Straightforward savings accounts produce no more than 0.35% a year and a one-year fixed deposit earns at most 3.3%.
Assuming you have the cash — perhaps in a savings account or certificate of deposit earning less than 1 percent interest — should you pay off your mortgage early?
The interest rate quoted is what your savings would earn if they were in the account for a whole year, so only the first deposit earns the full rate.
For example, anyone keeping $500,000 in a 12-month certificate of deposit earning a rate of 1.5 percent annually — one of the best savings rates available nationally these days — would earn $7,500 a year, hardly enough to live on.
Still, with a sizable piece of their retirement savings tied up in certificates of deposit earning less than 1 percent, they thought they could do better by buying a house and renting it out.
Whether used to marry off a daughter, buy a computer, as a fixed deposit earning interest, or even to support a husband's enterprise, these loans can operate the same way credit cards do for some.
In fact, fewer than half of the top 50 banks — ranked by deposits — earned F's.
That means that rouble deposits earn far more than dollar ones, which should make the currency more attractive.
Japanese households sit on ¥1,500 trillion of assets, half of which is buried in bank deposits earning scant interest.
