Bank of America's flagship savings account still pays 0.01% annual percentage yield, a rate that has barely budged even as the Federal Reserve spent years holding its benchmark rate at elevated levels.
On $10,000, that works out to about one dollar a year.
The rate sits right there in the fine print.
What's buried is the comparison: the same $10,000 parked in a competitive online savings account earning roughly 4% would generate around $400 over twelve months.
That gap, near $399, is the price of keeping your cash where you already do your checking.
This is not a Bank of America-specific problem.
Chase, Wells Fargo, and most brick-and-mortar giants run the same playbook.
They pay next to nothing on deposits because they don't have to.
Customers who value branches, ATMs, and a familiar app tend not to move their money over a few hundred basis points.
The banks know this, and the math works in their favor at enormous scale.
Where the money goes is worth understanding.
Banks earn a spread: they pay you a sliver on deposits, then lend that money out through mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards at far higher rates.
Every dollar you leave sitting at 0.01% is a dollar they can redeploy at 6% or more.
You are, in effect, offering your bank an interest-free loan with extra steps.
Moving savings means opening another account, tracking another login, and managing transfers.
That friction is real, and it's exactly what keeps the low-rate model profitable.
But the friction is also a one-time cost.
Setting up an online savings account takes maybe fifteen minutes.
The payoff compounds every month after that.
Worth noting: online banks paying around 4% aren't charities either.
They run leaner operations, skip the branch network, and use high rates as marketing to pull in deposits.
Some of those rates are promotional and can fall when the Fed cuts.
So the comparison isn't "greedy bank versus generous bank." It's "expensive convenience versus cheaper convenience," and you get to decide which one you're actually using.
A few practical notes before you move anything.
Savings rates are variable, so don't lock in a plan assuming today's 4% lasts forever.
Keep enough in your everyday bank to cover bills and avoid fees.
And check whether your current account charges a monthly maintenance fee that a minimum balance would waive, because draining it to zero can trigger charges that eat your gains.
There's also a scam angle worth flagging.
Whenever savings rates make headlines, fake "high-yield" offers follow.
No legitimate bank guarantees a specific return, pressures you to wire money, or asks for gift cards.
If an offer sounds too good and the website looks slightly off, walk away.
The uncomfortable truth is that most people won't move their money.
But the difference between 0.01% and something meaningfully higher isn't a rounding error for a household with real savings.
It's a car payment, a chunk of a vacation, or a few months of groceries.
The takeaway here isn't that Bank of America is uniquely villainous.
It's that the default option is rarely the best one, and the cost of leaving your savings on autopilot is measurable.
Check your statement this week, do the arithmetic on your own balance, and decide whether loyalty to a logo is worth the interest you're not earning.
Final Thoughts
The banks are counting on you not bothering.