Newtek BankReviews of newtekbank.com

First, let me state that Kimberly, the representative I spoke with was excellent. She was informative and patient. However, the reviews I had read about Newtek making it difficult to transfer money out of one's account are absolutely true. I attempted to transfer/wire money from my account to an external account for the first time and it was a nightmare! After 52 minutes on the phone I finally gave up. Not a great first experience with this process. It was difficult to set up my account and difficult to move money out. The process was far easier with Vanguard cash sweep.

I've been banking with Newtek since Jan 2026. My experience with Newtek can be summed up with a few words, clunky, slow, and limiting. What first drew me to Newtek was its high APY HYSA with no requirements to fill and the least customer complaints, but I guess I fall to the complaint side. Why? 1) You only get only one external account to transfer to, where at other banks, I get way more linking. I work with many banks, so this is limiting. 2) I wanted to change my one external account to my primary bank. I had to wait till April to have "sufficient history" with Newtek. Fine, new customer limitations, I get it. I linked my banks to Newtek instead of waiting for the other way around. And finally, 3) clunky. Pulling funds from Newtek 4-5 days, longer than my other banks pulling funds from others banks. So as long as I don't need my money right away, and the APY stays competitive, I'll stay. But I'm already exploring other options in case I have another clunky experience.

Opening an account was easy, secure, and quick. The only pain was that there was no mention of what the username would be. Let me explain - Newtek did send an email with the specifics of the account opening but did not mention that they would choose the username and did not reveal the user name in communication. Thus, when I went to log on, I had to call support to figure out what my user name is. Setting up a funding source to transfer funds into the account was straight forward. Where I had a problem and the reason I decided to close the account was two fold. 1) You are not allowed to add additional funding sources or accounts to easily move your funds around - you are allowed only 1 linked account. This was not revealed and I was actually allowed to add an additional account only to get a message from Newtek that they deleted the link and then explained why. I have several accounts that I want to be able to move money to/from (banking account, brokerage account, other savings, etc). Not being able to do this effectively broke the deal for me as other wise I'd have to stage money through more than one account hop. 2) If you want to change funding sources, you can. But I was told in a message from support that would need to provide evidence of closing the current external funding source account and provide a statement from my new funding source for Newtek's evidence. This was unacceptable to me because I will not allow a company to dictate how I am to manage accounts of no relevance to them. Had my original funding source been my primary bank's checking account and I was expected to close it first would have caused severe disruption. This model was the deal breaker for me. To be constrained by my money movements, unable to change sources without first closing the linked account, and providing proof which would have revealed confidential information, proved to be unrealistic, untenable, and unnecessary. My recommendation to Newtek is to provide an ease-of-movement experience comparable to industry norms, such is my user experience with other financial companies. Their customer service was good - responses were quick and on point. No problems there. Just the above would not work in my situation. Good luck.

I would love to give Newtek Bank the full 5 stars, but I recently got an email telling me I need to sign into the account after 30 days. I requested a chat for help and found out they will disable your account for not signing in. This is very scary. I have medical issues and other things going on in my life and no other bank has made me sign in like this. It seems like some kind of threat. I was told you have to contact them and verify yourself again to regain access to your own money. And then the other reason for the less than 5 stars is that they only allow one bank to be attached to your account for withdraws. They claim all of this is for security reasons. There are tons of banks out there and this one is the only one with these rules. But they do have the better interest rate and that is what it is all about. I just hope I do not get locked out of my own account because I do not sign into it enough to satisfy them and lose access to my money.