CD Rate Trends This Week: July 20

Bank certificate of deposit investors need to start getting creative about finding good returns from the ruins of the bank savings market.

In some instances, that could mean literally jumping outside the CD box to get a better bank rate. You can, for example, get a better rate on a savings account than on a CD rate at certain banks, and under certain conditions. At Wilshire State bank, for example, savers who opt for the bank’s Rainbow Savings Plan can earn a 2.28% APY for a 12-month savings plan, or a 3.3% APY for a 36-month savings plan. The plan’s interest rate is built on a tiered-approach — the longer you keep your money in a rainbow Savings account, the more interest you’ll earn.

Compare those rates on a bank savings plan (even a tiered one) with the average CD rates for 12-month and 36-month CD rates, respectively. The BankingMyWay Weekly CD Rate Tracker has the average 12-month CD at 0.712%, and even the average 48-month CD rate at 1.706% — well below what Wilshire is offering on a three-year savings plan.

It’s that kind of creativity that may have to get bank investors through tough times. There are never any guarantees in the bank market, but the news last week from Bank of America (Stock Quote: BAC) that financial reform would cost the bank $10 billion in the next year alone, and $50 billion over the next 10 years (the comment came from a bank chief executive officer Brian Moynihan on an earnings conference call last week) is still reverberating on Wall Street.

According to bank figures, the losses will come primarily from Bank of America’s consumer banking division, which accounts for more than 50% of the bank’s revenues. The estimated losses, on things like debit card fee payment restrictions ($2 billion) and the end of overdraft fees ($1 billion), will have to be made up somewhere else — only nobody is sure where.

As Bank of America doesn’t exactly have a reputation for providing great bank savings rates, who really believes it will give money away in the form of higher CD returns? There’s an argument to be made that higher CD rates will attract more customers, but that hasn’t been an option for the bank in the past and there’s no indication that the bank will look at high rates as a way to recoup estimated losses from the financial reform bill.