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There are many banking promotions recently. Provident Bank is also offering sign up bonus for opening a checking account with direct deposit. This promotion is comparable to the $125 bonus from Chase Bank with direct deposit. If your payroll can split to different bank accounts, you can take the chance to earn $123! If you don’t have a Chase Bank account, you can earn $125! If you open a checking account from Chase and Provident together, you can earn $248 easy money!

The promotion page is listed on its website. The direct link is here.

Here is the promotion detail:

Provident Bank will award $123 to personal checking customers that open a new Totally Free, Regular, Interest or Platinum checking account between February 2 and March 31, 2009 that have direct deposit and an active Provident MasterMoney™ debit card by April 30, 2009. Customers that enroll in Provident Bank’s Power Points debit card rewards program by April 30, 2009 will receive 500 bonus points by May 31, 2009.

Minimum opening deposit of $25 is required for all personal checking accounts. The cash award will be deposited into qualifying personal checking accounts in good standing on or about May 31, 2009. The maximum award for this promotion is $123.

My last mention of the banking promotion from Provident Bank is here.

In summary, the steps to get the $123 bonus are:

Step 1:
Choose and open your checking account, plus order your FREE MasterMoney™ debit card.

Step 2:
Sign up for Direct Deposit.

Step 3:
Start using your new account and get $123.

There is no “HARD PULL” reported during the account opening process.

Citi Bank is advertising its new Checking, Money Market and Credit Card promotion on its home page. According to the promotion details, you can get up to $225 gift card from Citi Bank after finish required banking activities. The $225 gift card will be awarded as thankyou points which can then be redeemed as gift cards. We haven’t seen such a huge promotion from Citi for a while. I think this is a great chance for those who want to get sign up bonuses from Citi.

The link to the promotion page is here. As I mentioned at the first beginning, Citi will give you bonus thankyou points instead of cash this time. The bonus thankyou points can be redeemed through thankyou network. For example, 10,000 thankyou points can be redeemed for a $100 gift card. Following is copied from the website:

Open a qualifying Citibank checking account with ThankYou Network and get bonus ThankYou Points when you perform eligible activities. Get additional points when you open a qualifying Money Market Account. Earn even more when you apply, get approved and perform eligible activities with a qualifying Citi Credit Card. And since you can get monthly ThankYou Points for everyday banking activities, the rewards keep adding up.

It’s apparent that you have to perform all three different banking activities to get the $225 gift card. If you just finish one or two of them, you will only get part of the bonus. Here is the detail:

1. 10,000 ThankYou Points for opening a regular checking account and make $1,000 deposit before 03/31/2009. And you also have to (1) enroll your new checking account in ThankYou Network in 60 days and (2) complete one direct deposit, two eligible electronic bill payments or five signature-based debit card purchase transactions per month for 3 consecutive months.
2. 3,500 ThankYou Points for meeting the checking account offer requirements and opening a new Citibank Ultimate Money Account by 3/31/09 with a $100 minimum opening deposit and link it to the new checking account.
3. 10,000 ThankYou Points for the Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card which requires making at least $100 in purchases for the first 3 months of account opening.

Over all, you can get 23,500 bonus thankyou points for completing the required activties. The deadline for this promotion is 03/31/2009. As a reminder, please save the webpage of this promotion.

There are a lot of banking promotions from US banks. For more information about recent banking promotions, you can visit the special “Banking News” section. I believe you can get a lot of useful information from Banking News section. If you have some information regarding banking promotions, please let me know. I think it will be very useful for those who want to open a new bank account soon.

First Bank is offering a free iPod Shuffle for opening a new personal checking account with minimum $50 initial deposit. There is no direct deposit or other banking activities required. You have to keep the new checking account active for more than 6 months otherwise First Bank will retract the reward.

Fine print:

Offer valid for personal checking accounts opened. Limit one gift award per customer, per calendar year. Limit one gift per account. FirstBank employees are not eligible to receive the award. Minimum opening deposit of $50 required to receive the gift. To be eligible for the award, you must open your new personal checking account on or before March 31, 2009. The $48.05 award is considered interest and is subject to IRS and other tax reporting. Upon account opening, FirstBank will mail a voucher letter for the iPod to the account holder. The voucher is only redeemable at any FirstBank location. The $48.05 award is considered a bonus that can be revoked if the account is closed within 6 months of opening.

To receive the reward, you have to open the checking account before March 31, 2009 and make a $50 initial deposit. If you choose the free checking account, there is no minimum balance, and no monthly service charges.

The only limitation of this promotion is the free iPod Shuffle is only available to residents in CO, AZ and CA. First Bank is FDIC insured.

HSBC Bank is having a great promotion for its Plus Checking Account. The promotion is very simple. Open a new Plus Checking Account with minimum required amount and you will receive a free gift from HSBC Bank. The gift is PowerCost Monitor which is an electricity meter monitor that helps you monitor your kWh power consumption.

Using the information provided by the PowerCost Monitor, you can start to manage your kWh usage to save money. According to the studies, you can save 10% of your power bill simply by monitoring and understanding use! So it’s possible that you can earn more bonus for using it. More information can be found at www.powercostmonitor.com.

The promotion page can be found at this. Here are some of the important points on how to get the bonus:

• Offer valid for opening a new Plus relationship and depositing a minimum of $8,000 in new money to any qualifying personal accounts between 1/12/09 and 2/28/09, and maintaining at least $8,000 in new money in total combined balances through 3/31/09.
• Existing HSBC checking customers can qualify by upgrading to Plus and meeting new money requirements. New money is defined as funds not previously held by any member of the HSBC Group over the past consecutive six months.
• Qualified customers will be notified via mail by 5/31/09; notification will include instructions for redeeming gift of choice. Gifts not redeemed by 9/30/09 will be forfeited.
• The cost of the gift will be reported on IRS Form 1099 ($150 value)

Plus relationship must remain open for 180 days or value of gift will be deducted from account proceeds at closing

Note 3 indicates that there is a $15 monthly fee for balance under $15,000. “To avoid a monthly $15 maintenance fee for a Plus account, you need to maintain $15,000 in total combined balances including personal deposit, investment and qualifying credit balances.”

It seems that all the balances in you accounts at HSBC Bank including savings account, checking account and credit card account can be counted to the $15,000 requirement.

Under Banking News section, I have updated a lot of posts recently talking about the banking promotions from US banks and credit union. Bonuses are available from PNC Bank, NuVision Federal Credit Union, TCF Bank, FlagStar Bank and HomeStreet Bank. If you want to open a new checking account soon, it a great time to catch one of the promotions. Of course, the $100/$125 checking account bonus from Chase is always available (You can find a coupon from USPS moving kit.).

The Signal Financial Federal Credit Union is offering $101 sign up bonus for opening a new checking account with direct deposit. The Signal Financial Federal Credit Union is a credit union insured by the NCUA. The branches are located in Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland.

According to the membership page (decides who can open an account), if you or a family member live, work, attend school, or worship in Washington DC or inside the Beltway in Prince George’s County or are employed by one of the companies listed on that page, you are eligible to be a member of the credit union.

The requirement seems to be very simple: open a new checking account with a Share Savings account with $5 minimum deposit and make direct deposit to this new checking account.

About the direct deposit, Signal Financial Federal Credit Union defines:

Direct deposit is defined as your entire net paycheck being electronically deposited into your Signal Financial account each payday. It must take affect on account before prize money is awarded. Prize money will be deposited into your share (savings) account and be held for 6 months. One incentive offer per member. Offer expires January 31, 2009. Other restrictions may apply.

This offer expires on January 31, 2009.

NuVision Federal Credit Union (previously McDonnell Douglas West Federal Credit Union) is offering a huge sign bonus for new customers. NuVision Federal Credit Union is a member-owned not-for-profit organization that dedicated to serve its own members.

The $150 checking account bonus is listed on its website. It seems the $150 bonus is easy to get and no monthly direct deposit is required if you use their debit card frequently. Following is how to get the $150 bonus:

1. Open a free checking account with minimum $100 initial deposit. Direct deposit of $200 per month or 5 debit card purchases per month is required for the first 90 days to qualify for the promotion.

2. $50 bonus for keeping the checking account active for 90 days (To be considered active, at least 3 transactions each month are required.).

3. Additional $50 bonus for using online billpay (At least 3 times per month.) for the first 90 days.

It seems to me that all the requirements are pretty easy to fulfill. The flyer about this promotion can be found through this link. The offer is now scheduled to last until 3/30/09. Everyone is eligible to apply for the membership at NuVision Federal Credit Union.

NuVision Credit Union is also offering a great opportunity for its members who can earn referral bonus for referring new customers to the credit union. Details about the promotion can be found here. You can earn $50 bonus for each referral.

TCF Bank is offering a $50 bonus for opening a new checking account at TCF Bank without direct deposit requirement. This promotion is listed at the TCF Bank website. It seems this $50 bonus is pretty easy to get and only the residents at Illinois, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota are eligible to receive the offer.

The details about the promotion can be found through this link. The $50 bonus will be issued to you as a Visa gift card or a grocery gift card. If you open a new checking account at a TCF Bank branch, they will give you a $50 gift card on the spot. If you open a new checking account online, TCF Bank will send the gift card to you in the mail.

Some important points about this promotion:

• $25 minimum to open a TCF Totally Free Checking Account
• you have to be a new customer without a TCF Checking account in the past 90 days
• the gift Card will be awarded at the time of account opening in branches or will be mailed to you in 4 weeks

Fine print:

Offer is available to individuals and small businesses without a TCF Checking account in the past 90 days. $25 minimum to open a TCF Totally Free Checking account. This is a limited time offer. TCF reserves the right to substitute a premium of equal value. Limit one card per customer. The value will be reported to the recipient as interest income on Form 1099-INT.

I will suggest you open a totally free checking account will features no minimum balance, no monthly fees and no direct deposit requirement. Plus you can get free online bill pay.

It seems TCF Bank likes to offer $50 sign up bonus for opening a new checking account. Following two posts are latest sign up bonus opportunities from TCF Bank which offers $50 gas card.

TCF Bank $50 Gift Card Promotion
$50 Gas Card from TCF Bank

Flagstar Bank is offer sign up bonus for opening a new checking account with direct deposit. The lates mention of the Flagstar Bank is in September 2008. During last promotion, FlagStar Bank is offering up to $500 gas card for opening a new checking account with required banking activities. Flagstar is the largest publicly traded savings bank headquartered in the Midwest United States (Troy, MI). The bank currently operates 171 banking centers (as of September 2008) in Michigan, Indiana and Georgia.

This promotion is advertised on its website www.flagstar.com. This offer requires new customers to make a monthly direct deposit of a least $250. You have to open a checking account at Flagstar banking centers to get the bonus. You have to make sure that the customer service enter the promotion code HD.

Some key points to get the $100 bonus:

• New checking account customers only
• Minimum opening deposit is $50
• Recurring direct deposit of $250 each month
• $100 will be deposited into your account within 30 days after first direct deposit
• Account must remain open and active for a minimum of 6 months

Fine print:

$100 deposit available for new checking account customers only (no existing Flagstar checking account). For a limited time, open a new personal checking account with an automatic, recurring direct deposit of income of at least $250 per month, excluding interest deposits, and we’ll deposit $100 into your account within 30 days after the first recurring direct deposit takes place. Minimum opening deposit is $50. Direct deposit must be established within first 60 days of account opening. All accounts must remain open and active for a minimum of six months. If checking account is closed within the first six months, Flagstar reserves the right to reclaim the $100 deposit. See your Flagstar representative for more details. Flagstar will issue a 1099 for the $100. Offer not good in conjunction with any other coupons or checking account offers.

No expiration date is indicated on the website. Printable flyer of this promotion is available here.

Flagstar Bank’s checking accounts are really great which offer no monthly service fees and free checks. Branches are only in Michigan, Indiana and Georgia.