Laurel Road Review January 2025: checking, high-yield savings, and student loans

Checking accounts

Laurel Road offers three different types of free checking accounts: Laurel Road Checking Account, Laurel Road Loyalty Checking Account, and Laurel Road Linked Checking Account. There are no monthly fees, and no minimum deposit is required to open the account. 

Laurel Road is one of the few banks with a free checking account that also offers a checking account bonus and continues to reward you for qualifying direct deposits to your account. It pays $20 monthly for the first year and $10 monthly after that.

Savings accounts

The best high-yield savings accounts charge no monthly fees and have no minimum deposit. Laurel Road is no different and offers a competitive 4.5% APY.

Laurel Road savings rates compared to current top rates*

Laurel Road provides some of the most competitive interest rates on savings accounts—see how it stacks up against its competitors:

Other services Laurel Road offers 

• Personal loans: Whether you're renovating your home, relocating, consolidating credit card debt, or making a major purchase, Laurel Road has several loan options available. 
• Credit cards: With the Laurel Road Student Loan Cashback Card, get 2% cash back toward your student loans and 1% cash back toward all other eligible purchases.
• Student loans: One could argue that Laurel Road is a student loan refinance company with a side hobby of providing banking services. Many of its services are related to its student loan offerings. For example, opening a checking account can lead to much cheaper refinance rates. 
• Mortgages: While Laurel Road doesn't have mortgages, it can refer you to KeyBank for your home loan.
• Online banking: Laurel Road is an online bank with no physical branches. All banking, including transfers, deposits, and bill payments, is handled through its online portal and mobile app. 

The Laurel Road platform and customer support 

You may reach Laurel Road by telephone Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time, via email at help@laurelroad.com, through live chat five times per week, and via its contact form on its website. You can view your accounts online or via its mobile app, which has 4.7 stars on both the Apple App store and the Google Play store.

Is Laurel Road secure?

If you were to Google Laurel Road data breaches, you’re not going to find anything. However, in 2022, KeyBank, the banking infrastructure Laurel Road operates under, had a data breach with a third-party service provider that impacted its mortgage customers. 

Laurel Road user reviews

Most of the customer reviews, especially in recent months, complain about negative experiences they've had with account access issues. Many users on Trustpilot and in Reddit forums report their accounts were locked, and some have had their money tied up for months with little communication from Laurel Road. Positive reviews talk about how easy the app is to use, although these are far fewer than the negative experiences customers have shared. Out of 557 Trustpilot reviews, it has 3.0 out of 5 stars, with 20% of those being 1 star.

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