Banksparency Savings Rate Indices

Purpose: This is our headline index. It represents the average APY for the true, passive high-yield savings market that is accessible to the vast majority of American savers without requiring a change in their primary banking behavior.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Federally Insured & Nationally Available: All accounts must be federally insured, by the FDIC at banks or by the NCUA at credit unions, and be available to any U.S. resident.
• No Monthly Maintenance Fees: Accounts that charge a monthly fee that cannot be easily waived are excluded.
• Minimum Balance Requirement: $0 to $1,000: The account must require a minimum of $1,000 or less to open and earn the advertised APY.
• No Activity Requirements: The account's advertised APY must be attainable without requiring direct deposits, a set number of debit card transactions, or other recurring account activities.

Purpose: This index tracks the average APY for the passive HYSA market catering to savers with a higher-than-average cash position.

Inclusion Criteria:

The account must meet all criteria from the Core Savings Index, with one exception:

• Minimum Balance Requirement: $1,001 to $100,000: This range captures the "mass affluent" and "jumbo" tiers of the consumer savings market.

Purpose: This index tracks the average APY for accounts that offer high rates as a reward for a deeper, more active banking relationship. These are not passive savings vehicles but part of a cash-flow management system.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Meets the basic criteria of being Federally Insured and Nationally Available.
• Requires Account Activity: The account's highest advertised APY is conditional upon the customer meeting specific activity requirements. This includes, but is not limited to, setting up qualifying direct deposits, executing a minimum number of debit card transactions, maintaining balances in linked accounts, or using a proprietary app.

Note: This index tracks the top-tier, conditional APY. We recognize these rates are often tiered and may only apply up to a specific balance. This is the one index that does not use the base-tier rule described below, because the conditional top rate is the figure it exists to measure.

Purpose: This index measures the whole personal money market pool we track, not a high-yield subset of it. It is not filtered against the FDIC national average, so it includes both the legacy accounts paying near zero and the high-yield accounts competing with savings. We publish the median beside the mean for that reason: the two are far apart, and neither number on its own describes a typical money market rate.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Personal Money Market Accounts: Business accounts are excluded.
• No Activity Requirements: The headline rate cannot depend on direct deposit, card transactions, a bundle, or a relationship tier.
• Minimum Balance Requirement: $0 to $1,000.
• No National Availability Requirement: Unlike the three savings indices, this index covers the whole consumer-visible market we track, including institutions that serve one region.

Purpose: One index per term length, because a single average across every term answers no question a saver actually has. A 3-month CD and a 5-year CD are different products priced off different parts of the curve.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Personal Fixed-Rate CDs: Business and variable-rate certificates are excluded, and each CD is assigned to exactly one term.
• No Minimum Balance, Activity, or National Availability Filter: These indices cover the whole consumer-visible market we track, the same population as the tables on our CD pages.
• A 25-Product Publication Floor: A term is published only when at least 25 products hold it. Below that the index is not thin, it is absent: we publish no figure rather than a figure a handful of banks could move.

How We Pick One APY Per Account

Most accounts advertise more than one rate. Each index takes one figure per account, called the base tier: the highest standard or capped rate that is available on a balance of at least $1,000, or on any balance where the account sets no upper limit.

Promotional and bonus tiers are excluded. So is a headline rate that applies only to a small opening balance, such as 5% on the first $500. One consequence is worth stating plainly: an account can show a higher rate in our rate tables than it contributes to an index, because the tables show what the bank advertises and the index shows what a saver with a normal balance actually earns.

The Relationship Rate Index is the exception. It takes the highest tier of any kind, because a conditional top rate is exactly what that index measures.