Citizens Bank Offers New Customers Up to $240; Additional Bonuses Available for Going Green

It's always nice when you can get your checking account to give you some money back, especially when it's to the tune of a couple hundred dollars. If you open your first Citizens Bank checking account between April 9, 2011 and May 6, 2011, you can earn up to $240 over six months by using online bill payment. Each month, if you make at least five bill pay transactions at $50 or more, you'll get a bonus of $40 for that month. This bonus offer is good for the first six months of your checking account, so you can earn up to $240.

Since there are multiple banks doing business under the Citizens Bank name, this offer relates only to the bank owned by Royal Bank of Scotland and doing business in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.

While Citizens Bank doesn't offer any condition-less free checking accounts, there are still ways that you can get the monthly service fee waived. If you opt for their Green Checking account, the $4.99 monthly service fee is waived if you make five bill pay transactions each month. Since you'll be making the five bill pay transactions each month anyway to get the $40 bonus, just keep up the bill pay transactions and the checking account will remain free. Alternately, if you maintain an average balance of $1,500, the monthly service fee for the Green Checking account will also be waived. The Green Checking comes with one additional bonus: it offers Green$ense.

With Green$ense, every time you pay without paper (like using a debit card or using online bill pay), you will earn a 10-cent bonus on each transaction you make and you can earn up to $120 per year in Green$ense bonuses. For this account, you will automatically be enrolled in paperless statements and online bill pay, and you will receive a debit card made from recycled plastic. You must have at least 10 eligible transactions in a month to receive a Green$ense earnings credit for that month. If you have at least 10 eligible transactions in a month, you will receive 10 cents for each eligible transaction up to a maximum of 100 eligible transactions in the month ($10 monthly cap).