Is Smart Cash the Future of High-Yield Deposit Accounts? Here's How It Works

Titan Invest, a robo-advisory app, released a banger of a feature earlier this year. It's called Smart Cash, and it's quickly become one of my favorite releases ever. It's so dang clever, it's hard to imagine a future in which other companies don't copy it to death.

It works by funneling your deposits into a combination of treasuries and money market funds. Smart Cash automatically moves your funds around as better, more profitable opportunities arise. So you could earn a 4.5% yield one day and 5% the next, with no effort on your part.

Rates are sky-high right now, so it's the perfect time to earn with Smart Cash. I'm taking advantage of it while it lasts. It could be better, though. Below, I'll dive into the three promises Titan Invest makes about Smart Cash, as well as my personal experience using the feature.

Smart Cash features

Titan Invest describes Smart Cash as a way to get the highest rates automatically, outsmart taxes, and stay low risk (and liquid). That's all the benefits of a savings account, money market account, and treasuries rolled up into one. But how does all that actually work?

Automatic rate upgrades

Smart Cash moves your money to the best-yielding cash equivalents available. Generally, the higher your deposits, the better rates you can earn. For example, if you deposit $500 into Smart Cash, you might only qualify for a 4% rate. But if you deposit another $500, Smart Cash might bump your rate to 5%. It does this by moving your deposits to higher-yielding partner funds.

To offer automatic rate upgrades, Titan Invest partners with companies like Vanguard and Fidelity. That way, it can provide customers with a spread of funds and choose only the best. Smart Cash automatically chooses where to allocate your deposits -- you don't get to choose.

I've found this works as advertised. The more I deposit into Smart Cash, the better my earnings. Rates have also automatically gone up alongside Federal Reserve rate hikes. It's a good time to save!

Tax benefits

Smart Cash considers after-tax implications for you. Taxes can be complicated. Titan Invest simplifies that by considering tax benefits offered by its partners and treasury funds. Titan Invest combines your details (income, tax filing status, state, etc.) with the best available deposit options to get you the highest returns possible.

Safety

Titan Invest promises to only put money into cash equivalents that are low-risk, liquid, and come with insurance. You can check out its partnered institutions (and partner rates) on its website. They include Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity, and JP Morgan, among others. Deposits are SIPC-insured up to $500,000.

Titan Invest claims funds are liquid. In my experience, it's taken a few business days for withdrawals to hit my bank account. It's less liquid than a high-yield savings account, but it's good enough for my needs (I'm using it to save for a deposit on an apartment).

The future of high-yield deposit accounts

I can easily imagine modern investment apps like Robinhood or SoFi offering similar features to customers. My biggest problem with high-yield deposit accounts is that it's impossible to keep track of which one offers the best rates. Smart Cash handily solves that problem for me.

But Smart Cash is only as good as the rates offered by brokerage partners and U.S. treasuries. For now, I'm taking advantage of high interest rates to save faster. When rates fall, I'll be keeping an eye on Smart Cash to make sure it doesn't lose what makes it special.

The future of high-yield deposit accounts may be automatic deposits into safe, high-yielding accounts. Smart Cash joins the ranks of standouts like Raisin, which offers one dashboard to deposit into some of the best savings accounts, money market accounts, and CDs.

I'm excited to see what other features come out of Smart Cash and similar offerings. The future of money looks to be more hands-off and easy to manage, should you choose. I'm all for it. The less time I spend bumping numbers around a screen, the better.