Most of the financial institutions that claim to offer 6% CD rates are only making a business attraction to investors. Since the experience of the economic meltdown and the recurrent bank financial crisis, it has become rare to even see a 5% bank CD being promoted. For the greedy fellows who are looking for such elusive rate, it is better you have a rethink and take what you are being offered now in the CD market.

What does seem to be true about such high rates of CDs is the fact that you can find some high interest CD rates from banks that are offering it. But you will also find when you compare CD rates that the ones that are for 3 year terms are going to be the only ones over 5% generally.

Some banks and institutions in the U.S like pentagon Federal Credit Union, Alta Vista Credit Union in southern California, and may be a few other do offer a rare CD with high interest, the only problem is many of them are private banks, which require some restrictions. The best CD rates you are going to have at the moment will probably be with smaller banks that are struggling. While this is not always the case, many small banks will do anything they can to survive the economy problem by getting as many people as possible to open an account with them.

The question should therefore be what is a good bank rate? Anything above 4% is a good one at the moment given the recent economic recession.
Actually, not too many banks are promoting as heavily as they were before the ugly financial experience. A lot banks have also received bailout money, but the largest cause of all rates going down are the cuts the Fed.

However, banks can use the Fed money at such a low amount, they are not going to pay high interest on CD rates to get your money as they once needed to invest their money. This means that they are going to offer you a really low CD rate, and if you take it then better. If not they have a steady amount of money they can get from a much larger source to reinvest themselves. Until this changes there probably will not be any 6% CD rates for a long time or even 5% CD rates for that matter.

The best you can do is to wait for bank specials. This can many times come in the form of online banks. Online bank CD rates have much lower overhead, and can thus offer a lot better of return on your money. At the moment all that is required for CD investors is to go with short term CD rates, and many times an odd number of months on a term can be a lot higher.

You can also continue the search for 6% CD rates by involving yourself in serious surfing of the internet.