Bankwest easy saver account paying 3.75% p.a. No minimum deposit, no fees.
A good alternative to those who don't want to deal with any hoops to get a decent savings rate.
Note 1: must have Easy transaction account to open this https://www.bankwest.com.au/personal/bank-and-save/bank-acco…
Note 2: This account only accepts funds from the linked transaction account. Funds from external accounts will be rejected.
Switched from Bankwest to Macquarie … haven't looked back.
A few small advantages of bankwest:
Bank@Post, EFTPOS enabled debit cards
Small advantage of Macquarie:
Transaction account earns interest, 4 months introductory bonus interest rate
Other than that not much between the two.
with macquarie authenticator, you can transfer 100k per day - which might suit some (and be considered a decent advantage) depending on what you need to do.
bankwest is 20k I think.
Dunno what those pros of BW are (not saying they're not good, just not of use to me)
IMO, the user experience of Mac online dominates BW … everything from security to usability.
Having had a home loan with BW, they've shitted me with how quickly they pass on IR increases and were the exact opposite with decreases over the previous ~10 years.
Why? I'm thinking of switching to Macquarie. Rates seem a tad better, any other reasons?
I use Macq marketplace to get discounted gift cards. You get it instantly so I often find myself getting them during the checkout process while online shopping.
I always stash a thousand bucks in the transaction account for this reason, and it feels like 'free' money because I always forget that I have money there.
Gift cards are also instant too as soon as you buy them.
This is the way!
How do you open the account though?
The website says "Add new acccount" on the app.
When I do that it just takes me to an "Enquire Now" button.
Do I have to speak to someone over the phone to open an account?
Not on line self service??
Do you have a Easy Access account? Looks like its a prerequisite for this one.
So, it looks like I need to first create a trans account via their website (can't do via their app)
Then I might be able to create the savings account via their app (can't do via their website)
@nige0090: Sounds about right. Though since your an existing customer, most of the trans acct application should be prefilled and can be started within online banking.
@nige0090: yeah, I have up and I am a Bankwest customer. Mac account is full and rather spread the deposits about
and what is the daily transfer limit ? $100K on Mac is good.
You need to call them to sort this issue out.
Just opened the Macquarie saver at 4.5%, the transaction account that is attached to the saver gives you 3.7%, no hoops.
So if I am reading their website correctly (assuming that you are not eligible for the Macquarie 4.5% bonus welcome rate), you can get 3.7% from EITHER their Savings or Trans account??
Its unusual to get much interest on a trans account.
I guess.
When I login, it shows:
Savings - 4.5% bonus rate for the first four months
Transaction- 3.7% (not sure for how long).
Will be able to confirm on 1 Jan ;-)
Transaction and savings will both revert to 3.7% for the long run (pending any RBA changes)
@silenthillrocks: Yes I'll only have my money there for the 4 months and will then change banks. But I will keep the account open to make use of the discounted gift cards.
Re Macquarie, just confirming that I received 4.5% interest on the savings account and 3.7% interest on the transaction account yesterday.
Does the transaction account have 100k transfer limit a day? or only the saver?
4.5% is only for first 4 months. After that the bankwest is very slightly higher.
How long does it take to transfer to Bankwest?
Did a test transfer last Saturday and still haven’t seen it in Bankwest acc.
To the transaction acct it should be instant or latest overnight.
Not sure if the savings acct will even accept payments from anywhere else but the transaction account. Hence maybe the payment will be reversed.
Yeah I did a test transfer directly to the savings account. Interesting as Most banks allow transfer to savings.
I've also done a test one direct to savings and it's taken a few days which is unusual so I'm thinking either it will be reversed or its Xmas delays.
Next time I will just go via the transaction account to avoid delays.
@Ninja9: Cool, thought so. So looks like the savings won't accept anything except funds from the transaction account.
Increasing to 4% p.a. from 17 February
Yeah pretty good, although the ubank $200 deposit/mth isn't too arduous either.