A 1-month certificate of deposit matures in the span of 1 month. One-month CD rates aren’t exactly going gangbusters these days, so finding the best 1-month CD rates may be an exercise in futility. But depositors have other reasons for buying very short-term CDs.
“Right now, the national average rate for a 3-month CD is pretty much in line with liquid accounts. There’s no advantage to lock in money for 2 or 3 months,” says Dan Geller, Ph.D., executive vice president of Market Rates Insight, a pricing consultant to the financial services industry.
It may be efficient
Though it may not seem like it can pay off, buying short-term CDs can be an efficient way to get a large amount of money covered by deposit insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., or FDIC, without going all over town.
The FDIC limits insurance coverage to deposits of $250,000 per person, per account registration.
“There are programs like CDARS,” says Geller, referring to the Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service. “You go to the bank and say, ‘I have $1 million. Spread it into 4 CDs of $250,000.’ And the bank will do it for you so you don’t have to run around to open 4 accounts at 4 banks,” Geller says.
“That is the only reason I can think of that someone would opt for a short-term CD now,” says Geller.
Bankrate’s best 1-month CD rates
The more money you have, the more each basis point of yield counts. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1%, or 0.01%.
