EverBank (formerly TIAA) Review 2024

In 2023, TIAA Bank rebranded as EverBank. Many of the account features remain the same.

Once called TIAA Bank, EverBank is a Member FDIC financial institution with a strong presence in Jacksonville, Florida, as evidenced by its sponsorship of the NFL Jaguars stadium. While TIAA Bank was more targeted toward educators, public sector, and non-profit employees, EverBank serves a wider demographic, though its products remain largely unchanged.

If you’re familiar with the products once offered by TIAA Bank, EverBank’s offerings will seem eerily familiar to you. If not, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. Read on to learn more about EverBank’s banking and lending services for consumers across the United States.

EverBank Accounts

 Let’s take a look at EverBank’s compelling suite of account options.

1. Yield Pledge Checking Account

EverBank’s Yield Pledge Checking Account, billed as one of the oldest high-yield checking accounts, offers competitive interest rates (annual percentage yields), no account maintenance fees, and no-cost overdraft protection for clients who link their accounts to an EverBank savings or money market account.

The Yield Pledge name evokes a longstanding EverBank policy: Its interest rates always remain within the top 5% of all U.S. banks’ interest rates, as defined by Bankrate.com’s National Average survey, which updates at the beginning of each month.

Upon opening a new account, for which a minimum deposit of $100 is required, account holders currently receive a 12-month introductory interest rate that’s close to category-leading. After the first year, rates drop but remain quite competitive.

2. Yield Pledge Online Savings

If you already have a checking account you’re happy with, EverBank’s online-only Yield Pledge savings account can be a great option for storing funds you won’t need in the immediate future.

The account has an impressive 5.15% APY. Like the Yield Pledge Checking Account, the Pledge guarantees the interest rate will stay in the top 5% competitive rates.

It’s FDIC-insured with no monthly maintenance fees and you can open it without meeting a minimum balance requirement. You can fund it internally with another EverBank account, transfer funds, or deposit a check.

3. Yield Pledge Money Market Account

EverBankBank offers a money market account under the Yield Pledge banner. This account guarantees that its rates remain in the top fifth percentile of all U.S. banks, as defined by the Bankrate.com National Average, which is updated monthly.

EverBank doesn’t require an opening deposit and allows up to six outbound transfers or withdrawals per month, as per federal regulations. Inbound transfers and deposits are unlimited.

As with EverBank’s checking account, no monthly maintenance fees are associated with this product.

New accounts are eligible for a 12-month introductory interest rate on up to $250,000 in deposits. Beyond $250,000, the rate on all funds is slightly lower but still quite attractive. After the first 12 months, the rate drops to a lower but still competitive APY. All rates are subject to change on a monthly basis, as per the BRM Index.

4. Bump Rate CD

EverBank’s Bump Rate CD has a 42-month term, during which account holders have the option to raise their rate once if prevailing rates rise.

The Bump Rate CD’s APY is highly competitive. There’s a maximum deposit amount of $250,000. A minimum deposit of $1,500 is required to open a Bump Rate CD account. The maturity warning window is 20 days.

5. Basic CDs

EverBank’s Basic CDs have terms ranging from three months to five years. Competitive yields apply to balances up to $1 million. There’s a $1,000 minimum deposit requirement for all accounts and a 20-day maturity warning.

6. Foreign Currency Accounts

Advanced investors and savers can take advantage of currency fluctuations by making foreign-denominated deposits into EverBank’s Foreign Currency Accounts, CDs, and CD Baskets.

These accounts currently offer access to approximately 20 foreign currencies, including popular denominations such as the Australian dollar, the euro, and the pound sterling, as well as less common varieties such as the Hungarian forint, Danish krone, and Polish zloty. Interest-bearing CD accounts are available in some — but not all — of these currencies.

When an account holder deposits or redeems foreign-denominated funds for U.S. dollars (or vice versa), EverBank pays out within 1% of the prevailing market exchange rate, which is an unpublished variable rate that governs currency exchanges between banks. Basically, the markup it charges for currency exchanges isn’t constant, but it does not exceed 1% under normal circumstances.

As deposit accounts, all of EverBank’s foreign currency products are FDIC-insured up to a limit of $250,000 per account. However, this insurance only covers funds lost due to a failure of EverBank itself. It doesn’t cover potential losses due to depreciation of the currency in which your funds are denominated relative to the U.S. dollar.

Minimum deposits range from $2,500 (or $100 per month) for the Access Account to $20,000 for the CD Baskets.

7. CDARS Service for Higher FDIC Limits

EverBank offers access to the Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service (CDARS), which provides FDIC insurance above the typical $250,000 account balance limit.

The company’s CDARS products include three-, six-, 12-, 24-, and 36-month CDs with solid but not spectacular yields. There’s a $12.5 million funding limit on the three shorter-term CDs. The 24- and 36-month CDs have lower limits of $2.5 million and $1 million, respectively.

All EverBank CDARS accounts require minimum deposits of $10,000, lack maintenance fees, and come with 15-day maturity warnings. Per CDARS’s regulations, automatic rollovers aren’t available on these products. However, clients can open new CDARS accounts when their old ones mature.

8. Precious Metal Investments

EverBank allows its brokerage and wealth management clients to invest directly in gold and other commodities. Interested account holders have two options.

First, EverBank’s allocated accounts facilitate direct, undivided investment in physical gold and silver. With an allocated account, you can take physical delivery of individual bars or coins, including gold and silver bars that range from one to 100 ounces, and one-ounce gold and silver coins issued by the American, Austrian, Canadian, and South African governments. These require a minimum deposit of $7,500 and accrue storage fees for clients who don’t take physical delivery.

Second, unallocated accounts are precious metal investment pools with many different participants, and they don’t facilitate undivided ownership of physical gold or silver. However, unallocated accounts do facilitate ownership of fractional shares of bars and coins — you own a specific amount of gold or silver, but you are not assigned to a particular bar or coin. They require a minimum one-time deposit of $5,000, or a commitment of at least $100 per month to an ongoing purchase plan.

It’s not possible to take delivery of metals included in an unallocated account, but EverBank doesn’t assess storage fees on them either. EverBank’s precious metals offerings aren’t FDIC-insured, but they are insured by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation.

9. Business Accounts

EverBank offers a full lineup of accounts for business clients. These generally mirror its options for individual depositors — its checking, money market, CD, and CDARS accounts also apply to businesses — although rates on checking accounts for larger businesses are lower.

EverBank also offers some business accounts that aren’t available to individuals, including a Business Analysis Checking product that provides fee credits for companies with high transaction volumes.

Like individual depositors, business clients can also open foreign-denominated accounts, but EverBank offers a special foreign exchange service for companies that need to exchange U.S. dollars for other currencies regularly. This service offers better exchange rates than individual accounts, for which currency exchanges can cost up to 1% of their total value.

EverBank doesn’t offer retirement products, such as 401(k) plans, for businesses.

EverBank Key Features

1. Mobile Banking

While EverBank maintains a solid presence in the Florida panhandle, its clientele isn’t forced to be in that general region. Because it doesn’t have a lot of overhead maintaining thousands of branches, EverBank’s online banking solutions are particularly robust. It partners with the broader TIAA company’s infrastructure to create a fluid dashboard where you can manage all your accounts, transfer funds, pay bills online, and more.

2. ATM Reimbursement

If you don’t live in Florida, you’re unlikely to find an EverBank ATM to withdraw funds. To minimize this burden, EverBank will automatically reimburse up to $15 in monthly ATM fees. Reimbursement becomes unlimited if you hold a balance over $5,000 monthly.

3. Yield Pledge Promise

The Yield Pledge Promise is EverBank’s most compelling feature. For all its Yield Pledge accounts, EverBank guarantees that its APY will remain in the top 5% of all competitive accounts nationwide.

4. Account options with no minimum deposit

While many of EverBank’s products have minimum account balances to qualify for a preferential APY, it’s not a requirement to open your accounts. This flexibility gives you time to transfer money, build a relationship with the bank, and decide if it’s the right fit for your needs.

Advantages of EverBank

EverBank has a lot going for it. These are some of its top advantages.

1. Access to a Multitude of Savings and Investment Vehicles

Some online banks are known for offering solid interest rates on a small number of account types, such as checking and savings or money market and CDs. Others allow users to open deposit accounts and trade securities through an in-house brokerage account.

EverBank offers the best of both worlds. In addition to common account types like checking and savings, which all offer competitive interest rates, TIAA Bank lets depositors open accounts to purchase precious metals or foreign currencies. Although TIAA Bank has no in-house brokerage, its parent company does offer brokerage services.

2. Lots of Options and Flexibility for High-Asset Accounts

On top of its comprehensive savings and investment options for rank-and-file clients, EverBank caters to high-asset account holders and small- to medium-sized business clients.

Ally, Capital One 360, and FNBO Direct don’t work with CDARS, the organization that provides FDIC insurance on individual CDs worth more than $250,000. They also don’t have separate wealth management divisions that provide expert strategic advice and manage portfolios, which may include currencies, equities, bonds, CDs, and precious metals.

Such services are more common at high-end investment firms like Franklin Templeton and full-service brokerages like Schwab, which don’t have flexible deposit accounts like TIAA Bank.

3. ATM Reimbursements for Qualifying Accounts

EverBank reimburses unlimited ATM fees charged by U.S. banks, provided that the account holder maintains a balance of at least $5,000 during the pertinent statement period.

Some online banks, including Ally Bank, reimburse ATM fees as well. However, brick-and-mortar banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America are much more stingy about this, often limiting reimbursements during a statement period or refusing to reimburse any fees incurred outside their ATM networks.

4. Highly Competitive Checking Yields

Yields on EverBank’s high-yield checking account are far more generous than those of other banks. Many brick-and-mortar banks, such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America, don’t pay interest on funds in checking accounts — and yields on their savings accounts are often laughably low, amounting to just less than 0.05% in both cases.

With EverBank’s Yield Pledge, which is a literal pledge to keep its checking yields in the top fifth percentile relative to the national average for U.S. banks, customers don’t have to worry about rates not being competitive.

5. No Overdraft Fees With Linked Accounts

Even if they lack sufficient funds in their checking accounts, EverBank customers don’t have to pay overdraft fees if they link them with in-house money markets or savings vehicles from which the bank can automatically pull. This safety net is limited by restrictions on outbound transfers — no more than six per statement period.

TIAA Bank also allows customers to opt in to a personal overdraft line of credit that provides a cash advance at rates under 10% if the linked account lacks sufficient funds to cover an overdraft. There’s no fee for this credit line, but interest begins accruing on the day of the overdraft and continues to accrue until the full advance has been paid.

Customers also can opt out of overdraft protection altogether.

Disadvantages of EverBank

EverBank isn’t perfect. These are the most notable disadvantages.

1. No Mortgages for Personal Banking

While many comparable financial institutions have a stake in the consumer mortgage and lending business, EverBank focuses solely on commercial lending. For this reason, it won’t be the best option for banking clients who prefer a one-stop-shop or preferential relationship rates on loans.

2. High Minimum Deposit Requirements on Some Accounts

Some EverBank accounts have high minimum balance requirements (account minimums), namely the CD accounts. By contrast, many online banks, including Ally Bank, don’t require minimum deposits for checking, savings, or CD accounts with tangible yields.

For savers who want to spread their money across multiple high-yield accounts or simply don’t have a lot to invest, EverBank’s account-size restrictions can be onerous.

3. No Lending for Autos or Other Big-Ticket Purchases

EverBank’s commercial mortgage options, not to mention its refinancing vehicles, have a lot to offer for prospective commercial real estate developers. Unfortunately, its lending operations don’t extend to auto lending or other big-ticket purchases.

By contrast, Ally Bank has a robust auto lending operation, and GE Capital Retail Bank offers financing for everything from furniture and residential appliances to medical bills and jewelry.

4. Limited Access to Fee-Free ATM Withdrawals

Banks with nationwide physical branch networks, such as Wells Fargo and Chase, have thousands of branded ATMs scattered about the country, making it easy for depositors to access their money without paying third-party ATM fees. By contrast, EverBank has a relative handful of its own ATMs (fee-free for all account holders), mostly at its dozen Florida bank branches.

Unless they can maintain a checking account balance of at least $5,000, EverBank customers who use their debit cards at a non-EverBank ATM must pay any fees charged by the ATM’s owner.

5. No In-House Brokerage or Wealth Management Services

EverBank customers can invest with EverBank’s brokerage, which provides a range of options for passive and active investors, but there’s no way to do so directly through EverBank’s online banking portal. EverBank also has no in-house wealth management vertical, a blow to the company’s high-net-worth customers.

By comparison, some competitors have fully integrated brokerage verticals. Ally Bank has Ally Invest, for instance, and TD Bank has long had a close association with TD Ameritrade, a full-service broker. If you’re looking for a one-stop shop for spending, saving, and investing in stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), mutual funds, and bonds, look to one of those options instead.

Customer Experience

EverBank has gone through a whirlwind of rebranding since its merger with TIAA Bank in 2017. As such, its online banking experiences can be a bit confusing if you don’t know its history.

Customers have full access to TIAA’s mobile banking interface and the apps are well-built according to customer reviews. The TIAA app holds an impressive 4.3 out of 5 stars on the Google Play store based on more than 5,000 reviews. It holds a similarly impressive 4.7 out of 5-star rating on the iOS App Store from a growing 7,000 reviews.

You can use the app for 24/7 banking and customer support. You can also call customer support directly at 1-888-882-3837 for general banking questions. If you have debit/credit card or investing questions, EverBank maintains dedicated hotlines for those inquiries.

Online customer reviews on sites like the Better Business Bureau, Google Reviews, and TrustPilot aren’t yet reflective of EverBank’s new branding, so we’ll keep an eye on that and update it as the company continues to streamline its operating practices and attract people outside of TIAA Bank’s narrow clientele.

How EverBank Compares

EverBank has highly competitive interest rates, flexible minimum deposits (unless you want to qualify for certain promotional rates), and compelling ATM reimbursements.

Here’s a quick look at how it compares to similar online-only financial institutions:

Final Word

EverBank is a full-service online bank with physical branches in Florida. Its flagship product, the Yield Pledge Checking Account, offers one of the best checking account yields of any national bank, and its money market accounts and CDs are competitive, as well.

At the same time, some of EverBank’s accounts require high minimum deposits, and its ATM fee reimbursements don’t kick in until account holders keep more than $5,000 in a single checking account.

Unlike Capital One 360, which actively caters to smaller savers and investors while limiting options for advanced investors and high-asset savers, EverBank definitely sets its sights on a wealthier customer set.

If you have ample reserves of cash and can easily clear the company’s minimums for its promotions, you could reap solid rewards from its high-yield accounts and personalized financial services.

However, if you’re just starting out down the savings trail, a friendlier bank like Ally or Capital One 360 might be more your speed.