Originally founded in Salt Lake City, Utah as an industrial loan corporation, CIT Bank has come a long way in a short period of time since their inception in 2000.

Today, with just two decades of growth, CIT bank controls roughly $45 billion in assets and offers a full array of banking products to individuals, small businesses and corporations.

For the purpose of this review, we will focus on the suite of certificates of deposit being sold at CIT Bank. For those that also happen to be a customer of OneWestBank, it should be noted that OneWestBank and CIT Bank are the same FDIC-insured institution. Therefore CDs and bank deposits held under each name are not separately insured, but are combined. So if you have a CD with OneWestBank that you purchased for $50,000, you will only have $200,000 of FDIC-coverage remaining for your CIT Bank CD.

CIT Bank currently offers the following types of CD accounts:

• Standard term CDs with terms ranging from 6 months to 5 years.
• Jumbo CDs with terms ranging from 2 – 5 years and requiring a minimum deposit of $100,000.
• No Penalty CD with 11 month term. Allows for full access to your funds penalty-free prior to maturity.
• Ramp-Up CDs. These are good during an increasing interest rate environment. They allow for a one-time interest rate bump during the life of the CD (if rates rise); however, you are not allowed to add funds to the deposit. Ramp-UP CDs by CIT Bank are not offered on new money at this time.

Below are the current rates and APYs offered on CIT Bank CDs as well as the fine print details you’ll want to know before proceeding with an account.

CIT Bank CD Rates + Account Details

CIT Bank is a member of the FDIC (FDIC# 58978) and all consumer deposits are federally insured up to $250,000 per depositor or $500,000 for joint accounts.

CIT Bank Standard Term CD Rates

Term	Min. Deposit	APY
6 months	$1,000	0.30%
12 months	$1,000	0.30%
13 months	$1,000	0.30%
18 months	$1,000	0.30%
2 year	$1,000	0.40%
3 year	$1,000	0.40%
4 year	$1,000	0.50%
5 year	$1,000	0.50%

To provide some context for CIT Bank’s yields (shown above), the current national average on a 12 month CD and a 60 month CD sit at just 0.22% APY and 0.46% APY, respectively.

All standard term CDs come with a minimum deposit requirement of $1,000 which is fairly standard for online bank deposits.

Interest is compounded daily and credited monthly. You can choose to have this interested deposited into another CIT Bank account, an external account or mailed to your home. This is a great feature for those living off of their deposit interest for income.

You will have a standard 10 day grace period in which you can withdraw funds or add funds to your deposit penalty-free. If nothing is done during this time, your CD will automatically renew with the same terms and present APY at that time, with exception to the 13 month CD and the 18 month CD. The 13 month CD will instead roll into a 12 month CD and the 18 month CD will instead roll into a 2 year CD.

CIT Bank 11 Month No-Penalty CD

As the name implies, the 11 month No-Penalty CD allows you full access to your funds after 7 days from opening the account without incurring a penalty. No withdrawals are permitted within the first 6 days.

This is a good alternative to a variable rate online savings account or money market account whose rate can change at any time without notice to the customer. That said, the rate currently offered on CIT Banks 11 month No-Penalty CD lags the top yields of online savings accounts by a sizable margin.

CIT Bank 11 Month No-Penalty CD

Term	Min. Deposit	APY
11 month	$1,000	0.30%

To put this in perspective, the top yields for 12 month CDs and online savings accounts still hover around 1.0% APY from a handful of banks and nationally available credit unions; however, as mentioned previously, the national average is still just 0.22% APY.

Interest is also compounded daily and credited monthly for the 11 month No-Penalty CD.

There is still a 10 day grace period for the 11 month No-Penalty CD even though your funds are accessible throughout its life. If nothing is done during this time, your CD will renew with the going interest rate and APY.

CIT Bank Ramp-UP CDs

Before we dive into the details and yields of these accounts, we should note that these are not currently offered to new money at this time. And for good reason. Given the current interest rate environment it is unlikely for rates to rise anytime soon, thus providing no “ramp-up” in rates for the foreseeable future.

CIT Bank Ramp-UP CD Rates

Term	Min. Deposit	APY
1 year Ramp-Up Plus	$25,000	0.25%
2 year Ramp-Up Plus	$25,000	0.25%
3 year Ramp-Up	$25,000	0.25%
4 year Ramp-Up	$50,000	0.25%

Again, for context, the national average on a 12 month CD is just 0.22% APY and a 60 month CD sits at roughly 0.47% APY.

When rates begin to rise again, check back on these products as they may be more competitive at that time. With these accounts you are entitled to one interest rate bump during the life of the deposit.

Opening and Funding a CIT Bank CD

To get started, navigate to CIT Bank’s CD account page to get a holistic view of their entire certificates of deposit offerings. From here you can use the green buttons which say either “Learn How,” “See More,” or “Get started” to navigate to the precise product page you intend to open.

Once at that page, you will have another chance to get more details about the product before clicking on the green “Get started” button to proceed with the application.

Once beginning the application process you will need the following pieces of information:

• Full Name (have your driver’s license handy)
• Address
• Phone Number
• Email
• Social Security Number or other taxpayer ID

Once you’ve opened the account, you can fund it in several ways. These include:

• electronic transfer
• mail in check
• mobile check deposit
• wire transfer

If doing a wire transfer you will need both the routing number and account number of the bank in which you are transferring funds from. If you have a check from the account you will be transferring funds from that will suffice as well as all the required information is there.

If you need to contact CIT Bank at any time while applying for or funding your account, you can use the contact information below. We’ve also included the routing number.

• Bank Address: P.O. Box 7056 Pasadena, CA 91109-9699
• Telephone Number: 855-462-2652
• CIT Bank Routing: 124084834

Managing Your CIT Bank CD and Using Mobile Banking

You can manage your CIT Bank CD with online banking, mobile banking or through their native IOS and Android apps. CIT bank has a respectable 4.6 star rating out of 5 for their IOS app and a more modest 3.8 stars out of 5 for their android app. Both scores are above average as far as banking applications go.

Whether managing your accounts through desktop web, mobile web, or the aforementioned apps, customers will have the ability to do the following:

• Check account balances, interest rate accumulation and transaction history
• Transfer money between CIT Bank accounts and external linked accounts
• Deposit checks (if you also have the CIT Bank online savings account)

Final Thoughts

While CIT Bank has consistently offered high yield certificates of deposit in the past, their current rates are lower than what can be found through other online banks or nationally available credit unions.

That said, many of their APYs still top the national average for their respective terms and some come with more flexibility (in the case of the 11 month No-Penalty CD) than standard bank CDs.