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NYCB is paying the nation’s highest interest rate (APY)

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A New York Community Bank stands in Brooklyn on February 08, 2024 in New York City. 

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

New York Community Bank, the regional lender that needed a $1 billion-plus lifeline last month, is offering the country’s highest interest rate for a savings account.

NYCB raised the annual percentage yield offered via its online arm, My Banking Direct, to 5.55%, higher than any other bank’s widely available account, according to Ken Tumin, an analyst who tracks rates for his website DepositAccounts.

The standout rate could be a sign that NYCB is facing funding pressure, Tumin said.

“It looks like they’re trying really hard to attract deposits,” Tumin said. “My Banking Direct has been around for a long time, more than 10 years, so them having an aggressive rate could be a sign of neediness” for funding.

NYCB’s woes began in January, when it said it was preparing for far greater losses on commercial real estate loans than analysts had expected. That set off a downward spiral in its stock price, downgrades from rating agencies and multiple management changes. The bank announced a capital injection from investors led by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic Capital on March 6.

In the month before the rescue was announced, NYCB shed 7% of its deposits, falling to $77.2 billion by March 5, the bank said in a presentation.

Nothing ‘crazy’

During a conference call held after the capital raise, analysts asked how NYCB managed to retain so much of its deposits during the tumultuous period.

“We didn’t do anything crazy relative to deposit pricing,” NYCB chairman Sandro DiNello replied. “We didn’t go out and offer 6% CDs or something like that in order to make the numbers look good, if that’s what you’re concerned with.”

NYCB didn’t return a call for comment on its funding strategy.

Joseph Otting, a former comptroller of the currency, took over as the bank’s CEO on April 1, about a week before the rate increase.

Despite the turnaround plan, shares of NYCB still trade for under $4 apiece and are off more than 68% year to date.

Steven Mnuchin on NYCB investment: Great opportunity to turn this into an attractive regional bank

Forced to pay up

Other banks offering rates higher than 5% right now tend to be newer or smaller players than NYCB, according to Tumin.

Among established banks, the average high-yield savings rate is about 4.4%, and several of them (including American Express, Goldman Sachs and Ally) have dropped rates in the past month, he said. The NYCB rate also tops accounts listed on NerdWallet and Bankrate.

Customer deposits at My Banking Direct are insured by the FDIC up to the standard $250,000.

Over the past two years, savings account rates have broadly been on the rise.

Since the regional banking crisis consumed Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic last year, smaller players have been forced to pay higher rates for deposits compared to giants like JPMorgan Chase in order to compete, said Matt Stucky, chief portfolio manager for equities at Northwestern Mutual.

“When a bank has to go out and advertise a much higher rate, it’s typically because they have a deposit problem,” Stucky said. “It’s not hard for customers to switch banks anymore.”

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Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says markets are too complacent

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Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, leaves the U.S. Capitol after a meeting with Republican members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on the issue of de-banking on Feb. 13, 2025.

Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday that markets and central bankers underappreciate the risks created by record U.S. deficits, tariffs and international tensions.

Dimon, the veteran CEO and chairman of the biggest U.S. bank by assets, explained his worldview during his bank’s annual investor day meeting in New York. He said he believes the risks of higher inflation and even stagflation aren’t properly represented by stock market values, which have staged a comeback from lows in April.

“We have huge deficits; we have what I consider almost complacent central banks,” Dimon said. “You all think they can manage all this. I don’t think” they can, he said.

“My own view is people feel pretty good because you haven’t seen effective tariffs” yet, Dimon said. “The market came down 10%, [it’s] back up 10%; that’s an extraordinary amount of complacency.”

Dimon’s comments follow Moody’s rating agency downgrading the U.S. credit rating on Friday over concerns about the government’s growing debt burden. Markets have been whipsawed the past few months over worries that President Donald Trump‘s trade policies will raise inflation and slow the world’s largest economy.

Dimon said Monday that he believed Wall Street earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies, which have already declined in the first weeks of Trump’s trade policies, will fall further as companies pull or lower guidance amid the uncertainty.

In six months, those projections will fall to 0% earnings growth after starting the year at around 12%, Dimon said. If that were to happen, stocks prices will likely fall.

“I think earnings estimates will come down, which means PE will come down,” Dimon said, referring to the “price to earnings” ratio tracked closely by stock market analysts.

The odds of stagflation, “which is basically a recession with inflation,” are roughly double what the market thinks, Dimon added.

Separately, one of Dimon’s top deputies said that corporate clients are still in “wait-and-see” mode when it comes to acquisitions and other deals.

Investment banking revenue is headed for a “mid-teens” percentage decline in the second quarter compared with the year-earlier period, while trading revenue was trending higher by a “mid-to-high” single digit percentage, said Troy Rohrbaugh, a co-head of the firm’s commercial and investment bank.

On the ever-present question of Dimon’s timeline to hand over the CEO reins to one of his deputies, Dimon said that nothing changed from his guidance last year, when he said he would likely remain for less than five more years.

“If I’m here for four more years, and maybe two more” as executive chairman, Dimon said, “that’s a long time.”

Of all the executive presentations given Monday, consumer banking chief Marianne Lake had the longest speaking time at a full hour. She is considered a top successor candidate, especially after Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Piepszak said she would not be seeking the top job.

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Stocks making the biggest moves midday: UNH, TSLA, BABA

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Klarna doubles losses in first quarter as IPO remains on hold

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Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, speaking at a fintech event in London on Monday, April 4, 2022.

Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Klarna saw its losses jump in the first quarter as the popular buy now, pay later firm applies the brakes on a hotly anticipated U.S. initial public offering.

The Swedish payments startup said its net loss for the first three months of 2025 totaled $99 million — significantly worse than the $47 million loss it reported a year ago. Klarna said this was due to several one-off costs related to depreciation, share-based payments and restructuring.

Revenues at the firm increased 13% year-over-year to $701 million. Klarna said it now has 100 million active users and 724,00 merchant partners globally.

It comes as Klarna remains in pause mode regarding a highly anticipated U.S. IPO that was at one stage set to value the SoftBank-backed company at over $15 billion.

Klarna put its IPO plans on hold last month due to market turbulence caused by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans. Online ticketing platform StubHub also put its IPO plans on ice.

Prior to the IPO delay, Klarna had been on a marketing blitz touting itself as an artificial intelligence-powered fintech. The company partnered up with ChatGPT maker OpenAI in 2023. A year later, Klarna used OpenAI technology to create an AI customer service assistant.

Last week, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company was able to shrink its headcount by about 40%, in part due to investments in AI.

Watch CNBC's full interview with Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski

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