Small regional financial institution Amerant Bank has its roots in Florida. Headquartered in Coral Gables, Florida, with locations across the southern portion of the state – as well as over a thousand miles over in parts of Texas – Amerant Bank isn’t a big name in the personal finance sector.

Despite their size, they do offer CDs (certificates of deposit) to consumers throughout the country which can be opened online.

To see if Amerant Bank’s CDs might be right for you, continue reading our review below.

Amerant Bank CD Rates + Account Details

Amerant Bank offers only standard certificates of deposit. This means you’ll deposit your cash and earn a fixed interest rate on the balance until maturity, without the choice to add more money and with penalties for early withdrawals. There are no non-traditional certificate options like no-penalty or bump-rate/bump-up CDs.

All CDs require a rather steep minimum deposit requirement of $10,000 to open.

 CD Rates (all states)

For a direct link to the 12 month offer go here. This is available through February 2, 2023.

To put the rates above into perspective, the current national average for a 12 month and a 60 month CD sit at 1.07% and 1.09% APY, respectively, according to FDIC data. That said, there are now a handful of online banks and credit unions with nationwide acceptance offering yields above 4.50% and 4.75% APY for the same respective terms.

Additional CD Rates (available to residents in FL and TX)

The short term CDs listed below are only available to residents in Florida and Texas. They come with the same minimum deposit requirement of $10,000 to open.

Grace Period and Early Withdrawal Fees

Upon the maturity of your Amerant Bank CD, you will be provided a 10-day grace period in which you may modify your CD (either by term or deposit size) or close it out entirely without facing any early withdrawal fees.

If nothing is done during this grace period, your Amerant Bank CD will automatically renew with the same term and the going APY at that time.

If you need access to your funds prior to your CD’s maturity you will face an early withdrawal fee. Their fees are on par with most banks around the country. See below.

Early Withdrawal Fees

• For early withdrawal from a CD with a term of less than three months, you will pay a penalty fee equal to the total interest earned at the time of withdrawal.
• For early withdrawal from a CD with a term of between three and 12 months, you will pay a penalty fee equal to 90 days’ interest.
• For early withdrawal from a CD with a term of between 12 and 60 months, you will pay a penalty fee equal to 180 days’ interest.
• For early withdrawal from a CD with a term of longer than 60 months, you will pay a penalty fee equal to 365 days’ interest.

Compounding and Crediting Interest

Interest is compounded and credited monthly for three-month CDs, monthly or quarterly for six-month CDs, and monthly, quarterly, or semi-annually for all other accounts. 

For any CD, you can either choose to leave all of your money including dividends in your certificate until it matures – which maximizes your total earnings – or take out regular payouts on just the interest payments. There’s no penalty for exercising this option, and this is a fairly common way to give yourself some passive income.

How to Open and Fund Your CD

To qualify to open any kind of bank account with Amerant Bank, you must be a legal U.S. citizen or resident alien tax identification number. Then, you can visit an Amerant Bank branch or visit the website to start the application.

Unfortunately, you can only fund your CD via ACH transfer. You might find this to be restrictive if you were hoping to fund it with cash from direct deposit or using a check, but limited funding options are not unusual for certificates.

Since there’s a good chance you won’t be doing all of your banking in-person or from your computer, it’s worth mentioning now that Amerant Bank’s mobile app isn’t great. It has a rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars on Google Play and just 3.3 out of 5 stars on the App Store. These ratings aren’t great in general but are especially disappointing for a banking app, which really should be one of the most functional and reliable apps on your phone. Users really don’t have anything good to say about the program and complain that it always crashes or glitches, even after updates meant to correct issues are rolled out. You’ll have to decide how much this matters to you.

All deposit accounts with Amerant Bank are FDIC insured up to $250,000. This covers each individual account and account holder.

Amerant Bank Reviews and Customer Sentiment

From a consumer perspective, there’s reason to be a bit wary of Amerant Bank. For one thing, this business has a rating of D- with the Better Business Bureau. This kind of rating can mean a number of things but generally indicates that a company falls short of the Bureau’s expectations for ethical, honest, and reasonable treatment of and communication with customers. There is a 43% chance that Amerant Bank will respond to a complaint you file with the BBB.

While it’s possible for great banks to have poor BBB ratings and vice versa, we do see this failing grade as a red flag. 

On consumer review forums, the sentiment is much the same. The majority of complaints point to funding issues, either delays or inability to transfer money. And, as mentioned, the app gives people a lot of problems. But we will note that this bank doesn’t have as many customer ratings as most others, so this could be a case where the most dissatisfied users are just the loudest.

Whenever we see reviews like this, we recommend doing your own research. If you know anyone who’s ever banked with Amerant Bank, talk to them to find out what their experience has been like. And if you don’t, consider opening a different type of account with Amerant Bank first before deciding if you’re ready for a longer-term commitment like a CD.