Bank of America customers are earning a fraction of what their cash could pull elsewhere.
The Charlotte-based giant still pays 0.01% on its standard savings account, a rate that has barely budged even as the Federal Reserve spent years pushing benchmark rates higher.
On a $10,000 balance, that works out to about a dollar a year in interest.
The same money parked in a high-yield savings account paying roughly 4% would earn close to $400.
That gap, multiplied across millions of households, is why "why is my bank paying me nothing" keeps trending every time the Fed meets.
Big banks don't need to compete for deposits the way online banks do.
They already have your checking account, your direct deposit, your debit card, and often your mortgage.
Switching feels like a hassle, so most people never do it.
Banks count on that inertia, and it shows up on their balance sheets.
That calculus shifted in 2023 when regional bank failures sent depositors hunting for safety.
Money poured into the biggest names, giving them even less incentive to raise savings rates.
Meanwhile, online-only players like Ally, Marcus, and Synchrony kept rates elevated to pull in new customers.
The result is a two-tier system: brand-name convenience on one side, meaningfully higher yields on the other.
If you keep a cushion at Bank of America for bill pay and ATM access, you don't have to abandon it.
Many savers run a hybrid setup: a small balance at the big bank for day-to-day needs, and the bulk of their emergency fund at an online institution earning real interest.
Transfers between the two typically take one to two business days.
Watch the fine print before you move anything.
Some high-yield accounts require minimum balances or charge fees if you dip below a threshold.
Promotional rates can also reset after a few months, so check whether the headline number is permanent or temporary.
And confirm your deposits stay within FDIC insurance limits, which currently cover $250,000 per depositor, per institution, for most account types.
Bank of America does offer higher yields through its Preferred Rewards program, but the tiers generally require substantial combined balances across checking, savings, and investment accounts.
For someone with $5,000 in savings, jumping through those hoops rarely pencils out compared to simply opening an account somewhere else.
The bigger takeaway is that loyalty to a single bank is expensive.
Rates aren't a set-it-and-forget-it detail anymore.
They're a line item in your budget, and right now that line reads close to zero for millions of Americans.
Our take: the gap between big-bank savings and online savings is one of the easiest money leaks to plug, and it takes about fifteen minutes to fix.
There's no reward for staying loyal to a 0.01% rate.
Final Thoughts
If your bank won't pay you for your deposits, someone else will.