Savings and equity credits
Two different things sit on the Savings page. Your savings are your money, and you can take them out at any time. Your equity credits are not money. They can't be withdrawn or cashed in; they only count toward your Clear Deed.
Savings
When you save, your dollars become CLRUSD, one-for-one. USDC goes into Clear's savings vault and the same amount of CLRUSD comes back to you. Move it back to cash and the vault returns the same number of dollars. How to move money in and out is in Adding and moving money.
- Your CLRUSD balance is your savings. It is yours and stays liquid.
- Savings pay no interest. CLRUSD pays nothing to holders.
- Savings back your credit line, dollar for dollar. Spending against them is free. See Credit.
- Savings that back credit you've drawn are held until that credit is repaid. Nothing else holds them.
On the Savings page, What you hold splits your balance into cash (CLRUSD), vested credits and credits still vesting, and shows what your savings add to your credit line.
Equity credits
How you earn them
Matched savings. Every whole dollar you move into savings earns one equity credit — up to 1,500 matched credits in a calendar month. Auto-save deposits count the same as any other.
On-time rent and bills through Clear Pay. A payment counts as on time if it is made no more than three days after its due date.
The base is then multiplied by your multiplier:
- On the Standard plan, it starts at 1× and rises by 0.25× for every six months in a row you've paid on time, up to 1.5×.
- On the Accelerated plan, it is 1.5× from the start.
So on-time rent earns between 200 and 300 credits. The multiplier applies to rent and bill credits, not to matched savings. Plans are explained in Membership and settings.
Vesting
New credits vest after 30 days. Until then they show as vesting, beside your vested credits in What you hold. Each award also arrives as a notification saying how many credits you earned.
Matched credits are the ones that can be undone while they vest: move savings back out within those 30 days and the matching credits are cancelled, newest first, up to the amount you moved. Vested credits are kept.
If your savings are backing credit you've drawn, the Savings page shows your home path as Paused and offers Top off to put money back into savings.
What credits do
- They count toward your Clear Deed, which is reached at 15,000 credits.
- They unlock your protections. See Assurance.
- They can't be withdrawn, sold or redeemed for cash.
On track for
With auto-save running, the Savings page shows the month you're on track to reach the Clear Deed. It is worked out from auto-save alone; rent and bill credits aren't projected. Without auto-save, there's no date.
Bonds on Earn
Earn holds bonds and the lending pool. It is open before identity verification, like savings.
A BurnerBond is a fixed-term bond. You pay less than its face value today, and at maturity it is worth its face value. Buying one:
- 1.On Earn, choose a face value and a term. The sheet shows what you pay today, what you receive at maturity, and what the bond adds to your credit limit.
- 2.Confirm. The price is taken from your cash account.
A bond you hold backs your credit line at 95% of what it is worth today, as part of the asset-backed tier. See Credit.
When a bond matures
You choose what happens at maturity, and you can change your choice before then from the bond's sheet:
- Roll it over — the default. It becomes a new bond and keeps backing your line.
- Take the cash — redeem it for its face value, paid to Ready to allocate.
A bond that is backing credit you've drawn can be rolled over, but not redeemed. To redeem it, pay that credit down first.
The lending pool on Earn
The lending pool is money you lend to the co-op. The pool lends its cash out to fund members' credit, and to pay shops on time when the co-op's payout fund runs short, and takes it back as members repay. It is not savings:
- it doesn't become CLRUSD, and it earns no equity credits
- the money can be lent out when you want it back (see below)
- nothing covers a loss on what the pool has lent. If lent money isn't repaid, every position in the pool is worth less
What your position is
Your position is a share of everything the pool owns, lent out or not. It grows only when money comes back above what was lent — the carry members pay on credit the pool funded. Nothing else raises it, and nothing guarantees it.
The pool's cell on Earn shows:
- your position, what it is worth today
- Earned, what it is worth now less what you put in
- how much of the pool is lent out
- what your position adds to your credit limit
The cell and the Deposit sheet also show a rate, and the sheet a yearly figure worked out from it. Nobody is charged that rate, so it is not what your position earns.
Adding to the pool
Deposit moves money from Ready to allocate into the pool. Before you confirm, the sheet shows what it adds to your credit line: 70% of what you put in, as part of the asset-backed tier. See Credit.
Taking money out
Withdraw returns money to Ready to allocate. You can only take out what the pool holds in cash right now, because the rest is lent out.
- If you ask for more than that, the sheet splits it: Available now comes back straight away, and the rest is Queued. A queued amount is fixed in dollars when you queue it; from then on it neither gains nor loses with the pool.
- Paying out a queued withdrawal. Not available yet.
- Taking money out lowers your credit limit by 70% of the amount. Pool money backing credit you've drawn can't leave until that credit is repaid. If a withdrawal would leave your limit below what you've drawn, the sheet says by how much. Repay that much from the cycle card on Home first, then withdraw.
- Repaying and withdrawing in one step. Not available yet.
How the pool lends, how depositors are paid and how withdrawals queue, in full: Investors → The lending pool.
Related
- The contracts: Protocol → Savings, Protocol → Bonds