CD Competition Heats Up: Happen Reaches 4.76% as Most Tracked Bank Rates Stay Put

FRIDAY | OCTOBER 16, 2026 | 5 AM DISCOVERY & REFRESH

CD Competition Heats Up: Happen Reaches 4.76% as

Most Tracked Bank Rates Stay Put

Executive summary. Five exact-comparable first-party deposit products increased in the October 16 refresh: four Alliant Credit

Union 12-month certificate tiers gained 20 basis points, and Happen Bank's 24-month CD rose 16 basis points. Another 65 conservatively matched observations were unchanged, with no verified cuts. Four institutions joined the verified database, bringing coverage to 92. The strongest fresh general-purpose CD is 4.76% APY; the highest cash APY remains 6.00%, but only for a restricted school-employee savings account.

01 / Rate Environment

Deposit pricing is mostly steady with selective increases: among 70 conservatively comparable observations, 5 increased

(7.1%), 65 were unchanged (92.9%) and none declined. The four Alliant comparisons reach back to an August 5 disclosure, so they are newly verified increases, not necessarily rate moves implemented today. Borrowing benchmarks are mixed: the latest

30-year mortgage average is flat at 7.40%, while October 15 Treasury yields fell 5-10 basis points at the two-, five- and ten-year maturities.

02 / Today's Numbers

Benchmark observation dates differ from the publication date. The FDIC averages are deposit-weighted national reference rates, not the

OnlineBankRates tracked-panel averages. SOFR is an overnight secured borrowing benchmark; the prime rate is a bank lending reference.

03 / Biggest Verified Moves

Alliant comparisons: August 5 vs October 15 disclosures; Happen: October 13 vs October 16. The first-party verified-change ledger contains exactly five increases and no cuts. The additional 65 unchanged observations were conservatively matched after normalizing synonymous eligibility/geography labels; 179 of 249 appended observations are not included in strict breadth. New products, renamed products, ambiguous tiers and incomplete matches are not labeled rate changes.

Seven-day collection window, October 10-16: 14 previously verified increases, 482 reported unchanged comparisons and zero verified cuts across daily observation-pairs. The panels vary by day and repeat products, so this is a collected-observation summary, not a fixed-institution same-store rate index.

04 / Where Savers Are Winning

The following offers have fresh first-party effective dates in the tracked panel. Headline yields can be restricted, promotional, capped, or subject to credit-union membership.

Chartway also advertises a 4.00% relationship money-market tier at balances of $1 million or more; this is less broadly accessible than the Bank5

Connect offer. FNBA's 4.75% 10-year quote is a fresh observed baseline, not a verified same-product increase. The strongest general-purpose CD term in the observed fresh panel is 24 months (4.76%), narrowly above the 10-year leader (4.75%).

05 / Borrower Watch

Freddie Mac's October 15 weekly survey shows the 30-year fixed mortgage average unchanged at 7.40%, while the 15-year average edged down two basis points to 6.71%. The 10-year Treasury par yield fell nine basis points from October 14 to October

15, reaching 5.10%. Using the two latest weekly/daily benchmarks gives an indicative 230-basis-point mortgage-to-Treasury spread, versus 221 bp using the prior day's Treasury yield; this is not a contemporaneous quoted lender spread.

The bank prime rate remains 7.00% and overnight SOFR is 3.89%, so floating-rate borrowers continue to face comparatively high benchmark costs. A decline in Treasury yields does not automatically translate into an immediate change in mortgage offers.

06 / Yield Curve & CD Strategy

At one and two years, the leading tracked CDs nearly match comparable Treasury par yields; five- and ten-year Treasuries retain larger nominal advantages. Liquid savings at 4.20% provides easier access but its APY can change. CD APYs and Treasury par yields differ in compounding; taxes, insurance, penalties and market-price exposure matter. This is a general comparison, not individualized financial advice.

07 / Bank Behavior

Today, four of five verified increases came from one credit union (Alliant), while the fifth came from a digital bank (Happen).

That is not enough evidence to say credit unions are repricing faster as a group. The fresh-only institution panel shows these descriptive averages:

Means are unweighted and highly sensitive to restricted, capped and youth offers. The savings cohort includes one highest fresh savings tier per institution; the 12-month CD cohort excludes deferred-compensation-only certificates. Cohorts are neither random nor representative of nationwide banking groups.

08 / OnlineBankRates Takeaway

Today's deposit market is mostly steady, but two institutions are worth watching. Happen Bank's 24-month CD now pays 4.76%, up 16 basis points from its comparable October 13 quote. Alliant Credit Union also raised four matched 12-month certificate tiers by 20 basis points compared with older August disclosures. Across the broader measured sample, 65 products were unchanged and none were cut. For liquid cash, the highest headline rate remains 6.00%, but that SchoolsFirst account is restricted to eligible school employees and has monthly contribution limits. Broadly accessible savings reaches 4.20%, while Chartway and

CommunityAmerica advertise 5.00% on small capped balances. Two-year CDs nearly match Treasury yields; longer Treasuries offer a clearer nominal advantage. Mortgage borrowing remains expensive at a 7.40% average for 30-year loans. Before acting on any advertised APY, compare eligibility, balance limits, withdrawal rules and the date of the rate disclosure.

09 / Proprietary Metrics & Trend

Interpretation: Savings Index +6 bp and CD Index +5 bp since October 15. These are changes in cross-sectional averages that also reflect panel composition, freshness and qualifying products, not verified same-store changes. October 1-7 index history uses an older v1 methodology and must not be compared directly with v2.

10 / Data Coverage & Collection Quality

Four newly verified institutions: USALLIANCE Financial (40 new observations), Chartway Credit Union (22), Affinity Plus Federal

Credit Union (27), and Freedom Credit Union of Pennsylvania (8). Initial product observations are baselines and do not count as increases. USALLIANCE's October 1 rate sheet is aging; Freedom's July 23 disclosure is stale.

This was a partial numerical refresh: only 24 of 142 registered official URLs were attempted, and 16 yielded numerical recaptures. Previously verified records retain their actual original rate-as-of and last-checked dates; no stale records were silently refreshed. The source pipeline reported one failed official fetch. Rates from third-party aggregators, unverified previews and unapproved affiliate links were not imported.

Methodology & Consumer Disclosure

Freshness: Fresh = official effective date 0-7 days old; aging = 8-30 days; stale = more than 30 days; undated = no dependable effective date.

Fresh-rate leaderboards exclude aging/stale/undated observations. All bank-product claims derive from the first-party Bank Verified dataset and, where accessible, direct official disclosures.

Index definitions (v2): Savings Index = simple average of each institution's highest fresh Bank Verified Savings APY, including restricted and youth tiers where the existing v2 methodology included them. CD Index = simple average of each institution's highest fresh exact-12-month personal

CD/share-certificate APY; deferred-compensation-only certificates excluded. Best Cash Yield = highest fresh savings or money-market APY (not checking), with eligibility prominently disclosed. These are tracked-panel statistics, not nationwide averages.

Bank Rate Breadth: count increases, unchanged and cuts only where a prior and current first-party observation match institution, category, product, maturity, balance tier and materially equivalent eligibility/geography. The five increases are separately supported by the dedicated verified-change ledger. Unchanged matches allow normalization of synonymous labels (e.g., "Membership" vs "Membership required") but not substantive terms. Seven-day totals count repeated daily comparisons and do not represent a fixed cohort.

Withheld metrics: Fed Pass-Through Score would equal the matched fixed-cohort mean deposit APY change divided by the effective-funds-rate change over the same policy window; unavailable without adequate pre/post matched observations. Online-vs-National Bank Premium would equal mean matched online-bank APY minus mean matched large-national-bank APY; withheld because the large-bank panel is insufficient.

Risk and eligibility: APYs can change without notice. Deposit insurance limits, fees, account activity, membership, geographical eligibility, balance tiers and early-withdrawal penalties may apply. Treasury yields and bank APYs are not directly identical measures. This is educational market information, not individualized financial advice.

Primary Sources & Publication References

Official benchmark and first-party rate disclosures (click to view): Treasury | Fed H.15 | NY Fed | Freddie Mac | FDIC | Alliant | Happen | FNBA |

Chartway | Newtek | Bank5 Connect | SchoolsFirst

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Verified CD rates · Savings rates · Savings calculator

Linked source evidence

• https://home.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/TextView?type=daily_treasury_yield_curve&field_tdr_date_value_month=202610
• https://www.alliantcreditunion.org/rates
• https://www.bank5connect.com/rates
• https://www.chartwayfcu.com/personal/spend-and-save/savings/smart-steps-savings.html
• https://www.fdic.gov/national-rates-and-rate-caps
• https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/
• https://www.fnba.com/deposit-rates/online/
• https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/archive
• https://www.happen.com/personal-deposits/account-rates
• https://www.newtekbank.com/rates-disclosure/
• https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/reference-rates
• https://www.schoolsfirstfcu.org/

Archive note: Coverage, historical counts, indexes, and market benchmarks above describe the supplied collection report, not the website’s total holdings or a new check of every institution. Rates and restrictions may have changed since the stated dates.