Pentagon Federal Credit Union
Is This Your Business?3.4
3.4
Author: Kaitlyn Short
LAST UPDATED: September 23rd, 2023
Pentagon Federal Credit Union, known as PenFed was established in 1935 in Alexandria, Virginia. Today, PenFed is one of the top competitor financial institutions with over 1 million members taking place as the 3rd largest in the nation.
Top Ranked Companies
The Good
- Membership
- Credit cards
- Accounts
Membership
PenFed is a credit union that is limited in membership to individuals in the field of all branches of Active Duty Military personnel extending to retired military, or current/retired employees of state agencies and many other state departments and auxiliary branches throughout the United States and overseas.Credit Cards
PenFed Strives to provide the best rates on a car loan and home mortgages. They also have three credit cards that offer incentives and features that is hard for other credit unions to match. With the Rewards Visa Signature Card, customers can receive benefits such as:- 5x points back on gas purchases at the pump
- 3x points back on supermarket purchases
- 1x point back on all other purchases
- No annual fee
- Eligible for virtual checkout with Apple Pay
Accounts
PenFed offers a Dividend checking account called Access America Checking to their members with a tiered APY rate, and they only require $25 to open the dividend checking account. PenFed also offers a regular Savings Account to establish membership with PenFed. The Savings Account has an APY of .1% and only requires $5 minimum to open, with no minimum balance requirements. A PenFed Savings Certificate has terms available for six months or more with rates varying on the length of the term.The Bad
- Stipulations on accounts
- Money market certificates
Stipulations on Accounts
There seems to be some stipulations on the dividend checking accounts. The account is a variable rate account, this can be good and bad. When rates decrease you will not get as high of a return. The APY is valid as of the last dividend declaration date of July 11, 2015, this is typical of a credit union, but it will fluctuate and it isn't locked in. There are fees that may reduce earnings on an account, but they are not specified. While there is only a minimum deposit of $25 required to open an account it looks like there is a minimum requirement for a daily balance of $500, or a monthly direct deposit of $500 to avoid a monthly service fee of $10.00. This is could be aggravating if you need access to that $500 sitting in your account.Money Market Certificates
The minimum requirement for savings certificates or Money Market Certificates is $1000, while other credit unions are usually around $500, and sometimes even lower. Also, the rate is locked in, while PenFed certificate rates are on the upper end as far as certificate rates go, other credit unions do offer special perks that allow their members to adjust the rate one time during the term if certificate rates do increase and PenFed does not.The Bottom Line
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Golf Addict
Best credit union if you are interested in financing an exotic. They finance a 2005 Bentley Continental GT with ease up to 150% value of the car. They are just fascinating
1 year ago
EJ VA
I was a member here for quite a few years, used to be a good CU, but rates have made me move about 10 CDs elsewhere over time and now customer service is terrible.
Tried to log in the other day to get statement, was locked out and sent to a page saying my browser (Opera 47) was not supported. I'm a computer geek/programmer and was surprised cause Opera is maybe the most secure browser out there.
www. penfed.org/unsupported which doesn't mention Opera at all.
So called, busy, busy busy signal and finally got thru only to be on hold for over 15 min. so hung up.
Then sent an email about this, was told that Opera is supported (v39 and above) ... mine is v47. So I replied telling them this and after 4 days never got another reply.
Called again this morning and it wasn't hard to tell the 2 ppl I spoke to had no idea what I was talking about, asked me to send a screen shot to another email address which I will but done dealing with this CU regardless of rates.
7 years ago
Leonard Leo Potomac, MD
Anyone can join PenFed. One of the perks that got me interested was a bonus on title and closing on a home purchase. PenFed also has a credit card that gives 2% cashback.
3 years ago
