Empower Personal Cash Review
- Fee
- $0 per month
- APY
- 3.75%
- Minimum deposit to open
- $0
Our verdict
Offers a high APY on funds with no monthly fees, but you won’t get a debit card or checks.
The Empower Personal Cash is a cash management account. It has no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements and boasts a high APY of 3.75% APY. But while Empower calls it a cash management account, it lacks typical perks like checks, debit cards and cash deposits.
Best for: Investors in need of a high-yield savings account.
Pros
-
Competitive 3.75% APY
-
No monthly fees
-
No balance requirements
-
High FDIC insurance
Cons
-
Online only
-
No debit card
-
No checks
What we like about Empower Personal Cash
Empower isn’t a bank itself. The Empower Personal Cash account is offered through Empower Personal Wealth, LLC, and the bank deposit products are provided and insured by UMB Bank n.a., Member FDIC. So, while Empower isn’t a bank itself, its deposit accounts are still federally insured.
High APY
The main selling point of the Empower Personal Cash account is the 3.75% APY offered on all balances. There are no activity or balance requirements to earn that great rate. It’s also worth noting that this APY is significantly higher than the national average rate for savings accounts of 0.42%.
Additionally, this cash management account has no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements. You can also set up direct deposit or make it a joint account.
High FDIC insurance
Most deposit accounts have FDIC insurance up to $250,000 per depositor. The Empower Personal Cash Program can offer up to $5,000,000 in FDIC insurance coverage. This high coverage amount can be great for those with large balances, as you’d normally have to split balances over $250,000 to ensure your deposits are covered.
Where it falls short
Cash management accounts are often considered a blend of checking and savings and sometimes investment accounts. They’re similar to savings in that they earn interest on your balance and similar to a checking account because they usually offer ways to spend your funds with checks or a debit card (sometimes both). Some cash management accounts require you to have a specific brokerage or investment account to qualify for one.
However, the Empower Personal Cash account doesn’t offer traditional “spending” features. You won’t get a debit card or checkwriting privileges, making it more like a high-yield savings account than a typical cash management account.
If you’d like to spend your cash and earn interest, there are also interest-bearing checking accounts or money market accounts to check out.
Compare Empower Personal Cash to other cash management accounts
Narrow down top cash accounts by monthly fees, APYs and benefits. To compare more than one account, tick the Compare box to see accounts side by side.
What is the Finder Score?
The Finder Score crunches over 300 checking accounts from hundreds of financial institutions. It takes into account the product's monthly fees, overdraft fees, opening deposit, customer support options, ATM network and features — this gives you a simple score out of 10.
To provide a Score, Finder’s banking experts analyze hundreds of checking accounts against what we consider is the best option: no monthly fees, no overdraft fees, a large ATM network of 50,000 or more, additional features outside of typical banking services, and the optional perk of earning interest. Accounts that are nearly free to maintain and use are scored the highest, while accounts with costly fees and few features are scored the lowest.
Empower customer reviews and ratings
| BBB accredited | No |
|---|---|
| BBB rating | A+ |
| BBB customer reviews | 1.07 out of 5 stars, based on 309 customer reviews |
| Trustpilot score | 1.2 out of 5 stars, based on 259 customer reviews |
| App Store Score | 4.77 out of 5 stars, based on 45,500 customer reviews |
| Google Play Score | 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 19,400 customer reviews |
| Customer reviews verified as of | 12 February 2025 |
Empower Annuity Insurance Company of America and Empower Personal Wealth, LLC. both receive poor reviews. Empower is mostly known for its retirement services, such as 401(k)s and employee retirement plans.
Reviews and complaints are often from customers who report their employer uses Empower Retirement for their 401(k), and according to those customers, support isn’t great. Users report long wait times to hear back from customer representatives, withdrawals taking a long time to clear, and rollover IRAs and 401(k)s taking extended periods to transfer, among other similar issues.
What do people on Reddit say?
Checking account ratings
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★★★★★ — Average
★★★★★ — Subpar
★★★★★ — Poor
We analyze top checking accounts and rate them one to five stars based on factors that are most important to you. These factors include: monthly fees, the ease at which monthly fees can be waived, the breadth of ATM access, ATM and overdraft fees, and customer service.
Your reviews
Bethany Finder
Banking editor
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