Online Savings Rates Increase in 2019

Online savings rates continue to move higher during the first week of 2019 as several banks increased rates. The best online savings rate for the first week of 2019 goes to CIT Bank with a rate of 2.45 percent on their Savings Builder savings account. The minimum opening deposit is $25,000.

The second best online savings rate goes to MySavings Direct at 2.40 percent with minimum opening deposit of only $1.00.

The third highest online savings rate is at 2.36 percent from Popular Direct and VirtualBank. Vio Bank and PurePoint Financial are tied with the fourth best savings rate at 2.35 percent. Rounding out the top 5 savings rates is earn.bank with a rate of 2.31 percent.

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to increase the fed funds rate two or three more times in 2019 if there isn't a recession. Each fed funds rate increase is 25 basis points or 0.25 percent. After each rate increase online banks usually follow with higher savings rates and other variable rates.

If there are more rate increases in 2019, we could see the best online savings rates move up to 2.75 percent, or possibly as high as 3.00 percent. It's been about a decade when online banks were offering variable deposit rates as high as 3.00 percent.