SunTrust Bank CD Rates

SunTrust Bank 6-Month CD

0.05% APY

SunTrust offers certificate of deposit accounts ranging from six months to 2 years. This allows you to open a CD term for however long you’d like it to be within that range. You won’t find the rates for non-promotional terms online, however. You’ll need to call the bank to find the exact rates for these accounts. Unfortunately, these accounts offer relatively low rates. 

You’ll do best to open a SunTrust CD with Promotional Rates. Note that you will have to deposit at least $2,000 to open a SunTrust CD account. This may be a high amount for many, but a higher balance does earn more in interest than a smaller balance. 

To calculate how much interest you could earn with a CD, try using SmartAsset's CD calculator.

6-Month CD Interest Rate Comparison

Overview of SunTrust CDs 

SunTrust offers a huge range of CD terms overall with the shortest term at six months and the longest available term at 2 years. However, you’ll want to focus most on the Promotional CDs listed above. Those have the best CD rates that SunTrust offers. For example, if you want to open a six-month account, you’ll earn at only a 0.05% APY. If you’re looking for a shorter-term, perhaps a simple savings account or money market account with a higher interest rate would work better for you. Those accounts allow much more flexibility in accessing your money, too. 

CDs are meant to be held to maturity without any extra deposits or withdrawals. Once a SunTrust CD reaches maturity, it will automatically renew for the same term length and the published rate at the time of renewal. If you don’t want it to renew, you can withdraw some or all of the amount in the account or make an additional deposit. 

If you desperately need to make a withdrawal from a CD before its maturity date, you’ll likely face a penalty. For starters, if you have a CD up to 31 days long, you’ll have to forfeit the equivalent of seven days’ interest. Accounts from one to six months assess a penalty equivalent to six months’ interest. Early withdrawals from an account of six to 12 months penalize the equivalent amount of nine months’ interest. The penalty equals 12 months’ interest on accounts between 12 and 24 months, 24 months’ interest on accounts between 24 and 60 months and 6 months’ interest on accounts longer than 60 months. 

How Much You Earn With SunTrust Certificate of Deposits Over Time 

You stand to earn much more with a longer-term SunTrust Promotional CD. Even with a promotional rate, the 6-month CD earns a few dollars over the term no matter what your initial deposit is. Any promotional terms longer than that, however, offer some great growth as you can see below. 

SunTrust compounds CD interest daily. This grows your money more efficiently than compounding weekly, for example. With daily compounding, your initial deposit will earn interest today, and then tomorrow that new amount (your deposit plus interest earned) will earn interest again and so on until the account matures. 

The amounts given below represent what your final balance would look like with the given accounts and initial deposits. 

How SunTrust CDs Rates Compare to Other Banks'

If you wanted to open a regular SunTrust CD, you wouldn’t get any standout rates or earnings. Instead, consider opening a Promotional CD, the accounts with higher-earning rates. That way, you can make more out of your initial deposit. 

SunTrust’s Promotional CD rates fall somewhere in between the low rates of big banks (like Chase) and the best CD rates from online banks. Its closest competitor in terms of rates is HSBC. HSBC offers only the three terms shown below, although each has a pretty high rate. Plus, HSBC requires a lower initial deposit amount of $1,000. 

For even higher CD rates, you’ll want to turn to online banks like Ally and Marcus by Goldman Sachs. Ally is hugely beneficial since it does not require a minimum deposit. This allows you to set aside whatever amount you feel comfortable with. Ally High Yield CDs earn according to balance tiers which means a higher balance can earn at a higher rate. The Ally rates below are for the lowest tiers.

Marcus offers higher rates across all balances, although you need at least $500 to open a CD account. 

Should You Get a SunTrust CD Account?

You should consider getting a SunTrust CD account if you’re already a customer with the bank. This will make it much easier for you to contact the bank about its CD accounts and rates, whether at a branch or over the phone. Otherwise, you might have difficulty learning about the various rates offered for non-Promotional CDs. 

If you decide that you do want to open a SunTrust CD, you should strongly consider a Promotional CD. These accounts offer much better rates which make your deposit and the hassle of opening an account much more worthwhile.