Certificate of Deposit Accounts Registry Service (CDARS®)

CDARS® is one of the safest and smartest investment vehicles for investors looking to protect their large-dollar investments while earning CD-level returns. CDs placed through CDARS offer:

• Access to multi-million-dollar FDIC insurance through participating network banks.¹
• The ease of working through one trusted relationship, earning one rate per maturity, and receiving consolidated statements.
• Possible relief from ongoing collateralization since CDARS deposits are eligible for FDIC protection. You may not need to perform the time-consuming tasks of continually collateralizing your deposits and tracking changing collateral values on a recurring basis.²
• The power of daily compounding.
• A finite maturity date (in contrast to auction-rate or some adjustable-rate securities).
• The ability to have your funds available to support lending initiatives, including special development projects that strengthen your local community.³

The standard FDIC insurance maximum is $250,000 per insured capacity per bank. You can run around to multiple institutions to deposit your funds to receive the same coverage you can access using CDARS. Or, you can place your large-dollar deposit with Washington Trust, which is a member of the CDARS Network. Your deposit is divided into smaller amounts and placed with other CDARS Network members - each an FDIC-insured institution. Then those member institutions issue CDs in amounts under the standard FDIC insurance maximum, so that your deposit is eligible for FDIC insurance at each member bank. By working directly with one financial institution - Washington Trust - you can receive insurance through many.

Funds placed through CDARS are deposited only in FDIC-insured banks. We act as custodian for your CDARS deposits, and the sub-custodian for CDARS deposits is The Bank of New York Mellon ("BNY Mellon"), the largest custodian in the world with total assets of more than $22 trillion.⁴

Unique to CDARS, a depositor can obtain a confirmation of records maintained by BNY Mellon as sub-custodian in order to reconcile those records with the statements received from us. At any time, as often as desired, a depositor can obtain a certified statement from BNY Mellon that confirms the exact amount of his or her CDs, including principal balance and accrued interest, for each FDIC-insured institution that issues a CD through CDARS.

You can submit a request for the certified statement, along with BNY Mellon's processing fee, through us. BNY Mellon will send the certified statement directly to you or to another party designated by you, such as an auditor.

When we swap deposits with other CDARS Network members on a dollar-for-dollar basis, the same amount of funds placed through the Network returns to us. As a result, the total amount of your original deposit can remain with our bank and be used for local lending. (CDARS® ReciprocalSM transactions only.)

Your account information is protected; your relationship remains between you and Washington Trust.

Most of the banks that have failed in the United States in recent years were not CDARS Network members or did not hold any CDARS deposits when they failed. When a Network member has failed, the bank's CDs issued using CDARS in most cases have been transferred to a healthy institution - the FDIC's preferred method for handling bank failures. In cases where the FDIC has been unable to find a healthy institution willing to accept such a transfer, it has arranged for the payment of the insured principal and accrued interest to the depositors. This payment has usually occurred in a matter of days.

Please click here to learn more about FDIC insurance.