Thanks @davluong. Note that the monthly keeping fee is $12 unless you can deposit $5,000 or more per month. If it comes solely from your take home after-tax salary it would be for those with $80k p.a. or above.

If you want to use internet banking with the NAB, be prepared to register for their very annoying SMS security. If you don’t want SMS security, they require you to sign a form saying that if anyone breaks in to your internet banking, any loss is your fault… regardless of how they got in.

I hate their SMS security. I’m in the process of changing banks.

Is that for business accounts?

I do have a NAB credit card and I have never been asked to use SMS security. Or maybe I just haven’t used their internet banking enough…

It’s for both personal and business. I ran into problems when I needed to transfer or bpay over $5K in 1 day. Transferring this much is standard for a business account.

Imagine not being able to pay my employee’s wages because my mobile phone battery was dead.

I certainly wouldn’t use a bank that required token security either!

The SMS authentication isn’t there for novelty. It’s been put in for security reasons. And it’s a less “annoying” than a security token since a lot of people have mobile phones these days.

And if you don’t want SMS authenticate all the time, you can pre-authenticate, so for a certain account, you only ever get one SMS, and every time after that, you enter your Internet Banking password.

The negative is a bit harsh, I agree. They actually put this SMS authentication in because people complained that it wasn’t secure enough!

Back on track - $5000 at NAB’s low interest rate is a loss of around $30 a month

Yes I could transfer in $5000 on the last day of the month and then out again the first day of the month - with a loss of .95c a day x 2 = say $2 Then there’s the end of the month on a Saturday so it adds extra cost since I can’t transfer out until monday.

So it would cost me $2 a month to keep this account, with the hassle of playing around and a $12 hammer over my head if I miss the deadlines. This vs the $5 a month costs for something like the ANZ. BUT you do get free access to others ATM’s

if you are a high ATM user you also need to keep spare cash in this low interest account to cover those withdrawals, which reduces your interest and hence increases the triue cost to you

Citibank offers free access to other banks ATM’s and you get a higher interest rate. BUT you deal with their very bad online customer service and non existent branch facilities. (although I have never been impressed with NAB’s branch service - probably more dour than the yellow elephants)

So like everything - this maybe a good deal if it matches your usage patterns better than another offering.

No vote from me - (positive or negative), but thanks for making me aware of another option - can never have too many of those when it comes to Banks!!

Best…comment…ever :P
Although; one thing that some people ignore is that bank interest is taxed as part of your income. Hence if you are in the 30% tax bracket, 7% interest is actually 4.9%. Hence $5k is worth $0.67 per day. Agreed though it is not worth the trouble to avoid $12/month in fees.

Not a good deal :)

Hey but if your household income is more than $5000, then it doesnt cost you anything. Our pay goes in, and is instantly whisked off into a high interest savings account elsewhere.

Now to hassle ANZ for the same deal so I don’t have to go through the hassle of switching accounts (and possibly dealing the SMS authentication!)

Well said Pete. These kind of offers are great for those of you earning more than $3k or $5k per month! :p