<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

When you open an Ultimate Savings Account through Citibank with a minimum deposit of $1000, you’ll receive $25. This promotional offer is available until January 31, 2009. You do have to maintain the $1,000 minimum balance for 3 consecutive months to earn the $25 bonus. You can apply online or by calling 1-877-695-9400 (mention code CYA8 to get the promotion) and it is only available for first-time Citibank deposit account customers.

While $25 is not that much, if you’re looking for a reasonable yield interest savings anyway, the Citibank Ultimate Savings Account is a good option with a current yield of 2.75% APY – and the $25 is a nice bonus. There are no monthly maintenance fees, which helps you keep more of the money you earn through interest and your own deposit amounts.

The Ultimate Savings Account has what some people consider to be a low ACH outbound transfer limit of $2,000 per day and $10,000 per month. If this is a problem for you, you can work around it by opening another Citibank savings or money market account and moving money through internal transfers before doing the ACH transfer. Alternatively, if you initiate the ACH transfer from the other bank you’re looking to move the money to – you are not bound by Citibank limitations for ACH transfers.

It’s possible that opening a Citibank account will result in a hard pull of your credit report – although some people have reported a new policy by Citi that does not require hard credit pulls on deposit accounts without overdraft protection. If a hard credit pull is something that concerns you, verify the policy with Citibank before filling out the account application.

The Small Print:

• $25 offer available only to first-time Citibank deposit account customers
• $25 credited to account 120 days from the date you satisfy the offer terms (maintaining a $1,000 minimum for 3 consecutive months upon opening the account)
• $25 bonus payment will be included in the report to IRS regarding amount of interest earned in the year that it is earned.