including content on budgeting, bankruptcy, small business accounting, and financial tech. Her writing focuses on making complex or seemingly daunting financial topics more accessible and providing helpful, relevant resources for readers.
