Bank of America does not, on the day this was checked, sell a consumer product called a money market account. Its personal savings line-up on bankofamerica.com and in the Personal Schedule of Fees effective 7 August 2026 contains exactly one savings account — Bank of America Advantage Savings — alongside CDs and IRAs. The only products carrying the words "money market" are a Money Market IRA, which is a retirement account, and an Employee Money Market Savings account inside the bank's employee-banking programme, which the public cannot open. Anyone typing "money market account BoA" is therefore going to end up with one of three things: Advantage Savings, a CD, or — through Merrill, the bank's brokerage arm — a brokerage cash product or a money market fund. The last of those is not an account at all, and the difference is the most expensive thing on this page to get wrong.
None of that is a criticism of the bank. It is a description of a shelf, and the point of describing it is that the shelf is not what the search term assumes. What follows sets out what each product is, how the BofA Rewards tiers and fee waivers change the arithmetic, and what to verify at the bank before opening anything. It prints no rate, for the reason the cluster hub gives: the number moves, and a page that prints today's figure is wrong on a date nobody will notice.
What Bank of America actually sells for cash
| Product | Where it sits | What it is | Cheques or debit card on the balance | Insured |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advantage Savings | Bank of America, N.A. | Variable-rate savings deposit, $100 to open | No paper cheques (fee schedule); card access to the savings balance is not addressed in the fee schedule — check the Deposit Agreement | FDIC, as a deposit |
| Featured, Fixed Term and Flexible CDs | Bank of America, N.A. | Time deposits, $1,000 minimum for most terms | No | FDIC, as a deposit |
| Money Market IRA | Bank of America, N.A. | Variable-rate IRA savings account, $100 minimum; withdrawals by cheque, draft or debit card not allowed | No | FDIC, retirement-account category |
| Employee Money Market Savings | Employee banking programme | Tiered savings for Bank of America employees only | Not applicable to the public | FDIC, as a deposit |
| Merrill Lynch Bank Deposit Program | Merrill brokerage sweep | Uninvested brokerage cash placed on deposit at Bank of America, N.A. and Bank of America California, N.A. | Through the brokerage account's cash features | FDIC, pass-through, per bank |
| Preferred Deposit | Merrill, non-sweep | Bank deposit at Bank of America, N.A. with a $100,000 minimum initial deposit | Through the brokerage account | FDIC, aggregated with your other deposits at that bank |
| Money market funds | Merrill | SEC-regulated mutual funds | Through the brokerage account | Not insured; can lose value |
Read the fourth column, because it is where the search term fails. A money market account, as how a money market account works explains, is a savings deposit that typically adds cheque-writing or a debit card. Bank of America's savings deposit does neither: the fee schedule says plainly that you may not write paper cheques on it. The bank's interest-bearing account with cheques is Advantage Relationship Banking, which is a checking account with its own $25 monthly fee, waived by a $20,000 minimum daily balance or a BofA Rewards tier from Preferred Plus up. That is the closest thing on the shelf to what the phrase "money market account" describes, and it is not called one.
Older reviews describe a Bank of America savings product with "money market" in its name. Nothing by that name appears on the bank's consumer product pages or in the current fee schedule, and a review updated in December 2025 states that the bank does not offer money market accounts to new customers. This page does not assert when the product went; only that it is not there now.
The charter, and why it is checked twice
The FDIC's BankFind records Bank of America, National Association — certificate 3510, Charlotte, North Carolina — as an active national bank supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and chartered in 1904. Every consumer deposit in the first four rows sits under that one certificate, so the FDIC's limit of $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category applies to the sum of your Advantage Savings, CDs and checking balances in each category. Are CDs FDIC insured sets out the categories; the money market insurance page covers the deposit-versus-fund line this page keeps returning to.
The second check is the one people miss. Merrill's sweep places uninvested brokerage cash at two banks: Bank of America, N.A. and Bank of America California, N.A., which BankFind lists as a separate charter, certificate 25178. Two charters means two limits — useful — but Merrill's own Sweep Program Guide says that deposits at a sweep bank held "directly, through other Merrill accounts or through any other intermediary" are aggregated for insurance purposes. In plain terms: your Advantage Savings balance, the cash swept from your Merrill account to Bank of America, N.A., and any Preferred Deposit balance there all count toward one $250,000 limit in the same ownership category. The guide also says clients are responsible for monitoring the total. It means it.
Advantage Savings, read as the substitute
Since this is the product most searchers will be offered, its structure deserves the same reading a money market account would get.
The fee. $8 a month. New accounts get six months free, and after that the fee is waived in any statement cycle in which one of four things is true: a minimum daily balance of $500 or more; ownership of an Advantage Relationship Banking account; an account owner under 25; or an owner enrolled in BofA Rewards at the Preferred Plus, Preferred Honors or Premier tier. "Minimum daily balance" is the lowest balance in the cycle, so one day at $499 costs the waiver for that month.
What the fee is worth. $8 a month is $96 a year. Against the $500 that waives it, that is 19.2% a year — a fee a small saver cannot afford to trigger. Against interest, the comparison is starker: on $10,000 at an illustrative 0.10%, the account earns $10 a year, so a year of unwaived fees is nearly ten times the interest. The rate itself is variable and, in the schedule's words, may be changed "without limit or notice"; interest compounds and is credited monthly.
The Relationship Banking route. Owning an Advantage Relationship Banking account waives the savings fee, but that checking account carries a $25 monthly fee of its own unless you keep a minimum daily balance of $20,000 in that checking account itself or hold the Preferred Plus, Preferred Honors or Premier tier. A saver who opens the checking account to make the savings account free, and then lets the checking balance slip, has swapped a $96 problem for a $300 one.
Access. No paper cheques. Withdrawals happen by transfer, at an ATM or in a branch; branch access is the genuine advantage a national branch bank holds over the online brands, and it is a reason someone might reasonably hold cash here whatever the rate for their ZIP code turns out to be. The account is set to decline transactions it cannot cover rather than charge an overdraft fee.
Withdrawal limits. Earlier reviews describe a $10 charge for each withdrawal beyond six a month. The fee schedule effective 7 August 2026 carries no such line item. Read the Deposit Agreement and Disclosures before assuming either way; the 2020 change to Regulation D lets banks keep their own limits, and the mechanics page explains why.
What BofA Rewards does to a savings account
BofA Rewards launched on 27 May 2026 as the successor to Preferred Rewards, the transition taking effect on or about 26 May. The structure now has four tiers, set by the three-calendar-month rolling average of your end-of-day balances across qualifying Bank of America deposit accounts, Merrill and Private Bank investment and IRA accounts, and 529 plans on Merrill statements:
| Tier | Combined average balance |
|---|---|
| Member | under $30,000 |
| Preferred Plus | $30,000 |
| Preferred Honors | $100,000 |
| Premier | $1,000,000 |
Enrolment requires an open, qualifying personal checking account; former Gold and Platinum members became Preferred Plus, Platinum Honors became Preferred Honors, and Diamond Honors became Premier. Private Bank clients qualify for Premier regardless of balance.
Two benefits are usually attributed to the savings account. The first is the fee waiver: at Preferred Plus and above, the bank lists no monthly maintenance fee on checking and savings accounts, which retires the $8 and the $25 in one stroke. The Member tier is not listed for that benefit. The second is a savings interest rate booster, which the old Preferred Rewards programme advertised by tier. None of the bank's BofA Rewards pages, the Personal Schedule of Fees or the state deposit rate sheet read for this article lists one for Advantage Savings under BofA Rewards; the only savings benefit the programme page lists is the fee waiver. Treat any booster as unconfirmed unless the rates page for your ZIP code shows a tier rate.
If a booster existed, its arithmetic would be worth holding in mind: it multiplies the standard rate, and a percentage of a small number is a smaller number. Hypothetically, a 20% booster on a 0.10% rate produces 0.12%, which on $10,000 is $2 a year. The fee waiver at the same tier is worth $96. For a saver, the tier's value is almost entirely the waiver.
Three consequences follow from how the tier is measured. Because balances are combined across deposits and Merrill investments, an investor with $30,000 in an index fund at Merrill and $2,000 in savings holds the same tier as a saver with $32,000 in cash — the programme rewards the relationship, not the savings. Because the monthly balance checks only move you up, a large withdrawal — a house deposit, a tuition payment — does not drop the tier when it happens; the bank re-tests the three-month average at the annual review in your enrolment-anniversary month, notifies you, and gives a grace period of not less than three months before moving you down, and the waiver goes with the tier. And because enrolment needs a checking account, closing that account ends the programme and every benefit attached to it, without further notice once the grace period lapses.
If you were thinking of Merrill
A searcher who has heard "money market" in connection with Bank of America may be thinking of Merrill, and Merrill offers three different things for cash. Only two of them are deposits.
The sweep. Uninvested brokerage cash goes automatically to the Merrill Lynch Bank Deposit Program, placed at the two Bank of America charters above. Its rate is tiered by the total eligible assets in your statement-linked accounts, with the highest tier reserved for accounts in Merrill's investment advisory programmes, and the Sweep Program Guide states that sweep rates will likely be lower than those on other deposit accounts at the same banks. It is insured, as a pass-through deposit, and it aggregates with everything else you hold at each bank.
Preferred Deposit. A non-sweep bank deposit at Bank of America, N.A., opened by order through the brokerage account, with a $100,000 minimum initial deposit and a rate tiered by the balance in that account. It is the product some reviewers mean when they say the bank offers a "money-market-style" deposit for large balances. It is a deposit, it is insured, and $100,000 of it sits against the same $250,000 limit as your Advantage Savings.
Money market funds. Available as the sweep for a limited set of account types and as ordinary purchases for the rest. These are mutual funds governed by the SEC's Rule 2a-7, not deposits. Merrill's disclosure says it exactly: an investment in a money market fund is not a bank deposit and is not insured or guaranteed by Bank of America or the FDIC; the fund seeks to preserve a $1.00 share price and cannot guarantee it; the sponsor has no obligation to support it. The SEC's 2023 reforms removed the redemption gates that funds could once impose, raised liquidity minimums, and require institutional prime and tax-exempt funds to charge liquidity fees when daily net redemptions exceed 5% of net assets, unless the fund's liquidity costs are de minimis. SIPC protects the custody of the shares if the broker fails; it does not protect their value. Money market vs high-yield savings makes the same distinction at summary level, and it is the whole reason where to keep an emergency fund prefers a deposit.
Where each searcher probably belongs
This is a map, not a recommendation.
- Someone who wants cheques or a card on an interest-bearing balance is describing Advantage Relationship Banking at this bank, with its own fee and waiver, or a money market account at a bank that sells one — U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo are the branch-bank comparison in this cluster.
- Someone who wants a savings rate is looking at Advantage Savings, and should read the rate for their ZIP code and tier against the FDIC's national average on the hub, using the five-minute check on the rates page.
- Someone who wants a fixed rate is looking at the three CD types, and CD vs money market account prices the lock.
- Someone who has a Merrill account should find out which of the three cash products they are actually in before assuming it is insured.
- Someone who searched Chase first will find the same shape there; the Chase page works through it.
What to verify before opening anything
- The product name on the agreement. If it says Advantage Savings, it is a savings account without cheques. If it says Money Market IRA, it is a retirement account with its own tax rules. If it says fund, it is not a deposit.
- The rates page for your ZIP code, read the same day: the standard rate for Advantage Savings, and any BofA Rewards tier rate shown.
- Whether any tier rate for Advantage Savings appears on the rates page at all, and whether your combined balance actually lands in a tier.
- The fee schedule's effective date and the waiver you will meet — the $500 balance, the under-25 rule, a tier, or the Relationship Banking account.
- If it is the Relationship Banking route, the $20,000 test, because the savings waiver depends on the checking waiver holding.
- BankFind certificate 3510, then a total of everything you hold at Bank of America, N.A. in each ownership category, including Merrill sweep cash and Preferred Deposit.
- The Deposit Agreement's withdrawal terms, since the fee schedule is silent on a per-withdrawal charge.
- At Merrill, the sweep option on your account, and whether any cash sits in a fund rather than a deposit.
What to actually do
Stop searching for the product and read the shelf. The bank sells a savings account, CDs, a retirement money market account and Merrill cash products. Decide which of those you were actually looking for before comparing anything.
Price the fee before the rate. $96 a year unwaived is the largest number on the page for a small balance. Choose the waiver you will meet every month, and if it is the tier, know what balance keeps it.
Treat any booster as a footnote to the waiver. A booster, if your rates page shows one, multiplies a small rate; the waiver removes a fixed cost. Value the tier accordingly.
Add up your Bank of America, N.A. balances across channels. Advantage Savings, CDs, checking, Merrill sweep and Preferred Deposit all sit under certificate 3510 within each ownership category.
If any money is at Merrill, name the vehicle. Deposit programme, Preferred Deposit or fund. Only the first two are insured, and only up to the limit you have just added up.
Diarise the tier review. The balance that earned the waiver is averaged over three months and re-checked every year. A withdrawal costs the tier only if the annual review in the month of your enrolment anniversary finds the three-month average below the threshold; the bank then notifies you and gives a grace period of not less than three months before moving you down. Diarise the anniversary month.
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