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The Federal Reserve has raised its key interest rate five times this year, most recently on Wednesday, as part of its ongoing effort to slow the pace of inflation.
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The idea is that since the U.S. central bank is making it more expensive to borrow money, the demand for goods and services will drop, thereby causing prices to fall.
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A side effect of those increased interest rates is that banks can increase the amount of money they pay to consumers who put some of their dollars in savings accounts.
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As banks earn more on the money they lend, those same institutions can offer higher returns to their customers.
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Think of it as the virtuous cycle of the lending and saving relationship that banks have with their customers.
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But until recently, the interest earned on savings accounts hasn't been all that impressive.
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"Every interest rate has fallen quite far from previous decades," said Bankrate.com chief financial analyst Greg McBride in an email.
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Up until this year, McBride said, interest rates had declined for the better part of 40 years — and so has the amount of money that banks pay into those accounts.
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"Looking back to the early 1980s, the Fed funds rate, Treasury yields, and mortgage rates were in the double digits," he said. "In 1990, the Fed funds rate was over 8%, Treasury yields were 7% to 9%, mortgage rates were 10%.
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"By 2020, the Fed funds rate was near zero, Treasury yields were under 2%, and mortgage rates were 2.5% to 3%."
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Now that these rates are rising again, money costs more money.
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But that means there's an opportunity to get higher returns on deposits. McBride advises customers to shop around to get the best return on their savings.
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Not all banks have significantly increased their interest rates for savings accounts. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the average national savings account interest rate is 0.17%.
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Those low interest rates on savings account deposits recently caught the attention of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who pressed big bank CEOs last week on why rates weren't higher.
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"As rates continue to rise, we would expect to continue to raise the rates we pay to customers," Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said in congressional testimony Thursday.