About
Banking, explained plainly.
ClearValue Banking helps people decide where to keep their money — high-yield savings, checking, CDs, and money-market accounts — compared with the tradeoffs named out loud. We're an independent education and comparison site, not a bank, and we tell you exactly how we get paid on every page.
Part of the ClearValue family
ClearValue Banking is a brand in the ClearValue family, published under ClearValue Money — the parent that sets the single editorial standard every brand is held to. We own one lane: personal banking. Other brands in the family cover their own lanes to the same bar.
Visit ClearValue MoneyWhere it started
ClearValue began with Brian Kim, a CPA whose plain-English money explainers reached a large public audience. The through-line was never a hot take — it was the arithmetic: what a product actually costs, who it actually serves, and the tradeoff nobody was naming. ClearValue Banking holds that approach to a written standard for one subject: where you keep your money.
More about Brian KimWhat we hold to
Show the work
We publish the methodology, put the money disclosure right on the page, and date every rate. Anybody can check it — we'd rather be checkable than wear a virtue on a banner.
Say the tradeoff out loud
Every account has a catch — a minimum, a fee tier, an early-withdrawal penalty. Naming it plainly is the whole job. The fine print belongs in the headline, not the footnote.
The reader is not the product
We earn when you choose an account you can defend, never when you're misled. If those two ever conflict, you win — and the ranking never bends to what a partner pays.
We're not a bank
We don't hold your money or open accounts. The partner bank does that, and it's the FDIC-insured one, disclosed on the page. Our job is to help you compare and understand.
What we are — and what we’re not
ClearValue Banking is an independent education and comparison publisher. We are not a bank, credit union, or FDIC/NCUA-insured institution, we do not open accounts or hold deposits, and we are not a party to any account agreement. Any account is opened with, and held by, the partner bank — the FDIC-insured institution, disclosed on the page. Our content is educational, not personalized financial, legal, or tax advice.