Interest Rates

1.  What is APY?

APY stands for "Annual Percentage Yield" and represents a yearly interest rate-or the rate of return- in which one pays their bank for an investment.

2.  What Institution had the highest APY and what was it?  Who had the lowest and what was the rate?

American Express Bank has a 1.00% APY and California First National Bank had a 0.65% APY.

3.  What is meant by FDIC Insured?

 FDIC stands for the "Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation" an is an independent government agency that protects people's deposits in insured U.S. banks in case they were to fail.

4.  Is it important to you that a bank be FDIC Insured?  Explain why or why not.
I think it is important that a bank have this type of insurance since it has been extremely successful since 1934. No depositor has lost any money insured by this agency.

Part 2:
Spend sometime looking into rates that banks charge for home ownership (mortgages)...  


Answer the following question:
Based on the information you found on mortgage rates above, what are two conclusions you have related to current mortgage rates?
1) The APR is 1% or higher for 30 year fixed mortgages verses 15 year mortgages.
2) The largest APR is 4.451% in the largest state on my list (California), so the size of the state and the percentage of APR must be directly related.

State	City	Loan Amount	Product	Lender	APR
Wisconsin	Milwaukee	$250,000	30 year fixed	North Shore Bank	4.151%
Arizona	Tuscon	$250,000	15 year fixed	Greenlight Financial Services	3.742%
California	Berkely	$250,000	30 year fixed	Quicken Loans	4.451%
Georgia	Atlanta	$250,000	30 year fixed	Anchor Home Mortgage	4.276%
Illinois	Aurora	$250,000	30 year fixed	Amerisave	4.443%
Iowa	Des Moines	$250,000	15 year fixed	Stonegate Mortgage	3.547%
Nebraska	Omaha	$250,000	15 year fixed	US Bank	3.964%