Raisin Review: Easy Access to Some of the Highest Savings Rates Available

Raisin’s pitch is pretty simple: Get access to many great savings accounts via one simple login. And it delivers.

Raisin, formerly known as SaveBetter, gives users an extremely easy way to access some of the best high-yield savings accounts, money market accounts, and CD rates I've seen. With no account fees and a simple online interface, Raisin should be a great fit for many savers’ needs.

In this review, I'll look at how Raisin might benefit you, and whether it might be a good fit for your savings needs.

What is Raisin?

Raisin, previously known as SaveBetter, is an online marketplace where you can easily find and sign up for savings products from dozens of FDIC-insured banks and NCUA-insured credit unions, many of them offering industry-leading interest rates.

Is Raisin a bank?

Raisin itself is not a bank. It simply provides the marketplace and the account dashboard and monitoring for various types of savings accounts from its partner banks.

Given that Raisin isn't a bank, it's also important to understand that Raisin doesn't hold your money. Instead, Raisin works with a service bank that acts as a conduit to get your money into the savings account that you choose.

This is critical, because it means that your money is in an FDIC-insured institution every step of the way.

We'll get into more of exactly how Raisin works, but first let's take a look at some of the accounts and banks it offers in its marketplace, since this is the primary value from the platform.

Raisin’s partner banks offer high-yield savings accounts with some of the highest APYs (annual percentage yield) currently on the market. Here are a few of our favorite high-yield savings accounts currently listed on Raisin.

Raisin money market accounts

Similar to high-yield savings accounts, Raisin offers money market accounts from its partner banks, again featuring accounts with some of the highest APYs available. Here are some of our favorite money market accounts currently available on Raisin.

Raisin offers both standard CD (certificate of deposit) accounts as well as no-penalty CD accounts. The primary differences between the two are that the standard CDs charge a fee if you withdraw your funds prior to the maturity date of the CD, while the no-penalty CDs do not. On the other hand, the standard CDs tend to offer higher interest rates than the no-penalty CDs.

Because of the variety of CDs available on Raisin, it can be a great tool for building a CD ladder.

Here are some of our favorite standard CDs currently available on Raisin.

Raisin isn't the only option for high-yield CDs. Below, you can compare Raisin to some of our other top picks for CDs:

As mentioned above, Raisin also offers a variety of no-penalty CDs. These generally have a lower APY than a standard CD, but have the big benefit that you can withdraw your money (typically in an all-or-nothing fashion) prior to the maturity of the CD and not be charged and early-withdrawal penalty.

Here are some of our favorite no-penalty CDs currently available on Raisin.

Is Raisin safe to use?

Yes, Raisin is safe to use. Why? Because your money never leaves FDIC-insured banking institutions. That means you have up to the $250,000 FDIC-insured limit for individual accounts or $500,000 for a joint account covered.

Because your money doesn’t leave FDIC-insured banks, you should be protected in a wide variety of unlikely, but unfortunate scenarios. For example, if the partner bank were to fail, your funds at that bank would be FDIC insured up to the applicable limit. If Raisin’s service bank failed, it should not impact you, as your money would be in a partner bank, not the service bank. And if Raisin itself went bankrupt, again, your money would be at the partner bank, not Raisin itself, so your money should still be safe.

Where does your money go in Raisin?

Let’s go a little deeper to understand exactly what happens to your money with Raisin.

Your money starts in your external account. When you transfer money to a savings product from the Raisin marketplace, the money goes from your account to the “service bank” (an FDIC-insured bank called Lewis & Clark Bank), which then transfers the money into a custodial account at the partner bank with the savings product.

The custodial account is in the name of the service bank, but each customer’s funds (that means yours) are earmarked for that customer and receive pass-through FDIC insurance, meaning that your funds are insured to the same extent they would be if you opened the account directly in your name.

A real-life example

Let’s say you open a savings account with Customers Bank through Raisin and fund that account with $10,000.

Raisin’s service bank would request the transfer of the $10,000 from your external account. The funds would be transferred by the service bank to Customers Bank, where the money would go into a custodial account at Customers Bank. The service bank maintains the record of where your funds are, so that your money is properly accounted for and will receive FDIC (or NCUA) coverage via the partner bank.

You can add additional funds to that account over time (up to the $250,000 FDIC-insured limit for individual accounts or $500,000 for a joint account) or withdraw money to your external account as you need it.

How do I know all of this? Because the process of how this all works is outlined in the Raisin Terms of Service (one of those long documents that you have to agree to but rarely read from end-to-end), but also because I've talked to Raisin directly about this, as well as Lewis & Clark (its service bank) and partner banks, to ensure I understood, and to confirm that how it's supposed to work is actually how it's working in practice. I also reviewed FDIC guidance on custodial accounts and passthrough insurance.

How to get started with Raisin

1. Pick a product. To get started, you simply choose the first savings product that you’d like to open.

2. Input your personal information. Once you choose your banking product, Raisin leads you through some information gathering to set up the account.

3. Link an external account. As part of the setup process, Raisin asks for an external account. This is where all of the money will come from to fund your Raisin accounts and where all of the money from your Raisin accounts will go when you’re taking money out.

4. Fund your account. Once all of this is set up, you’ll choose the amount of money that you want to fund your first account. This will trigger the ACH transfer from your external account to your new account at the Raisin partner bank. The ACH transfer should take between one and three business days. My experience is that it’s been closer to one.

5. Open as many accounts as you'd like. You can also navigate to the Raisin marketplace that lists all of the savings products from partner banks to open additional accounts. Because you’ve already entered all of your information to open the first account, each additional account is just the matter of a few mouse clicks.

I looked into how easy it was to contact Raisin, as well as what customers say online about their customer service.

How to contact Raisin

You can reach Raisin by email at [email protected] or by telephone Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. ET at (844) 994-3276.

Online customer reviews

One thing that surprised me when researching Raisin is the high marks the company gets on TrustPilot. Financial services companies don’t tend to fare well on TrustPilot, but Raisin has a notably positive score, with numerous positive reviews.

The picture isn’t as rosy on the Better Business Bureau website, but that is more designed to focus on complaints against the business. Over the past 12 months, there have been a few dozen complaints for Raisin. However, all of them seemed to have been adequately addressed by Raisin.

My personal experience with customer service

My personal experience dealing with customer service at Raisin was a bit mixed. Over email, I received responses in a few hours, which is pretty good. Over the phone, I waited on hold for about 12 minutes, which isn’t terrible (especially if you’ve tried to call an airline in the past few years!), but also isn’t best in class.

The responses I’ve received have been professional and polite, but a bit mixed in how useful they were. On straightforward questions, like how I’ll get my tax filings at year end and how to add a beneficiary, they were solid. But on questions around CD early withdrawal penalties and how exactly money flows through the Raisin partner banks, the answers were a bit confusing.

Based on my experience, I’d feel confident that the customer service team would do a good job with most of the questions and needs that the average customer would have.

4 things to know about using Raisin from my personal experience

I’ve been a big fan of Raisin since I’ve started using it. It is very hard to beat the interest rates for the savings products available at Raisin. And opening an account with a Raisin partner bank is a breeze. I am also a fan of the simplicity of Raisin’s interface for tracking my money.

However, there are a few things that are good to know if you’re planning to use Raisin, since it’s not exactly like using a direct bank account.

1. Your only option to transfer money out is to transfer it back to your linked external account.

That means that you cannot, for instance, wire money directly from your Raisin partner bank account for a down payment on a house. Instead, in either case, you’d first have to transfer money from the Raisin partner bank back to your external account and then transfer it on from there.

Given that money in a savings account should be money you don’t need on an immediate basis, the 1-3 days that it takes to transfer the money back to your external account shouldn’t be a huge blocker for most people.

2. You can't transfer money directly from one Raisin partner bank to another.

So, for instance, imagine if Lotsamoney Savings Bank (not an actual partner) raises its APY through Raisin from 5% to 5.5%, while Lessmoney Bank (where you had your money) lowered its rate from 5% to 4%.

You cannot transfer your funds from Lessmoney to Lotsamoney. Instead, you’d have to transfer the money from Lessmoney to your external account and then from your external account to Lotsamoney. Not as simple as it could be, but also still a lot easier than opening up a whole new account at a brand new bank – which is what you’d have to do without Raisin.

3. CDs automatically renew when they mature.

This is typical for a CD at most banks. After it matures, you have seven days to decide to take the money out or it will get locked in to that same duration of CD again – so if it was a 12-month CD, the money will be locked in for another 12 months.

But on the Raisin platform, you can also go to your Account Overview, click through to a CD account, then click “Manage Your CD.” Here you can choose ahead of time to not have the CD renew at maturity. This is handy if you know you’ll need the money at the maturity date or if you’re doing something like CD laddering and don’t want the money to simply roll into the same maturity again.

4. Raisin won’t let you deposit more than $250,000 (or $500,000 for a joint account) into a single partner bank.

Raisin wants users to get the most out of FDIC insurance. By not allowing users to put more than the FDIC-insured limit into an account, it helps ensure that customers’ funds will be maximally protected.

Do be aware though, that interest earnings can still boost your balance over the FDIC-insured limit. Likewise, if you have an account at a given bank outside of Raisin, the funds in your direct account and the account through Raisin count cumulatively towards the FDIC insurance limit. Raisin does not monitor for this, so if you’re in this situation, you have to monitor the combined assets yourself to ensure you don’t exceed the limit.

Capital One Bank

Capital One is another credit card issuer that's gotten into personal banking, and it's also received favorable reviews from customers. Both banks offer high APYs on deposit accounts and charge minimal fees. A key difference between the two is that Capital One offers a conventional interest-bearing checking account, which may better suit customers who rarely use their debit cards. Plus, Capital One has an extensive branch network, and therefore could be a better choice for people who occasionally want to deposit cash or need in-person help.

Ally Bank

Ally Bank is a highly rated online bank that offers a comprehensive suite of banking products ideal for those who want to manage their money all in one place. Because it has no branches, it's able to offer high APYs on its accounts and charge no monthly maintenance fees. Customers interested in rarer types of CDs will likely find that Ally suits them better, and the bank offers an interest-bearing checking account as well.

For people who want a savings account that pays interest rates at the top of the market and gives them the opportunity to spread savings over multiple FDIC-insured banks with just a few clicks, it may be hard to beat Raisin.

As noted above, there are some quirks of Raisin, and these may be deal breakers for some people. If you want to use your savings account more like a transactional account, Raisin isn’t going to be a great choice. Same if you’re looking for a savings account with brick-and-mortar banking locations. Though the Raisin partner banks may have physical locations, the accounts through Raisin don’t bear your name directly, so you can’t bank with the bank branches.

But with APYs that are many multiples of the national average, and that regularly beat out other top savings accounts, the dollars and cents definitely speak in favor of Raisin.

Our savings account methodology

At The Motley Fool Ascent, we rate savings accounts on a five-star scale (1 = poor, 5 = best). We evaluate all savings accounts across four main criteria: annual percentage yield (APY), brand and reputation, fees and minimum requirements, and perks that really make a difference -- think ATM access, linked checking accounts, or even branch access.

Our scores are weighted as:

• APY: 50%
• Brand and reputation: 20%
• Fees and minimums: 15%
• Other perks: 15%

Learn more about how The Motley Fool Ascent rates bank accounts.