Find a bank account with a better yield

When interest rates rise — as they have over the past year — the outlook for savers improves. But where you keep your cash matters.

Shopping around for a higher annual percentage yield (APY) on your savings or checking account can pay off. If you switch from a savings account yielding 0.01% to one with a 3.5% rate, interest earnings could boost your balance by up to 3.6% in a year and 41.7% in 10 years, according to DepositAccounts, a bank account comparison site.

And switching to a new savings account is fairly simple. You may need to look up the routing number and account number of the checking account or other account that will fund the savings account, but otherwise the setup process can be completed online in minutes.

The APY on your savings account changes over time at the bank’s discretion, so it’s important to keep tabs on what your account is earning compared with other top-yielding accounts. Instead of increasing rates on existing savings accounts, some online banks are creating new savings accounts with higher rates. Unless they open new accounts, existing customers with the old savings accounts earn the lower rates.

Online banks often provide the best savings yields. The Interest Savings

Account from Bask Bank, for example, recently required no minimum balance and had an APY of about 4%. American Express, Barclays, Capital One and Synchrony all offer savings accounts with APYs upward of 3.3% and no minimum-balance requirement.

Switching a checking account can be more of a headache than switching a savings account. Typically, regular bill payments, paychecks and other accounts are tied to a checking account, so switching is often a time-consuming process.

But moving from a checking account with an APY of 0.01% to one yielding 5% — the highest checking rate DepositAccounts found in a December study — could mean a balance boost as high as 5.1% in a year and