Applied for a 1 year CD online on a Thursday afternoon. Friday morning, the two test deposits had been made to my linked external account. I verified the amounts and by Friday evening, the ACH transfer had been made and the account was funded. That is a pretty fast turnaround, and not always the case in my experience with some other banks. All in all, a pleasant account opening experience.

Since Colorado Fed S B is offering high CD rates, I thought I'd post regarding my recent account opening experience. Their account opening experience is both complex and efficient. By complex I mean they used just about every security requirement that I have experienced with all other online banks. Since I have a credit freeze on my accounts at all of the credit bureaus, I called ahead to ask if that would be a problem. They said that since they use a credit bureau to verify applications, I would need an extra step of emailing an image of my drivers license; no problem I've had this request before. They require an ID and password be set up for purposes of processing the application. However, once the CD is funded, they required an entirely new/different ID & PW for account access (through electronic banking); I've encountered this complexity at one other institution. Like most online banks, they send test deposits/withdrawals to your funding bank, as part of the account set up. So, I started my application before the funds had even been moved into my funding account. You control the funding timing, because the CD is not funded until you respond to report the test transactions. CFSB, established the effective date of my CD on the date I reported the test transactions and initiated ACH transfer to fund the CD. Hence, I am earning interest before they have received the funds. No lost interest. CFSB's disclosures make it pretty clear that you need to fund a CD from an account that you expect will be open to receive the proceeds at maturity, as they will only electronically transfer to the opening account. As another poster observed, this could be viewed as a security feature. CFSB initiated their processing steps as soon as they had the necessary information at each stage, thus I say they are efficient for CDs. I think this is the most reliable of all the highest CD rate institutions, based on reviews on this site.

Just moved from Goldman Sachs to Colorado Federal Savings Bank last week. So far no problems... Only thing I'm not thrilled about is they don't have verification for logins. However, from what I can tell, you're limited to only one bank that is linked to the account so the only way to transfer money out of the account online would be to send it back to your own bank account at the linked bank. I guess that's secure enough for me. Certainly can't beat the yield!