Synchrony Bank is a very large financial institution, so you’d think that online bill pay would be a breeze. Millions of customers bank with Synchrony each day. The bank offers competitive savings accounts and partners with retail stores to offer buy now pay later financing on big-ticket items, like furniture and appliances.
However, paying bills online through Synchrony Bank is not always as easy as it looks. Each month, people need to pay their Synchrony bills. Savings account holders also have funds saved with Synchrony that they may want to use to pay other bills they owe. Is it possible to pay bills online through Synchrony Bank? We’re taking a closer look at what Synchrony Bank actually offers, and whether or not you can use Synchrony Bank for paying your bills.
Does Synchrony Bank Offer Checking Accounts?
Put simply, no. Paying bills online with Synchrony Bank is a little more complicated than with most banks because Synchrony Bank does not offer checking accounts. Rather, the bank offers high-yield savings accounts, certificates of deposit, and money market accounts. All three of these accounts will earn higher interest than you usually would with a checking account. These accounts also help users save larger amounts of money for longer periods of time. However, because these are high-yield savings accounts, they’re not really intended to be used for bill pay, as you would a checking account.
Synchrony also offers IRA versions of their CD and money market accounts. Since these are retirement accounts, they are meant to grow for decades, and fees are associated with making early withdrawals. If you make withdrawals before you’re close enough to retirement age, you may need to pay taxes on the money as if it were your income that year. There are also fees for withdrawing money from any CD before the maturity date.
While there is no penalty for withdrawing money from a high-yield savings account, the account does not have the same features as a checking account. This makes a high-yield savings account less than ideal for paying bills online. Since it is not the purpose of the account, there are no options for setting up automatic bill pay or processing automatic withdrawals from these savings accounts.
Which Synchrony Bank Accounts Offer Online Bill Pay?
To be clear, Synchrony does not currently offer a bank account with a built-in online bill pay feature. However, some customers may be able to pay bills online using a Synchrony money market account in a specific scenario.
Synchrony’s money market accounts are not ideal for paying bills online. You can only make six withdrawals per month from a money market account, and most people have more than six bills per month. You can override this limitation by making withdrawals at the ATM or with a teller in a bank, but that won’t exactly help you pay bills online. Paying bills offline with a money market account is easy because you can write checks from this bank account. However, the number of checks you can use is also limited. Synchrony doesn’t offer any online bill pay features with their money market accounts.
You can withdraw money from your money market account to any of your linked accounts with other financial institutions. Therefore, there is one specific situation where you could use this type of account to pay bills online. Some banks allow customers to pay bills, such as an auto or personal loan, by depositing money to a specific account that the bank is authorized to make automatic withdrawals from each month. If you have this kind of arrangement, and the bank account that your bills are withdrawn from is linked to your Synchrony account, you could withdraw money from your Synchrony account to the other bank account to pay that bill online.
This would take up one of your six allowable withdrawals per month. Although money market accounts are essentially a hybridized version of a checking and savings account, you would see more financial benefit from the account by allowing savings to grow in it for as long as possible. Using a Synchrony money market account to pay bills online is certainly possible, but it is not ideal.
How to Pay Bills Online With MySynchrony
Synchrony bank is the financial institution behind many branded credit cards offered by various retail stores. Synchrony is also the bank that finances the in-store lending offered by stores large and small. It is a widespread practice across the country for Synchrony to provide loans for customers of furniture stores and stores that sell appliances.
You can pay your bill online for credit cards and buy now pay later loans from Synchrony Bank using the MySynchrony website. Usually, you will receive instructions to register for a MySynchrony account within weeks of borrowing money, via credit card or loan, from Synchrony.
Once you register for an account, you’ll have a unique password and username. Next, you can link any bank accounts or debit cards you want to use to pay your Synchrony bill. You’ll need your full card number, CVC code, and expiration date for debit cards. For bank accounts, you’ll need your routing number and account number. After you set up your login information and connect your bank account to the payment platform, you can pay your bill online using MySynchrony.
The MySynchrony website also has a feature that allows you to pay your bill without logging into your account at all. To enable this feature, start by accessing your MySynchrony account on a trusted device. Before you log in, click the box that says “remember this device” so there is a checkmark. In your settings, turn on the feature that says “enable payment without login.”
With this feature enabled, MySynchrony will open to a payment screen every time you access the website on that specific device. You can select your line of credit (if you have more than one.) Next, select the amount you want to pay and the bank from which you want to get the funds for payment. Finally, you review the payment information and authorize it if everything is correct.
If you want to pay bills online through Synchrony Bank, monthly manual withdrawals from a money market account and online payments through MySynchrony are your two best options. Otherwise, most Synchrony Bank accounts are geared towards savings and do not allow for online bill pay.
