BestCashCow.com has been monitoring the best savings rates nationwide for over 15 years, and for the first 14 plus, the situation for the consumer was very straightforward.

You’d check to see what the best savings rate on BestCashCow, click through to apply and, voila, you’d be making more interest on your cash than you could possibly be making anywhere else.

Recently, we’ve seen an influx of so-called “fintechs” in the financial space. Fintechs are designed to do nothing that a traditional bank cannot do. They basically lend and borrow money (without the consumer protection of the FDIC or NCUA), facilitate financial transactions, etc. From a consumer standpoint they offer ease of use (an IPhone application) and sometimes lower transaction costs. In return, the consumer is forgoing the regulatory protections and parting with their personal identifying information (address, social security number, drivers license) and willingly or unwillingly creating a trove of information that can be used to market to them.

And, in the post-Facebook world, this personally identifying information has real value. Anyone who questions whether real value can be made off of this information need only look at the types of travel rewards that major credit card companies offer just to get a credit card in your hands. (Compare all of the best credit card sign-up bonuses here).

Against this backdrop, smaller banks are struggling to compete. Yet, many of these banks do not need new deposits (or customers) as they are also flush with cash and the entire economy is awash in liquidity. Hence, we are now getting reports of smaller lesser-known online banks that are “offering” savings rates or CD rates that are well above those of their larger competitors, and are walking people through the online application process and summarily rejecting all applicants (or the vast majority of applicants), either through an outright rejection notice or through never responding (and denying any knowledge of the application). Unfortunately, this is an easy way for them to build their valuable databases with your personal information and that is worth more to them right now than having you as a customer.

It pains us to see this occurring with regulated banks and credit unions. And, it pains us to expose that this is happening. But, we have received so many reports from readers of this happening in 2021 and we’ve seen it from own experiences. So, yes, it is happening.

And, the question becomes what you can do as a customer to protect yourself and your personally-identifying information. We recommend the following steps.

1. Err towards the better-known, more established online banks. These banks are always competitive over the long-haul and they don’t refuse customer accounts. While you may make a few basis points less, these banks are not going to take your information and refuse you as a client. You’ll find at least thirteen of these to choose from: Marcus, Ally, Synchrony, CIT, CitizensAccess, American Express, Purepoint, CapitalOne, Barclays, CIBC, TIAA, Sallie Mae and Discover. On the credit union side, places like Navy Federal Credit Union, Pentagon or Alliant are not going to deny your application if you meet the Field of Membership Requirements.

2. Consider established banks with strong local or national reputations that are spending large amounts of money to establish national online brands. These banks are also unlikely to refuse you as a client. In our observation, there are currently at least eight of these that are currently among the most competitive savings and CD issuers nationally, include Comenity Direct (New York), Amboy Direct (New Jersey), Live Oak Bank (North Carolina), Salem Five (Massachusetts), CFG Bank (Maryland), First Foundation (California), Merrick (Utah), Zions (Utah), TAB Bank (Utah).

3. Read the reviews on banks and credit unions that you have not heard of. Except in egregious situations where we are inundated with customer complaints and the bank or credit union has refused to provide an explanation, BestCashCow is not going to remove savings and CD offerings from our site. But, unlike sites like Bankrate or Nerdwallet, we do offer verified customer reviews, linked from our table of the best online savings rates. You should read these. If people are reporting that they are unable to open accounts (either through the bank’s outright rejection or non-response), you should take these reports seriously.

It seems absurd to imagine that a bank would want just your personal information and not want your hard earned money, especially when you are essentially offering to lend it to them at below 1% or a fraction of the current inflation rate (thanks Federal Reserve!) But, yes, this is really happening.

As I write, in July 2021, we are living in a strange time. We are facing extraordinary risks to our democracy in the US, risks to our health as COVID-19 variants appear, and risks to our environment as it becomes increasingly clear that the human race has delayed far too long to expect any meaningful investment to counteract climate change.

Yet, the US stock market sits at a valuation level where by any metric it is more richly valued than it has been at any point in our lifetimes (or at least in our memories). In addition, every asset imaginable, including worthless coins, property rights and going concerns without any economically viable business model can be easily bid (manipulated) to a level where it can no longer be justified by even the most ardent of CNBC cheerleaders.

In our COVID times, cash has become trash. The Federal Reserve began lowering the benchmark Fed funds on July 31, 2019 (before the virus), brought it to zero quickly when the virus hit, and seems to be willing to hold it there until 2023 while cravenly denying the existence of any inflation.

The challenge with the current scenario is that while it seems like a ridiculous time to be holding anything in cash, asset valuations are so high that they could fall dramatically at any moment as a result of things that are foreseeable (a change in Fed policy), things that are not foreseeable or nothing at all. And, we know from history that this can happen so quickly that very few will have a chance to save their assets.

Hence, I continue to say that it still seems like a good time to be protective and to keep some of your money in cash. But, true cash alternatives are very unattractive. Your broker at Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch is going to offer you 0.10% on brokered CD at the moment, which in addition to being a low rate is illiquid without a loss of principal.

A more attractive option – albeit still painful – is to put your money in an online savings account, as long as you stay within FDIC (or NCUA) limits. Multiple banks that are part of the most solid financial entities in the world are offering these accounts at 0.40% APY at the moment. And, the best thing about these accounts – particularly the accounts at American Express, Purepoint (MUFG) and CitizensAccess – is that you can transfer your cash back to a local bank account in order to take advantage of whatever opportunities or needs may arise in the near future. (Other well-known and solid banking entities such as Barclays or Capital One also offer 0.40% online savings accounts, but reviews on BestCashCow indicate that transfers may take a little longer and service may be a little worse). In fact, if you just take a few minutes to look at our list of the best online savings rates, you will find that there are also many banks that are willing to offer you more than 0.40% right now.

As you look out one or two years, you just do not want to find yourself in a position where you regretted not being a little more cautious. And, if you are so young that you’ve reached the end of this article without appreciating the level of uncertainty we face ahead, then you might want to seek out someone who lived through 2000-2001 or who lived through 2008-2009.

The Federal Reserve has finally begun to act according to its mandate to maintain price stability, but inflation is already running rampant. Today’s move is just the beginning of moves that will be necessary. The Fed’s statement left us with little in the way of guidance in terms of how far and how fast it is going, but Powell’s press conference did not.

Powell addressed the American public by saying that inflation is much too high and supply chain disruptions are being exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the COVID lockdowns in China. In other words, it is possible that we still haven’t seen peak inflation.

Powell himself seems to believe the Fed is way behind the curve and is going to need to be very hawkish. Whereas economists had previously looked for another 50 basis points move at the conclusion of the June 14-15 meeting, and 25 basis points at each of its four remaining meetings, Powell introduced the possibility that there may be a series of 50 basis point moves through the year. Depositors can expect much higher rates in savings and money market accounts after today’s move and through the year.

You may want to bookmark BestCashCow’s online savings page here. You should also consider savings rates where you live here.

Alternatively, you may wish to follow savings rate changes through RatesAndInfo.com, our partner site that displays online and local rates on a single table.

CD rates are also obviously going up. We warned about rushing into CDs last week in this article. Rates have gone up since then with leading 1-year CD rates above 2% and 5-year CD rates now above 3%. CD rates will get more and more tempting, especially when we have not seen anything for cautious investors to even nibble on since the beginning of the pandemic.

Before jumping into a CD, folks need to play around the CME’s Federal Reserve Open Market Committee’s Fedwatch tool here. It demonstrates the probabilities assigned by to different interest rates by economists’ targets at the end of each upcoming Fed meeting. As of this writing, it indicates a 79% probability of a target rate of 3.25% to 3.50% following the December meeting, some seven months from now, and a 92.5% probably that we will be at that level following the July 2023 meeting.

Plenty of well known and respected economists, like Harvard’s Ken Rogoff, think the Fed is going to need to move much further and much faster in order to get the “perfect storm” of inflation under control.

Whatever happens, it should be an interesting year for savings and CD rates.