Ditch ING for Commbank - Insane?

Hear me out, but I don't think Commbanks products are as bad as they are made out to be? Or do I have it all wrong?

For someone that wants all their banking needs consolidated and travels overseas about once every year (if not more), I have taken some time to read up and these two have stuck out.

The only thing I was willing to compromise on the consolidation side of things was the share trading account, as not all banks offer this.

Transaction

ING (Orange Everyday)
  • x5 Monthly Transactions + $1000 deposit
  • International Fee's waived
  • ATM Operator Fee's refunded (International and Domestic)
  • Apple Pay and Google Pay only
Commbank (Smart Access linked to World Debit Mastercard)
  • $2000 deposit to waive the monthly fee. Or have over $50,000 in savings to waive the fee
  • $10 per month fee for World Debit Mastercard
  • International Fee's Waived
  • Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Fitbit Pay and Garmin Pay Support
  • International Travel Insurance included
  • x2 Airport Lounge Passes each year
  • Price Protection
  • Purchase Protection
  • Extended Warranty

Savings

ING Savings Maximiser
  • x5 Monthly Transactions + $1000 deposit to gain bonus interest
  • 2.40% on your first savings maximiser
  • 0.50% on all other savings maximisers
CommBank Netbank Saver
  • No deposit requirement
  • 2.05% on your first Netbank Saver for 5 months (Commbank can extend this if you go into a branch apparently)
  • 0.15% on all other Netbank Savers (apparently Commbank will consider to give you the 2.05% across all your Netbank savers if you have enough money sitting with them).

Credit Card

ING Orange One
  • No yearly fee
  • No International Fee (assuming you meet the $1000 deposit + x5 transaction requirement)
  • 44 Days interest free period.
  • $10 Additional Card Holder Fee
Commbank Low Fee Gold
  • No Yearly Fee in 1st year. And no yearly fee in future years if you spend $10,000 per year.
  • No International Fee
  • 55 Days interest Free
  • No additional card holder fee
  • Travel Insurance
  • Extended Warranty
  • Purchase Security

Investing

ING dont offer any investment platform.
Commsec
  • Ability to make trades with no funds in account for 2 days.
  • Link to CDIA account for $10 trades under $1000
  • Link to CommSec Pocket account too (if you want)

  • Deposit $1000 or $2000 a month is not a concern
  • Having to meet yearly/monthly spend requirements is not a concern.
  • Accepted that chasing the highest interest rate on savings has become a fool's game, due to how low they are at the moment, you are better off investing it at the moment. This is likely to continue into the future for some years yet.
  • Having to pay the $10 a month fee for the world debit MasterCard appears offputting at first, but when I factor in that x2 lounge passes alone would set me back about ~$150 I am already ahead, all the extra benefits they are listing are just a nice freebie to have ontop.

The only negatives I see with Commbank vs ING in this situation is that ATM Operator fees are not refunded.

What do people think? Am I seeing this right? Is Commbanks offering is not that bad?

Related Stores

ING
ING
Commonwealth Bank
Commonwealth Bank

Comments

  • +1

    Not insane. Quite sane actually.

  • -1

    OK

  • +4

    If you're trying to consolidate most things, then as a single product this makes sense.

    I still would live by my multi-card strategy that gives me the best of all worlds.
    This includes ING as the debit card and other credit/charge card stack that give me points, insurances, and unlimited lounge access.
    The total effective annual fee for me after all the rebates (not including income from points) is less than $120 that you would have to pay for CommBank World debit after the promotion is done.

    But sure you have to jump hoops every month, but I've automated most of it.

    I think why be loyal to one bank when they don't really give many benefits in return.

    EDIT =======

    x2 lounge passes alone would set me back about ~$150 I am already ahead, all the extra benefits they are listing are just a nice freebie to have ontop.

    Mastercard partners with LoungeKey for lounge access, which is a sub-set of the lounges (slightly inferior) available via Priority pass.
    I had unlimited LoungeKey for two years via Bankwest (good while it lasted), and in the 20 or so countries that I visited during the time, Priority pass always had the better lounge.

    In Aus, you can still get $36 off food at certain restaurants at the airport with LoungeKey.

  • +3

    As a single source, none of the major banks are bad - it's just that the best in class of every product won't all be from the single source.

  • Just have your transaction and credit cards separate. With near-instant PayID transactions, there's no compelling reason to keep them both with the same institution if you are going to miss out on features.

  • If you want/need to have all of your banking consolidated to one bank, basically any bank will do. On average, they compete with each other enough to all be offering reasonable products.

    The benefit to going with multiple providers is that they sometimes may offer you particular benefits or perks that you find useful (and others might not). For example, I use a lot of 3rd party ATMs. There's also one across the road from my house. I find ING's fee refund particularly useful.

    I find that, on average, the savings rate offered by ING is almost always universally higher. I also find CommBank's credit card offerings to be really lacklustre, I actually think all of the other major banks have better CC offerings. If you have to go with the Big 4, I actually find Westpac's credit cards to be the best, though I'm happy with my ANZ cards too. I'd rate CommBank dead last in that regard.

  • I went cba to ing for savings, kept cc with cba though

  • Totally sane if you want just 1 company. But is it really so much work to have:

    Savings: ING
    Trading: Selfwealth
    Credit: A free amex

    ?

    • Selfwealth is perfectly fine, except they have don't few things that Commsec offers:
      - No Unique login to joint accounts.
      - No way to buy shares and have 2 days to pay it back. (T+2)
      - Transfer speeds from your account into Selfwealth take over 1 day from my experience. Really slow.
      - No NPP support with Selfwealth to get the money in quicker.

      With Commsec if you link it to a CDIA account you get $10 trades just like Selfwealth (assuming they are under $1000). And the CDIA account is NPP enabled so getting money in quickly is no drama.

    • +1

      Amex don't wave any international fee's. With all the overseas travel I see value in having a credit card that doesnt hit me with those fee's. I dont spend enough each year to get much value from points. And I can't be bothered churning through credit cards to gain points anymore.

      Thats why I was trying to find some credit cards that had no international fee's and some decent perks ontop. Commbanks one looked good. ING's one is not bad.

    • Credit: A free amex

      I have an AMEX, no way I can only have an AMEX. It's probably accepted at around 50% of places where I need to pay. If you have to have only one card, I'd say it has to be a VISA/Mastercard.

  • I was ready to get my pitchfork. Sounds reasonable for what you want.

    Worth keeping in mind that the commsec brokerage fee is high comparatively to other vendors. And ING rebates all ATM fees, I'm not sure if CBA rebates the non big 4 bank ATM operators.

    One thing you haven't mentioned is the customer experience. I've been a 10 year plus user of ING and it's a key reason I won't touch the big 4 banks again. Only takes a couple minutes to speak to an actual native English speaker on the phone.

    • I'm not sure if CBA rebates the non big 4 bank ATM operators.

      It does not.

      Only takes a couple minutes to speak to an actual native English speaker on the phone.

      CBA's call centres are also based in Australia.

  • i have accounts in Commonwealth bank, ING & Citibank lol why lock yourself to 1?

  • Any idea how to get the world debit mastercard? On the platinum debit at the moment

      • Oh skipped past the $10 per month fee part. Is it worth it?

        • That was kind of the point of this post.

          It includes:

          • No International Fees
          • x2 Airport Lounge passes each year
          • Travel Insurance
          • Price Protection
          • Purchase Protection

          So assuming you used this you will likely see some value in it. But that is something we are discussing in this post.

          What are your thoughts?

          • @E5TOQUE: Depends how much you value these perks really.

            No international fees are standard on many cards, I wouldn't use the lounge passes or travel insurance and I already get price and purchase protection for free from my CBA Platinum debit.

            So it's a no for me, but could definitely be worth it for others.

          • @E5TOQUE: try bankwest platinum zero fee card:

            It includes:

            No International Fees
            Travel Insurance
            Price Protection
            Purchase Protection
            Extended Warranty
            

            but no monthly fees.

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