The Big Banks Paying You the Least on Savings — Named, With the Numbers

Most comparison sites will not name the banks paying you the least, because those banks are advertisers. We will. If your savings sit in a standard account at one of the three largest US banks, you are earning almost nothing — and the number is genuinely startling once you see it next to what is available.

Ten cents a year

At 0.01%, one thousand dollars earns ten cents over a full year. Twenty-five thousand dollars earns about two dollars and fifty cents. The same balance in a top insured account earns hundreds — for the same federal insurance and comparable access. The brand on the building is not worth that difference.

Why they get away with it

Scale and inertia. The megabanks have the branches, the brand, and the ATMs, and they know most customers will not move money for a rate. That confidence is precisely why they pay the least — the relationship does the work the rate normally would. It is the sharpest example of the gap we track in the State of the Rate Gap; if you are deciding where idle cash should go instead, see when a CD beats a savings account.

What to do about it

Keep the megabank for what it is good at — branches, ATMs, the daily checking account — and move idle savings to a top insured account. You are not switching banks; you are switching where cash that earns nothing goes to earn something.

Sources

Megabank rates: public disclosures from Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo (0.01% standard savings) as of the ratesVerifiedAt date. National average: FDIC. Best available: SwitchWize live data.