What's up you guys, it's graham here, so through a weird twist of events, i just bought a bank here's how it happened. A month ago i was browsing, youtube and came across a video from ask sebi who broke down the so-called best. High-Yield savings account now. Here's the thing i'm a complete nerd when it comes to savings accounts.

Since the beginning of the channel, i've been shifting my money around from account to account, depending on who's, paying the highest interest rate or who's, giving the best services. And then, of course, i can make a video reviewing them or knocking them down, depending on how good they actually are. So, of course, when i see a video calling out the best so-called high-yield savings account, i'm gon na give it a shot. But within a few seconds of watching this video, something clicked this video is about a band called yatta savings account, and just a few weeks prior to this, i had received dozens of comments from people asking for my review of this yada savings account and i'll be Honest i've never heard of it before, but between all the comments asking for my thoughts on this combined with the review of ask sebi bringing it to my attention, i decided to sign up and give it a try and i'll admit.

I was very intrigued. Instead of operating like a traditional bank that just pays you a set interest rate and that's it - yada bank intends to gamify the experience by turning your savings account into something like a giveaway where every 25 dollars you save, gives you one ticket into their weekly, drawing Where you could earn all the way up to 10 million dollars, so of course i want to get 10 million dollars. So after watching ask sebby's review video on it, i deposited 10 000 in the app to try it out and in return i received 400 tickets into the upcoming drawing, like i said, yada works on this game-like system. That pays you a base, 0.2 percent interest rate, which is fdic insured through evolve bank, along with a weekly ticket for every 25.

You save then, every day monday, through sunday, at 6 p.m, pacific standard time they hold a drawing that picks a randomly generated number and you could earn prizes depending on how many numbers you match all the way up to 10 million dollars. However, i was more interested in the mathematics behind this because, as cool as earning 10 million dollars is, i wanted to make sure i was actually getting a good return on my money, because otherwise, why waste time on this well sure enough? The kind internet detectives did the calculations for us, and this user mark posted on the doctor of credit blog broke down his own calculations and simulations to determine how much interest this app pays, based on their available prices and the likelihood of you actually earning those prizes. His latest finding is that, most weeks you would earn an average annualized return of 1.62 and if you include all the prizes, including the top winnings that are pulled together in the base interest rate, you would earn an average of a 2 to about a 2.25 return. Now, for reference, that's about three times higher than even the best high interest savings accounts out there.

So obviously i was in. They also offer a referral program where you could earn an extra 100 tickets in the next week's drawing for every person. You refer to join and, of course, this kind to internet stranger mark calculated that the probability of your interest rate is boosted on average by one-tenth each week, depending on how many people you bring on. But here's the thing, the more people that join the app the lower the average interest rate becomes.

That's because all the top prizes with an asterisk are shared, depending on how many people also match those same numbers as you. So the more people that join on the app the higher the chances are that those top prizes will be split, and that of course lowers the average interest rate that pays out to you. So i began depositing as much money as i could into the app knowing that one, their fdic insured up to 250 thousand dollars and number two. I would expect to earn substantially more interest on here than i would from any other bank with the potential of making, even more so.

My thought was, if i could ride this out for a while, make two and a half percent on my money and get content to review for a youtube video i'm all for it, but then something interesting happened after the first drawing just one day after i signed Up for the app i thought it was so cool and i also wanted those bonus 100 tickets that i got my girlfriend to sign up. I got my assistant jack to sign up, and i also got my dad to sign up and shortly after it became the 6pm event where all of us would compare our numbers with each other and see who matched what i'm sure. The novelty of this is going to wear off after a while, but still it was just so much fun to check the app every single day at 6, 00 pm and then see which numbers hit and which didn't i've never done that before with any app. But i did with this, so i knew this was something unique as far as my initial thoughts on this, however, here are my first impressions from a savings account standpoint averaging higher than a two and a half percent return.

Right now is incredible, especially when you consider that even the best high interest rate savings accounts right now are paying one percent, and the majority of banks are well below that. However, by the very nature of this, even though the two and a half percent is the average return across all prizes, inevitably some people will end up making less than this, and other people will end up making more than this. I would also expect that getting a two and a half percent average annualized interest rate is not going to be sustainable long term. So i would just expect that over time, the two and a half percent interest rate would be lowered down to be more in line and very much competitive with some of the other.

High-Yield savings accounts out there, the second as of right. Now it's only a savings account, so there aren't many other features available. Besides the possibility of earning a lot of money, and even though i'm sure they're going to be adding on to this at some point, don't expect a full-fledged bank like you would get with ally bank, for instance at least not right now, the third. I was rather disappointed to see that right now, you're only able to link one bank account for deposits and withdrawals, and it takes about 10 days for your money to clear before you could take it back out.

So obviously, this is in place right now for fraud protection, so i get it, but still this is hopefully something that should improve over time. The fourth for anyone wondering they are fdic insured up to 250 000 through evolve bank and trust, so yada never actually holds your money evolve. Bank and trust does. This is very similar to how other cash management accounts use.

Your money, for example, robinhood uses sutton bank and many other banks - do something similar to hold your assets and, finally, fifth, i'm sure there might be some skepticism around. How do we know these prizes aren't rigged? What if this is all aesthetic, graham and to make sure this stays 100 above board after some research, all the prizes are picked and paid out by a third-party insurance company. That way, it's completely double blind between the insurance company and yada to make sure everything operates as it should and no one could purposely pick the winning numbers or try to influence things in their favor. That's not how this works.

This company has also been featured on bloomberg and backed by y combinator, which is one of the most prestigious startup accelerators in the world. So i highly doubt they would try to scam anybody, because they would just make way more money running this as a legitimate business. Anyway, so anyway, after trying this out for two weeks, one sunday came around and i got really lucky and i matched five numbers and i won 263 dollars and 23 cents. So in a moment of excitement, i texted ask sebby to thank him for his recommendation and tell him how much i've been enjoying the app well unbeknownst to me.

Ask sebby asked if i was interested in investing in this company as an angel investor and taking a small piece of ownership during one of their first rounds of funding. I've never done anything like this before, but i've always wanted to be involved in some sort of startup or some sort of concept that gets people to save more money. So i decided to take a very close look in the company, its founders and their business model. To see if this is something i could get behind, because, let's be honest as fun as the app is, and as cool as it is to use fun does not pay the bills.

That's when the research started and the business model behind it is pretty interesting. They're based off the report that 40 of americans are unable to cover a 400 emergency expense, yet they spend on average a thousand dollars a year in the lottery. So you got ta aim to bridge that gap by incentivizing people to save more money through a prize-linked system that makes putting money away exciting. It also pays them a higher interest rate than they would be getting at other banks, and it incentivizes them to go back on the app regularly to check in this concept is nothing new either.

The united kingdom is a product called premium bonds, where their citizens can save money risk-free and instead of earning an interest rate. Random people are selected to win large prizes, and this is so popular that 33 percent of their entire population uses this and they found it beneficial in getting people to save more money. Other academic studies have shown that pricing savings accounts actually encourage people to save more money because psychologically, it's a lot more appealing to have the small chance at earning a lot of money than the guaranteed chance at earning very little, and for someone with four hundred dollars Earning point eight percent on their money, which works out to be three dollars and twenty cents per year is not as exciting as saving that four hundred dollars and then having a small chance at earning all the way up to 10 million dollars simply put psychologically offering This system brings about much more financial awareness and saving than a traditional bank account, and that would be something i would gladly stand for. In fact, in south africa they found that the inflow of money into prize-linked savings accounts came partly from people cutting back on their purchases of national lottery tickets and even though the chance at earning a jackpot is extremely small, it still increased savings rates substantially, whereas otherwise, That money would be spent, although from that, i think the proof is in the results yada bank launched in early july out of a beta and since then from purely word of mouth and referrals, they've grown a substantial amount of new users, and i could back this Up from my own experience of downloading the app using it for a day, finding it really cool and then sending it to everyone else around me that was before even realizing there was an investment opportunity here back then it was purely out of excitement of being able To earn more interest using this than an ally bank and then being able to potentially review it in a future youtube video where i could get my thoughts on it.

So after looking over the business model and understanding the psychology of how this helps people save more money, and after speaking with the founder of the company, to see his plans for the future, i decided to invest an undisclosed amount. And now i could officially say i am a small owner in yada bank, which is unreal to ever think that i could say something like that, because just a month ago i had signed up for the app after watching a youtube video on it and seeing a Whole bunch of comments asking me to look into it and now i'm sitting here as one of their investors, so yeah dreams come true in real talk here, but i've always thought it would be so much fun to own a bank or be a part of some Sort of financial service that helps people make or save more money at the end of the day, it's all about learning how to make saving money appealing to an audience who ordinarily, would not save money, and this fits that perfectly, while also giving you a fun spin On things, and also paying you a higher interest rate than you would be getting from almost any other bank, even if that means they have to pay a high amount of interest up front to you to get you as a customer to me, that's just a normal Cost of customer acquisition and if i enjoy the app myself, i am more than happy to put my money where my mouth is: by keeping my savings in the app and also investing in the company itself, not to mention this is just the beginning. And i'm fully expecting them to grow and expand as they get new users on the site. Unfortunately, i can't share with you any details on this, but trust me there's a lot in the works on this, and i also have so many other ideas in terms of where this could go and what they could do so stay tuned on this and follow it Closely, i'm also really excited to see what you think of this, and it would mean a lot to me if you tried this out and then let me know your thoughts if you use the link in the description.

You'll get a bonus. 100 tickets. When you sign up and deposit any amount, like i mentioned earlier - the average interest rate they're paying right now is higher than pretty much anywhere else out there plus. It helps me out a lot to get your feedback and let me know what you think and long term, i'm told they still want to make sure they pay an interest rate.

That's very competitive among even the best high-yield savings accounts out there, and i say this is not only an investor now in the app but first and foremost a user of it, because that's how all of this even started. If i didn't like the app in the first place, i never would have signed up for it and then had my friends and family sign up for it as well. And i never would have deposited more money on the app and then thanked asebi for his recommendation, which led me to investing in buying a small piece of this pink, which is where we're at today and like i said, if you want to try this out. For yourself and give me some feedback, it would mean a lot to me and the link is down below in the description, and i also want to be 100 transparent with everyone that yes, this is an affiliate link that i am a part of, so it does Benefit me because now i'm a part owner, but i would never recommend anything that i don't personally use myself and that i wholeheartedly believe it and that's exactly how officially i could say i now own a small piece of a bank but seriously sign up in the Description - and let me know what you think, because nothing would make me happier than one of you earning that 10 million dollar amount, plus it's really fun, watching the numbers come up every day.

That could be our new thing every day at 6 00 pm. We all just see which numbers come up and, like i said, if one of you earns that 10 million amount, that would make me so happy. So with that said, you guys thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate it make sure to destroy the like button.

Subscribe button and notification bell also feel free to add me on instagram, i posted pretty much daily. So if you want to be a part of it, there feel free to add me there. As on my second channel, the gram stefan show i post there every single day - i'm not posting here. So if you want to see a brand new video for me every single day, make sure to add yourself to that.

And lastly, if you want a free stock use, the link down below in the description and weeble is going to be giving you a free stock worth at minimum eight dollars and all the way up to 1 1600, when you deposit 100 on the platform so enjoy. That free stock, let me know which free one you got thank you so much for watching and until next time.