American Express finally decided to launch their personal/rewards checking account after their success with the business checking account. American Express personal checking account is also known as American Express rewards checking account as this checking account earns membership rewards as well along with APY.
The American Express personal checking account is a completely digital bank with a Debit card. With their product launch in rewards checking, they are planning to be the core banking partner for their members by providing all services in the banking industry.
At this time, any member who has a business checking account is not eligible for a personal checking account or vice versa.
However, as per the updates and assumptions, they would be allowing their members soon to have both, personal and checking accounts together.
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Checking Account Application Process
Currently, the application is only available for American Express credit card members who must be the primary account holders and should have the card for at least 3 months before applying.
The process is completely digital. You can click on the American Express personal checking account and can submit the details as asked on that web page.
The application is usually processed in a jiffy and you get the decision instantly after submitting the application. Also, at this time there is no welcome bonus offer for applying American Express Personal Checking account.
Checking Account Key Benefits
- Earn a 0.50% APY on account balance
- Membership rewards benefits on Debit card purchases.
- No Account Maintainance fee.
- Mobile Check Deposit
0.50% APY on account balance
This checking account from American Express is an interest-bearing account that helps you earn interest on the money deposited on the account.
The account helps you keep all the money in one place and earn interest on that. They are providing 0.50% APY which is currently 10x higher than the national rate and no other bank is near this rate.
The interest rate is earned on the account over a year period and is credited to your account on the last day of each month and the balance gets cumulative.
Membership Reward Points
This time American Express came up with a unique idea and similar to a credit card, they are offering reward points on Debit cards as well.
On Debit card transactions, you earn 1 Membership reward point for every $2 spent. However, it is limited to Debit card transactions only and is not available for ACH or check Deposits.
All the reward points are added to your one membership reward account and can be redeemed for various options like Gift cards, merchandise, a statement credit, or travel services.
At this time you are getting a value of 0.8 of a cent for every one MR point as per the terms.
No Account Maintainance Fee
With the launch of this product, American Express also ensured that you do not have to pay any monthly fee to maintain the account or be charged with a penalty for not maintaining the minimum balance.
With this, they have made the checking account completely free to use. The only fee you would have to pay is using the Debit card with an international merchant or at an international ATM as that has a 2.7% foreign transaction fee.
Using the Debit card in USD is free of cost. However, you may be charged a fee for using an ATM that is not one of the Money Pass ATMs for the services and transactions.
Mobile Check Deposit
With the personal checking account, the new feature which has been introduced is the mobile check Deposit.
Funding the account is one task that we all want to be smooth and American Express is smooth with this process. This feature gives you the option to take a picture of a check and deposit it online to fund the account instantly.
This is the alternate for mail-in checks where we were supposed to wait for 5-7 days for the check to be delivered and then the funds were made available.
However, at this time they have few restrictions like you only can deposit upto $5000 via mobile check deposit within 30 days. Let’s hope they should be increasing the limit in time to come.
Account Funding Option
You can fund your checking account in various ways like :
Online transfer: where you will need to link your account first at the website. Once linked, you can enable the online transfer immediately between two accounts.
Direct Deposit: With Direct Deposit you can use your account number and routing number of the Amex rewards checking account and can set up the direct deposit with the payment issuer to fund the account.
Mobile Check Deposit, or mailed-in check: You can upload the check image online and can fund the account, or else can also mail in that check at their mailing address.
Conclusion
American Express never fails to live up to its name and keeps bringing new products for us to make our life and banking easy in the best possible way.
With their rewards checking account, it will help us bank wholely with American Express which is the top brand in the industry.
With no account maintenance fee, with 0.50% APY, the benefits like Membership Rewards and the mobile check deposit have landed in the banking industry for members who are looking to apply for a checking account, and it should be the first choice.
If you already have a credit card with American Express like American Express Gold Card, this account will help you in earning more reward points and will be combined into one account.
