My Banking Direct High-Yield Savings Accounts Review

Compared to traditional savings accounts, high-yield savings accounts pay a higher interest rate because in most instances, they’re offered by online-only institutions. By not offering physical locations, these banks reduce their overhead costs and are therefore able to pass along those savings to customers in the form of higher yields. This makes a high-yield savings account a sensible choice for safely growing your emergency funds and cash you’ve reserved for long-term financial goals like purchasing a home.

My Banking Direct is one company offering high-yield savings accounts. This review will help you decide whether or not the bank is the right fit for you by taking a closer look at its products and their features.

Best high-yield savings account from a regional bank

If you prefer banking with a regional institution instead of a national bank, My Banking Direct could be a good choice for a high-yield savings account. It’s a service of Flagstar Bank, which is a subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp, a publicly traded company and one of the largest regional banks in the country.

My Banking Direct stands out among competitors for its no-fee, high-yield savings account and strong mobile banking experience. In the following section, we take a closer look at the pros and cons of the institution’s high-yield offerings.

My Banking Direct high-yield savings accounts pros and cons

Pros explained

No monthly account fees

My Banking Direct doesn’t charge any monthly fees for its high-yield savings account. That means you don’t have to meet a certain monthly contribution level to become eligible for no-fee savings, unlike some of the bank’s competitors, ensuring that you don’t have to pay anything to maintain your account regardless of how often you use it.

Strong mobile banking experience

As a customer of My Banking Direct, you’ll be able to access your account on your mobile phone through the New York Community Bank mobile app, which has earned strong reviews in both the Apple Store and Google Play Store.

The app includes a variety of helpful tools to simplify the mobile banking experience, including:

• Integrated bill pay
• Zelle
• Mobile alerts and notifications
• Instant balance view
• An integrated credit score-checking feature

Supports mobile check and recurring deposits

Another advantage of My Banking Direct is its support for mobile check deposits. This is a common feature for savings and checking accounts, but some competitors don’t offer it for their high-yield products. Mobile deposits are especially important for My Banking Direct given its lack of physical branches.

Additionally, customers can set up automatic, recurring direct deposits to stay on track toward long-term savings goals. With the My Banking Direct mobile app, you can choose to set up an automatic contribution as a percentage of every paycheck or a fixed monthly amount to your high-yield savings account, making manual deposits one less thing you have to worry about.

Cons explained

Requires a $500 minimum opening deposit

One of the biggest disadvantages to My Banking Direct’s high-yield savings is its $500 minimum opening deposit requirement. If that’s more than you want to or are able to fund a high-yield savings account with, the bank may not be the best choice for you. For a comparison of how My Banking Direct shapes up against competitors offering similar high-yield rates — but that do so without minimum deposit requirements — read our review of the best high-yield savings accounts.

Beyond requiring minimum funding, a $500 deposit with My Banking Direct doesn’t lock in the best rates available. To access those, you’ll need to deposit at least $2,500 into a high-yield product to receive the bank’s best rate offers.

Operating company has poor customer reviews

My Banking Direct doesn’t have many user-submitted reviews itself, but the institution is operated by Flagstar Bank, which does. At the time of writing, across 275 reviews on the company’s Better Business Bureau (BBB) page, Flagstar has an average rating of just 1.04 stars out of 5. The complaints highlighted on the BBB page focus on topics ranging from data breaches and poor customer service response times to issues over mortgages and escrow accounts.

While My Banking Direct is a subsidiary of Flagstar Bank, and the user reviews of the latter shouldn’t lead to direct implications about the former, such a low BBB rating for the parent company doesn’t instill confidence in the organization as a whole.

$30 fee for closing the account within 180 days of opening it

Another drawback to consider before signing up for My Banking Direct is that there is some risk associated with opening a high-yield savings account just to see if it’s the right fit for your finances. If you end up not liking the bank’s products or services and want to close your account, you’ll either have to wait at least six months to do so or incur a $30 fee. That charge could erase the interest you earned while trialing the bank’s offerings in the short term.

My Banking Direct high-yield savings account offerings

There are two types of savings accounts to consider if you want to bank with My Banking Direct. The following section discusses how they compare.

High-yield savings account

My Banking Direct’s high-yield savings account is a flexible savings option that pays a higher interest rate than traditional savings accounts. It features:

• No monthly maintenance fees
• Online and mobile account access
• FDIC insurance for balances up to $250,000
• Automatic deposits and mobile check deposits
• Bill pay and Zelle

The high-yield savings account doesn’t require any initiation fees, but users need to deposit at least $500 to fund a new account. Be aware that the interest rate you earn on your cash with a My Banking Direct high-yield savings account is subject to change at any time, though the same is true at most banks offering high-yield savings accounts.

Certificate of deposit

My Banking Direct also offers certificates of deposit (CDs). If you’re not familiar, a CD is a type of savings account that holds a fixed amount of money over a fixed period of time while offering a fixed interest rate. In other words, you agree to keep your money in the bank for a predetermined amount of time in exchange for interest.

There are two advantages to choosing a CD over a high-yield savings account at My Banking Direct. The first is a locked-in interest rate. Whereas the rate for the high-yield savings account is variable and can be changed without notice, the rate that you see today for a CD will remain the rate that you earn throughout the lifespan of the term.

Another advantage to this product is that CDs offer slightly higher interest rates than most high-yield savings accounts. This reflects your agreement to lock up your money for a predetermined amount of time. However, if you need to access your funds before the end of the CD’s term, you will be charged early withdrawal penalties.

In the case of My Banking Direct’s CDs, if you withdraw money within the first six months, you will sacrifice 30 days’ simple interest on the amount withdrawn. If you withdraw money between six to 11 months after opening the CD, that penalty increases to 90 days’ simple interest on the amount withdrawn. For withdrawals ranging from 12–35 months after the term begins, the penalty is 180 days’ compound interest on the amount withdrawn.

My Banking Direct high-yield savings account pricing

You don’t have to pay anything to open a high-yield savings account at My Banking Direct, but you will have to make at least a $500 deposit to fund the account. That figure rises to $2,500 if you want to access the company’s best available rates. However, there are various fees you can incur as a customer of My Banking Direct, including:

• $20 for returned payment processing

• $15 for both ingoing and outgoing wires that exceed transfer limits

• $15 for returned mail processing (can be charged monthly)

• $35 for stop payment and removal of stop payment

• $150 or the maximum amount permitted by law for bank account garnishment

• $30 for closing an account within 180 days of opening it

My Banking Direct high-yield savings account financial stability

My Banking Direct is a subsidiary of Flagstar Bank, which falls under the umbrella of the New York Community Bancorp. This parent company has earned ratings of BBB from Fitch and Baa3 from Moody’s, indicating the bank is financially stable and the risk of default is currently low, but adverse business or economic conditions are more likely to hurt the company’s financial stability.

New York Community Bancorp is a publicly traded company with a market capitalization of $8.65 billion. From June 2022 to June 2023, it saw revenues rise 266.6%, gross profits increase 218.83% and operating income of $3.13 billion.

My Banking Direct’s financial stability is viewed as solid for the near term but could change if business challenges or a recession arrive. The bank is FDIC-insured, so even if it were to become insolvent, customers’ deposits are protected up to $250,000.

My Banking Direct high-yield savings account accessibility

Availability

A high-yield savings account with My Banking Direct is available to anyone who is able or willing to deposit $500 into a new account as long as they can provide a valid address, Social Security number or tax ID and a driver’s license or other state-issued ID.

Since the bank has no physical locations, you'll also need to be willing to manage your account online, via its app or over the phone. That said, you can transfer funds between your My Banking Direct accounts instantly online or via the My Banking Direct app, though external transfers take one to three business days to process.

Additionally, My Banking Direct offers fee-free ATM withdrawals and deposits through AllPoint and Presto. Through these networks, there are more than 55,000 ATMs available to customers across the United States.

Contact information

You can contact My Banking Direct customer service by calling 1-866-285-1856. The company has a 24/7 automated answering system. Or you can call during business hours to speak with a human. Bankers are available at the following times:

• Monday through Friday: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST
• Saturday: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST
• Sunday: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST

You can also login to your online account and select “Messages” to send a secure message to a customer service agent if you’re already an existing customer.

Lastly, you can send mail to:

My Banking Direct
A service of Flagstar Bank, N.A.
P.O. Box 190
Hicksville, N.Y, 11801

User experience

This My Banking Direct’s user experience is solid, especially via mobile devices, according to online reviews of the New York Community Bancorp app, which has a 4.7-star rating out of a possible 5 on Apple’s App Store and a 4.3-star rating on Google Play. The company’s website is also easily navigable. It publicly displays current interest rates for its products and offers a resource center, including 10 financial calculators and the NYCB $MART guide, which educates users on topics like how to build wealth, safe savings for kids and the latest scams in addition to articles and a video library.

My Banking Direct high-yield savings account customer satisfaction

There are very few reviews of My Banking Direct available online. As a proxy, we examined customer reviews of Flagstar Bank, which operates My Banking Direct. Flagstar Bank has a 1.04-star rating out of a possible 5 on its BBB profile. Many reviews complain of poor customer service and a lack of flexibility, which harms customers.

How we evaluated My Banking Direct high-yield savings account

Our analysis of My Banking Direct's high-yield savings account evaluated each of the following factors:

• Fees: We considered the amount My Banking Direct charges to open and maintain a high-yield savings account.

• Deposit requirements: We looked at the company’s minimum opening deposit requirements and evaluated how they impact customers’ interest rate offers.

• Customer service: We analyzed My Banking Direct’s customer service availability and track record.

• Mobile and online banking features: We scrutinized the institution’s mobile and online banking features with an eye on convenience.

Summary of Money's My Banking Direct high-yield savings account review

My Banking Direct is an online-only institution offering high-yield savings accounts that have no monthly fees. It offers a strong mobile banking package with fee-free, nationwide ATM access and supports both mobile and recurring deposits for simplified ongoing saving. Customers must deposit at least $500 to open an account and $2,500 if they want to access the best interest rates available. My Banking Direct is operated by Flagstar Bank, which has received a low average user rating, but its parent company — New York Community Bancorp — is financially stable and received an A+ rating from the BBB.