Way back in the 90's I had a bank account that paid something like 5 percent interest, but only had a couple thousand dollars in it (maybe). I was between jobs and made no deposits for over a month - only withdrawals and only like 4 of them. I got to wondering about the interest and calculated it various ways. Calling the bank, they confirmed verbally that they use the average daily balance. By my calculations they exactly used the final balance (the minimum for the month). I concluded that someone somewhere realized that changing from "average" to "minimum" would make the bank a few extra bucks. Not a big difference if your balance is fairly stable, but a big deal if it's more volatile. They eventually got bought out a couple times, and interest rates are a joke now anyway.