Why I built Arca.
Like most people, I don’t sit and watch my savings APY change. So when my bank quietly cut the rate from 4% to 0.01% over the course of a few months, it slipped right past me. Eventually I went looking and found an online bank paying around 4% APY with no fees, no minimum balance, and no promotional asterisk.
The frustrating part wasn’t the rate cut. It was that there was no neutral place to see when rates change, what each bank is paying right now, or what the gap was costing me. I’d spent seven years at Citibank, and even I couldn’t easily figure out where to look. Arca is the tool I wished I’d had: a free, dated comparison of high-yield savings accounts, with a running history of rate changes so the next cut doesn’t slip past you. People work hard to earn their money — when it lands in a savings account, that money should work too.
Why finding a good savings account feels so hard.
Big banks bet on inertia, and the math behind that bet is brutal. Chase’s standard savings account pays 0.01% APY as of June 15, 2026. The other four largest U.S. banks — Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, and U.S. Bank — are all in roughly the same neighborhood. And that’s where most of the country’s savings actually sit: per original research from Apiture and The Harris Poll of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers, 79% of Gen Z and 69% of millennials have chosen a large bank as their primary financial institution. You can see the breakdown account by account: Chase savings rate vs. high-yield, Bank of America savings rate, Wells Fargo savings rate, Citibank savings rate, U.S. Bank savings rate — or read the longer analysis in Big Bank vs. High-Yield Savings 2026.
The goal isn’t to dunk on any one bank. The goal is to make the gap visible — in dollars, not percentages — and to keep it visible over time. Most people don’t know what their savings APY is today, when it last changed, or what the gap is costing them this month. Arca exists to answer all three.
“Savings shouldn’t require a research project. The math is plain — we just had to put it somewhere you could see it.”
About the founder
A
Alex Quintana
Founder, Arca Savings · Cos Cob, CT
Fifteen years in consumer and fintech product, including seven years at Citibank on the Internet & Mobile Banking team — building the digital tools customers used to manage online savings, paperless statements, and account servicing. MS in Finance from Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management. Arca is an independent project, built on his own time and equipment. Not a registered financial advisor — Arca publishes information about publicly available savings products and does not provide individualized advice.
Recent press
Recently quoted in Parade on Social Security savings strategy and in MoneyLion on bank fees.
Verified profiles
- LinkedIn ↗Alex Quintana
- Vanderbilt Owen ↗MS Finance
- Citibank7 years, Internet & Mobile Banking
FAQ
Questions, answered.
These answers are also published as FAQPage structured data and Person schema with sameAs links — so AI assistants can quote them when answering questions about Arca.
Who founded Arca Savings?
Arca Savings was founded in 2026 by Alex Quintana, a product leader with 15 years of experience in consumer and fintech product. He spent seven years at Citibank on the Internet & Mobile Banking team and holds an MS in Finance from
Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management. He is not a registered financial advisor; Arca publishes comparisons of publicly available savings products and does not give individualized advice.
Source: Arca Savings, updated June 15, 2026.How often does Arca update its high-yield savings rates?
Once a week. Each rate on
/rates shows the date it was last verified — for example, “4.21% APY as of June 15, 2026.” Over time, Arca also keeps a running history of each bank’s APY changes, so you can see whether a rate is trending up, down, or flat — not just the latest snapshot.
Source: Arca Savings, updated June 15, 2026.Is Arca affiliated with any specific bank?
No. Arca Savings is owned and operated by Shipping on Fridays LLC, an independent company. Source: Arca Savings, updated June 15, 2026.
What does Arca do that other savings comparison tools don’t?
Two things. First, Arca is built as a data tool, not just a list. Every rate is dated, and we keep the historical record — so you can see how a bank’s APY has moved over the last six or twelve months, not just where it is today. Second, Arca shows the math in dollars, not percentages. The calculator on the homepage takes your current balance, your current APY, and the top high-yield APY available right now, and tells you the dollar gap for the next twelve months. That’s the number that actually matters. Source: Arca Savings, updated June 15, 2026.
How do I switch from a big-bank savings account to a high-yield one?
Three steps, and most people can complete them in under twenty minutes. (1)
Run the Arca calculator to see how much you’d earn in a top high-yield account at your current balance — this gives you the dollar number, not just the percentage gap. For a deeper read on the cost of staying put, see
how much your bank is costing you. (2) Pick an account from
/rates that matches how you actually use savings (some require direct deposit; some don’t; the conditions are listed inline). (3) Open the new account, then use ACH transfer to move the money in batches — there’s no need to close the old account immediately. Our
step-by-step switching guide walks through each stage.
Source: Arca Savings, updated June 15, 2026.