Each Popular Direct CD offers competitive interest rates. The rates are competitive with other online accounts. The terms are shorter than 12-months offer competitive interest rates as well. Popular Direct interest rates are much higher than typical bank interest rates.

There are a good variety of CD terms offered through Popular Direct. The terms range in length from three-months to five-years. There are eight CD term lengths in all. You can open any of these CD terms online.

If you have a question and need to contact customer service, they are available anytime. Customers can reach a customer service representative every day, all day. Their customer service phone line is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also contact customer service through email or mail.

The process of opening Popular Direct CD terms is entirely online. It takes around ten minutes to complete the application for a new CD account. Once you successfully open an account, everything for your account is online. Access your accounts from anywhere, anytime.

Popular Direct CDs have a high set amount required to open their CDs. The requirement is $10,000 to open each CD term. If you do not have at least the $10,000 balance, you cannot open a Popular Direct CD.

The fee for withdrawing money from Popular Direct CDs before the maturity date is high. For terms less than 91 days, the fee is 89 days of interest. For terms greater than 91 days, but shorter than 12-months, the fee is 120 days of interest. The fee for terms longer than 12-months, but shorter than 36-months, is 270 days of interest. For terms from 36-months to 60-months, the fee is 365 days of interest. Terms 60-months or longer has a fee of 730 days of interest.

Some CDs allow you to withdraw interest earned on CDs without paying an early withdrawal fee. Popular Direct does not. They do not allow for withdrawals of the CD principal or the interest earned without paying a fee. You can only make withdrawals without a fee during the grace period.

There is only one way to fund your Popular Direct CDs. Customers must link each CD to an external bank account. When you open a CD, you must make the deposit from a linked external account. This is part of the account opening process. Once the accounts are linked, you can make electronic transfers into your CD. To avoid a fee, only transfer money when you first open the account and during the grace period.

Read the full Popular Direct review.

The set amount required to open Marcus CDs is low. Each CD term only requires $500 to open. Marcus CD offers competitive interest rates. The rates are competitive with other online CDs and much higher than typical bank rates. To earn interest on your Marcus CDs, you must keep $500 in the account. You will not earn interest until your CD has a balance over the $500 minimum.

Marcus offers a ten-day interest rate guarantee. Once you fund your account with the minimum deposit, you have ten days to watch the rates. If the rates increase in those ten days, Marcus locks in the highest interest rate.

Interest earned on Marcus CDs is automatically added to the principal amount of your CD. There are other options if you wish to receive interest in another way. You can have the monthly interest transferred to a Marcus online savings account. You can also transfer the money to an external linked account. You can withdraw the earned interest anytime during the CD term without a penalty.

Marcus offers a No-Penalty CD. This CD requires $500 to open. Once the account has been opened for seven days, you can withdraw your money at any time during the CD term. You will not be charged a fee for withdrawing your money before it reaches maturity. You cannot add additional funds to the No-Penalty CD.

You can withdraw money from the No-Penalty CD without a fee, but you cannot make a partial withdrawal. If you want to withdraw the money, you must withdraw the entire balance. This includes all the interest you have earned. You can withdraw the money after the account is open for seven days. You can only make a withdrawal one time during the term life of the CD. Once you withdraw your money, the account will close.

Marcus CDs terms less than 12-months do not offer as competitive of rates as the other CDs. The six-month and nine-month terms still offer competitive rates. Their rates are just not as competitive as the other CD term rates. These rates are still much higher than typical bank rates of the same terms.

The No-Penalty CDs offered through Marcus comes in limited term lengths. There are only three terms offered for the No-Penalty CDs. Those terms are a seven-month term, an 11-month term, and a 13-month term.

To make electronic transfers into your Marcus CDs requires linking another account. You can link a Marcus CD to a Marcus online savings account. You can also link your Marcus CD to an external account. Once you link the accounts you can transfer money electronically to fund the account. You can also have the earned interest transferred into the linked account.

Read the full Marcus by Goldman Sachs review.