The other day when I was watching football, I saw a commercial that might make us both a little extra dough. The commercial was from Santander Bank, a bank that I’ve never heard of. They seem to be a fairly large European bank trying to move into the US. (And as luck would have it, it turns out that there’s one within walking distance to me.) Update: My wife told me last night that they bought out Sovereign Bank and just started rolling out the name change. How embarrassed am I? This is the equivalent of me correcting her on a designer’s name on Say Yes to the Dress.
The bank has an interesting checking account that I think some of you might interested in: this extra $20 account. It pays you $20 a month. In a world where interest rates are rock bottom and banks are increasing fees, it’s refreshing to see a bank pay you money every month.
So how do you get your hands on that sweet, sweet $20 a month? You have to open a checking and savings account and set up a direct deposit of $1500 a month and pay two bills. Can’t do both? You’ll get $10 for the one you can do. Update: The company is making it complicated and making you do the direct deposit for $10 before you can qualify for the $10 to pay two bills. So you can’t do either one. I know that $20 doesn’t seem like much, but it would almost pay for Amazon Prime and Netflix (both a streaming and the DVD service). Overall, it adds up: $240/yr, $720/3yrs, $1200/5yrs (yes, I grabbed that straight from their website). And if you are a dual income household, you can double it up.
Are you going to read another article today that’s going to put $2400 in your pocket over the next 5 years? I didn’t think so.
Note: While this may seem like a sponsored post, I received no compensation from Santander Bank for writing this or if you sign up for their account. I simply thought the account was too good to keep to myself. Let me know what you think of this deal in the comments.
Actually, Santander is a large Spanish Bank. They must have bought a regional blank in your area.
Good call, they did buy a local bank. I’ve updated the post to reflect that.
That’s quite a way to draw people to your bank, when you look at the yearly totals. I’d want to make sure there weren’t any other hidden requirements, if not, great deal.
Like any deal there’s fine print. I didn’t see anything too alarming in it though. As Jason mentioned they are a big bank in Spain, I don’t think they want to sully their reputation in the United States by nabbing people on fine print.
Awesome! I just saw a local branch in my hometown the other day and was wondering whether it would be good for a business account for Mr. Stapler’s freelancing gigs. We couldn’t do direct deposit, but we could pay 2 bills/month. $10/month would cover half of our monthly server costs!
They aren’t new to the US or our neck of the woods. They’ve owned Sovereign for 7 or 8 years (I’m friends with a former exec at Sovereign). Until a few weeks ago they kept the Sovereign name, which is now no longer the case.
Yep, I’m new to the neck of woods as I was away for the last 6 years. My search could have been bad, but it seems they bought Sovereign about 4 years ago when I was out west and like you mentioned just started using the new name.
I give them credit for the name change and the new campaign… good timing to coincide them.