Beam - High Interest Banking
HIDDEN FACT #1
Did you know that U.S. banks today earn on average 4–8% a year on every dollar you deposit into your bank account, passing onto you just 0.01% a year in interest? Banks earned $240 billion in profit in 2018; they can do more for the rest of us.
Beam is a free, fun, high-interest mobile bank account that grows your cash in your sleep. Download the free app to earn 1.5–7% a year, 200x more than your 0.01% interest at Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The best part, you do not need to switch banks to use it. All funds are FDIC-insured up to $500,000.
HIDDEN FACT #2
Did you know that $100 during the Financial Crisis is now worth only $80? Because of inflation. Right now, with just 1 minute of your time, you can stop your idle cash from losing 2% a year to inflation, and help build a better America.
As featured on CNBC, The New York Post, Forbes, ABC, Techcrunch, Beam is a bank app that pays more cash, funds FDIC-insured, 0 fees (FREE!), no minimum, unlimited and anytime withdrawals. It takes just 1 minute to onboard, and you do not need to switch out your existing bank. Come join us on a mission to change banking for the better, and keep more in consumers’ pockets.
HOW IT WORKS
① Download Beam ② Verify your identity ③ Link your existing bank account(s) to fund Beam on your phone, with as little as $1 ④ Start earning 1.5–7% interest on your cash, funds FDIC-insured with unlimited withdrawals. ⑤ Invite friends to earn a higher interest, and earn more together.
BEAM = Because Earnings Always Matter, especially when it takes little to no effort. Access your funds and earn interests anytime, anywhere, as easy as a few taps. More possibilities and uses to come! Oh and don’t forget it’s FREE, forever.
BEAM = Banking as it should be. Because you matter, and the best possible rate matters.
ALL GROWTH
A mobile banking app that gets you paid daily, in your sleep. Earn 1.5–7% interest*, more than 200x your 0.01% interest at Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
ZERO FEES
No asterisk. Zero fees means absolutely FREE, in any possible way you can think of.
FUNDS FDIC-INSURED
Safety and security is our top priority. SSL protected, 256-bit encryption. All funds FDIC-insured up to $500,000.
NO LOCKUP
Get 24/7 access to your funds. Easily and securely move funds into/out-of your Beam account. No minimum balance.
FAQ #1 - How is Beam able to pay more?
Traditional banks often earn 4–8% a year on your money but only give you an average of 0.01% a year. These banks often have many costs—excessive executive bonuses, large advertising budgets, and costly downtown bank branches, etc. Without these costs Beam is able to pass on greater savings to you.
FAQ #2 - Where is my cash?
Your Beam account is a bank account, NOT an investment account. Funds are placed at several large, publicly-traded FDIC-insured banks Beam works with.
FAQ #3 - How does 1.5–7% work?
With cash deposited into Beam, you begin earning a minimum 1.5% Base Rate interest and can boost the interest to as high as 7% each day by collecting and using interest boosts (called a “Billie”). You can effortlessly collect a free Billie each day, and if you invite a friend to subscribe to the mailing list here on this website, you each earn 5 Billies that can be saved and used later. The more you invite, the more you earn. You heard it right. It’s just that simple.
Furthermore, when your friends begin to use Beam, you can permanently unlock higher Base Rates (e.g. up to a minimum 3% a year!).
FAQ #4 - Why Beam if I can invest?
Choose to invest only when you see an opportunity. Before you invest, keep your cash at a liquid, FDIC-insured, high-interest bank account like Beam. After you invest, if the market crashes, Beam is where you can fall back on.
* Accurate as of 11.5.2019; may change.
Category : Finance
Reviews (30)
I've been with Beam for at least a year. I have experienced problems with withdrawals in the past. I understand many of the issues were out of their control, but frustrating nonetheless. I left a small amount of money here to see if it would get better and it has. The daily billies work great. When I report a bug the developers respond even if only to say it was a known issue they were working on a fix. I will transfer more $ soon, the interest rate is just too good not too.
Incredibly buggy; the extra bonuses ("billies") you're supposed to get daily almost never work, and as soon as they fix one issue, another one seems to come up. At this point, I'm sure I've missed out on weeks' worth of bonuses. And to top it all off, I've been waiting THREE MONTHS so far for them to fix an issue with my banking transfer. Nobody reaches out to me with an update unless I e-mail them first. I highly regret ever signing up for Beam. If I could, I'd rate negative stars.
No longer unbelievably slow and filled with bugs (running on Pixel 3, using Android 10). Swiping through pages does fail to load graphics on occasion and the app often needs to be reloaded to navigate and use features - it's still not a smooth process to add banks and the app often delays here or freezes. A vast improvement since the last version, but improvements are still needed. I continue to love the style and what the app is going for. I look forward to the app running smoothly.
Good idea, if I could actually unlock the boosted interest rate. My phone doesn't display the "Billie" pig in the app, despite bringing the issue up to the developer and subsequently updating the app. I'm giving the app a chance to see if the next update fixes the issue. Edit: Multiple updates later, the issue is still not fixed. Combined with the drop in the base interest rate, downgrading my rating to 1 star.
App is pretty buggy, freezes often and doesn't seem to reliably add the interest. Since interest is the one big draw of the app it's kinda a bummer. It's a nice idea though so I'm going to stick with it and hope they work it out. Also what's the idea/purpose of logging in every day to click on a button to see if you can increase your interest rate? it seems like a needless challenge: "hey if you want to waste about one minute of every day you miiight earn an extra penny"
App has lots of issues! I can't even get it to boot up so I can pull my money out. Eventually it'll work...but that isn't sufficient for someone actually expecting to use this. ive found a number of other banks with 2%+. Also, I signed up for the wait list early on and even referred a number of people, but it still took forever. The concept behind getting extra interest ("billy") is silly - I don't want to have to take action, on an app that doesn't work, each day.
The app itself has minor bugs but overall is clean and works as intended. However the real issue is the concept of raising your rate. First off I have no friends, even if I did I can't see convincing enough to make it worth the interest rate boost. Way too many to get anything worthwhile. The Billie concept is interesting, I tracked the amounts I got daily and it averaged out to 0.11. The effort needed to get an interest rate that's higher then other high yield accounts aren't worth it.
Obnoxious and misleading. Annoying sounds in app you can't turn off. No option to turn off daily notifications either. The absolute worst part is that your base interest is just 1.7%, you have to interact daily to "win" higher interest for a day at a time, or bother people you know to sign up and invest their money. Simple and Capital One 360 both have higher interest rates without these hoops and annoyances.
My withdrawal had been pending for a while. Good thing it's only $30 . I don't have trouble withdrawaing back to my bank accounts with OTHER SAVING APPs , takes only a few days. There are better saving apps.other app have better features. seems like a fake app.got a response blaming the current environment for my transfer pending for over a month. On a least one other saving app I'm able to transfer $xxx back in only a few days. I'm able to transfer $xx back into my account also within a few day
This app is not ready for prod. I hope they have a functioning website. The app consistently lags then crashes. "Dragging" the gold bar in the tutorial is almost non-functional. Trying to access the app menu after the tutorial just crashes the app. I honestly don't find this experience reassuring enough to trust them right now for banking and all the sensitive information and account connections it requires.
The first Billie I used when I got my account with no money in it gave a 4% interest boost. I saved up billies for 2 months and then put money in the account and now each Billie gives 0.04%. Bait and switch. The app is also plagued with problems of text not displaying properly, billies not appearing, etc. I emailed support about billies not appearing and never got a response. I am worried about getting my money back out after reading the other reviews!
App crashes constantly, stalls when navigating between views. Current 1.7% interest isn't very good. I have accounts that are over 2.25% and aren't setup like a pyramid scheme for better rates. This may have been a good idea a couple years ago but it took too long to actually come to market. Uninstalled.
Update: latest release is even worse. AVOID! Plus, you can't withdraw interest earned! SCAM! Original: Disappointing. I waited over a year for this and the result is a buggy app that doesn't have competitive rates. Several errors meant I couldn't even add funds. You have to link your account, no option to ach deposit with account info. Great idea with poor execution.
They take your money from your connected account with ease but have so many excuses why they cannot transfer your money back! I tried them for a couple of weeks, decided it wasn't for me and tried to close the account and transfer my money back - app was not working to start then did not show all $$ characters then most menu items were not available. I have communicated via e-mail (no other access!) at least a dozen times with their occasional apology about Covid and overwhelmed issues but it has been over a month and they still have my money! Stay Away!
Doesn't work with last pass, auto-fill just bounces you back to the sign up/login page. This is *literally* the first app once ever had this problem with in almost a decade of using last pass. Just add a local setting that tells the app whether the user has an account already, so it goes straight to the login page if that's reasonable. Also, don't always get my "Billie" daily.
It took me multiple tries to get past the verify identity steps. I had to take a picture of my ID outside of the app and use the "camera roll" option to upload it. The option to take a picture immediately caused the app to restart to the first step afterwards. Otherwise the app has been working fine. I would like an option to unlock the app using a PIN code or fingerprint. Most other banking apps have this option and it feels a bit unsafe that someone could grab my phone and open up my banking app without any authorization besides unlocking my phone screen.
App is essentially broken and unusable. Unstable, crashes constantly, and doesn't respond to user input. I'll update this review once it's fixed. *edit* 10-12-19 I just upgraded phones, and re downloaded the app. The issues persist, app is still buggy and laggy, doesn't respond to user input, and still freezes.
Very disappointed. The app is buggy and sluggish coupled with a lousy interface. Better rates without gimmicks can be found elsewhere. Banking requires serious trust, honesty, and transparency and I felt Beam was insufficient. EDIT: previously the app was a disappointment and we were constantly lied to. Now the app is just a non functioning dumpster fire and unusable.
If zero stars was possible. Seems I'm not alone from reading other reviews lately. Have enjoyed some higher interest rates, but that's where the positive ends. They cannot provide monthly statements even though there's a button for it in the app. More importantly, they stop accruing interest once you request a withdrawal. So far it's been 3 weeks with no resolution in sight. I CAN'T GET MY MONEY. Blaming Covid doesn't fly here. It's a digital bank-to-bank transfer! Other banks are within 2 days!
Went through the initial setup and transferred a test amount then it launches into a tutorial that is extremely laggy and eventually just hangs. Restart it and it just goes right back to the tutorial and hangs again. Useless app though they get my info and initial transfer so I guess it served its purpose as far as they are concerned.
Don't use them! 4% rates is a marketing ploy you can only get that rate if you refer friends and they open an account. There is no phone number they only respond through email and they send automatic response. I'm still waiting on my funds transfer back to my regular bank. I transfered funds and have yet to see it back in my savings it's like it's stuck in mid air the app is trash it says pending for almost 2 weeks now! Terrible. **update finally got my transfer back from July it is November.
Tried several times to create an account only to have the process hang or timeout with no notice. Trying to open the app after attempting to create an account shows me a B logo. Clearing data/cache let's me try the process again with the same results. Billie bucks notifications skip account creation process. App UI looks like I imagine it would if you had created an account, but everything hangs. Glad it prevented me from actually creating an account since allegedly the rate is misleading.
Very buggy. Clicking on the daily notices to earn your Billie take you to the app but often times the app bugs out so you don't earn the Billie (Billies boost your base interest rate). Another bug is it takes me through the intro setup steps at least once a week. Base interest rates are also pretty low. Daily interest deposits are nice but overall not really worth the hassle until they fix bugs and improve interest rates. Haven't tried transferring money out of the app.
Good concept, but several issues. Still cannot apply 'Billies' even after uninstalling and reinstalling the app. Latest update did not help either. Will upgrade rating IF these issues are fixed. If issues are not fixed in next couple of weeks, will get rid of app, especially since I can get a higher base interest rate elsewhere.
I was hoping this would work. I signed up early and referred enough people to make it into the top 2,500 on the wait list. Then had to wait for the android version. I keep trying every few weeks to set up an account, but it keeps on saying my photo ID couldn't be verified... With no way of going back and trying to re upload or take a different picture! I'll just stick with my 2.54% from CIT and call it good.
I'm completely unable to get into the app after getting through the initial setup (numerous close and reopens were needed). Now whenever I open it just brings me to the unlock screen greyed out but never let's me click and then eventually crashes. I'm on a pixel 3.
DO NOT USE THIS APP!!!! This app has stolen my money and their customer service is only an email that takes them two weeks minimum to respond with anything. And then they aren't very helpful when they do respond. I've been trying to retrieve some of the money I had saved with this account for months now and the app won't let me transfer it to my bank and there is no phone number to call and actually talk to someone in customer service.
New and needs a LOT of work! Signs you out for no reason. Cant get through the "Learn How To Use Beam" and no option to X it out. Withdrawals, although they claim it takes 3 business days, its been 5 days now. Customer service/support is non-existant! Connecting a bank takes forever, cause the app will stop or not show the options for which account you want to choose. They dont even have a full list of banks, and no option to connect manually Needs to be put back in Beta cause its terrible!
Awful app. Do not download. I have all my money sitting in there with no way of getting it out as I cannot transfer money in or out of my account. I have tried emailing multiple times and have not gotten a response for 2 months. If I had the choice, I would rate a zero. Awful customer service, awful experience in general.
This app is unusable. The app is extremely slow and I cannot even add money to my account (Not saying I recommend it) . It's like they released this app without even testing it. Would not recommend until they get everything worked out. My suggestion for them is to make the UI slick and clean. Get rid of that annoying coin dropping noise and all the animations that don't matter. It's making the app slow. Get a working product out and maybe I'll reconsider...