expired RAMS Savings Account 5.75% as Ubank Drop Again Now down to 5.16%
This was posted 7 months 2 days ago, and might be an out-dated deal
Hi all,
I know a lot of OzBargainers out there have a Ubank Usaver account so this may interest you. Yes I know it’s been listed before but the difference in rates is a lot more now.
Ubank for dropped there rate again! so a total of 0.55% drop after the official drop of just 0.25%.
I have been very happy with ubank until now but there rate and lack of a bug free website has changed my mind. RAMS (part of Westpac) have a similar account with a current rate of 5.75% so 0.59% higher than ubank and they have a nice mobile website and the normal web site work great aswell.
You can’t withdraw any money to get the full rate but the rest of the rules are the same as ubank. I suggest if you have a ubank account that you still keep some cash in it so you can move it around as needed and put the bulk in a RAMS account. If the rates drop at RAMS move your cash on the 1st of the month to avoid any lost bonus interest.
I just started moving my cash so I expect to save an extra $2.50 per day with the current rate difference
Seems RAMS reviewed their rate and from 30 Oct it's 5.17%:
"New rate effective 30 Oct 2012: bonus variable rate of 5.17% p.a. Incl. 0.8% p.a. variable bonus if each month you deposit $200 and make no withdrawals"
Comments (Closed)
mattgal on 24/10/2012 - 12:03 Comment score below threshold (-16).
+2 votesjusttoreply on 24/10/2012 - 13:39 ¶Banks rates depend on how much money they want in, and how much money they want to lend.
If they can't invest your money in anything worthwhile? They drop their interest paid to savings accounts. Because they don't WANT your money!
If they are worried about bad debts, they raise the interest rate on their loans, to prevent adpproval of potentially bad loans (of course, they also make it harder to actually pay the loan).
You are just simplifying way too much. Find the best bank that suits you, whether that be a good deal for savings or for loans, and change banks when the deals on offer change! Complaining is pointless.
Gets more complicated if you have a home loan. An offset account will save you more interest since you'll effectively receive the loan rate, which is higher than the savings rate. And also interest saved isn't charged as taxable income, so you don't lose your marginal rate of tax on it.
Edit: The 'bonus interest rate for no withdrawals' is always a bollocks deal.
+1 voteEmmaT UBank on 25/10/2012 - 09:06 ¶Hello abc and jv, I work for UBank and just wanted to clarify that we review our rates on a weekly basis outside of the RBA. Taking into account a number of factors, we've made the difficult decision to move our interest rates.
if you wanted a long term place to park your money you would have been better off taking out a term deposit at a higher rate months ago.
a point to take note of when moving your money is that outward transfers from rams are slow, taking 2 business days (1 day's lost interest).
i opened a rams account when it was first posted months ago and did a couple of $1 test transfers and discovered the slow transfers. i promptly closed the account days later. together with the withdrawal restrictions it didn't seem worth the effort. ubank increased its rates a short while later. hopefully they will do so again.
+1 voteFuture Kids on 24/10/2012 - 13:44 ¶but with the current rate difference, the 1 day loss of interest can be even out if money saved at RAMS for more than 10 days…
- +2 votesvanleeuwen on 24/10/2012 - 12:10 ¶
Nothing, but it’s been higher than ubank for many months now.
I say keep both and move back if needed but at the current rate difference it worth the move.I get the feeling ubank is giving up the top spot now. They just lowered their base rate to less than that of at least 3 of their competitors and the their Max rate to less than that of at least 5 competitors ! It’s not like the competitors rose there rates and uBank hasn’t cached up, uBank purposely dropped theirs so they are less than many competitors !
As for the uBank site i am probably different to most as I use a Windows Phone and Windows 8/IE10 on the PC. Both don’t work with uBank. RAMS works fine (as does almost every other site) and they have a nice mobile site for Windows Phone. so 100% better for me :)
+3 votesIsn't that how marketing works? Put deals out better than the rest of the market for 1-2 years. Suck in the crowds.
Then stay at market value for the rest of the business venture. 5-15% will probably move to get a better deal elsewhere, the rest 85-95% just won't be bothered to move their money.
yeah that's how the intro rates work but the hopeful thing is that the Ubank crowd are tho more price.. elastic is that the term? http://www.perthhacks.com/2010/04/introductory-bank-rates-do...
+3 votesjackofspade on 24/10/2012 - 12:38 ¶FYI
1. If you transfer funds out of RAMS you will lose at least 1 day of interest.
2. If RAMS drops the rate in the middle of the month and you decide to move your funds out then you will lose the bonus 0.80% for whole month.
+5 votesHis_Holiness on 24/10/2012 - 12:03 ¶Rams haven't increased their rate, it's always been at 5.75%. Shouldnt this then be a forum post?
- vanleeuwen on 24/10/2012 - 12:23 ¶
RAMS is Westpac so yes :) If you apply all you see is Westpac everywhere like in the T&C's it explains "we" as "Westpac" and our website www.westpac.com.au LOL
prisonerzero on 24/10/2012 - 12:27 ¶It's highly unlikely that this rate will stay at 5.75%, even if the RBA leaves rates unchanged next month, but I guess in the mean time it's the best rate out there.
+1 voteGravyNanna on 24/10/2012 - 12:34 ¶Opened an account! Even if they drop it a bit, hopefully its higher than UBank with their ever-decreasing variable rate.
- +2 votesprisonerzero on 24/10/2012 - 13:13 ¶
You don't loose the bonus at Ubank by withdrawing money. You just have to keep depositing $200 via ASP - you're allowed to take it straight back out.
- +1 voteEmmaT UBank on 25/10/2012 - 09:50 ¶
Hi doperst, I work for UBank. prisonerzero and Sturmeh are correct, there are no penalties for withdrawing out of your USaver as long as you have the ASP depositing at least $200 per month. Let me know if you have any other questions.
I've been meaning to make the jump from ubank to rams for a while. Just to clarify, is the best way to do this on the 1st of the month to wait for the interest payout or just do it immediately?
I'd like to think if I had e.g. $100k in ubank and moved it out on the 20th of the month, on the rollover to the 1st they would still pay the interest for the 2/3rds of the month into that account, but just wondering if this is indeed the case.
- EmmaT UBank on 25/10/2012 - 09:52 ¶
Hello adante, I work for UBank. We calculate interest on the daily closing credit balance of your USaver, up to and including the last day of the month. Let us know if you have any further questions.
ethereal88 on 24/10/2012 - 15:42 Comment score below threshold (-7).- ethereal88 on 24/10/2012 - 16:18 Comment score below threshold (-7).
onetwothree on 24/10/2012 - 21:28 Comment score below threshold (4).
firedragon on 24/10/2012 - 15:44 ¶Really easy and quick to open an account (online verification with driver's license and medicare card). Also provided with BSB and account number straightaway so I can deposit funds in.
+1 vote*To qualify for the bonus interest you must make deposits totalling at least $200 each month, make no withdrawals during the month and have an account balance that does not fall below $0 or exceed $500,000 at any time during the month.
So better NOT to deposit from Ubank straight away, wait for one month to pass and 3-4 days before transfer $200 and after the first month transfer most money from Ubank.
Does RAMS have automatic transfer set up from another bank account?
As far as i know, RAMS is similar to Goal Saver account from CBA. When you first deposit your money (min. $200) into RAMS from Ubank, you are already qualified for the bonus rate. It's not the same as Ubank account where you get the bonus rate after you set up the automatic transfer for min $200 which you don't receive the bonus rate till the next month.
WaywardOne on 24/10/2012 - 21:44 ¶When transferring your cash to a new account you will forfeit interest. Your money will be 'between' accounts and you not gain any interest.
For UBank customers, this interest will be at 5.16% pa. The difference is 0.59%. This means that to break even it will take about 9x (5.16 / 0.59) the days of lost interest. That is, if it takes two days to transfer then it will take you 18 days to break even.
Am I right? Does this make sense to anyone?
What does this all mean? If RAMS drops their rates within 18 days you may not break even.
- +1 votevanleeuwen on 24/10/2012 - 22:15 ¶
others may have had a different experience but for me i transfered money from ubank at 11am on the 23rd and i could see it on rams that night (can remember if it was after 12am or not but the date on rams was the 23rd). So no loss of interest at all. No idea how long it takes the other way. I have a normal westpac account (remember RAMS is westpac) and people often say i get paid quicker than they do as they are with other banks (wages etc) so i assume it will be quick as well.
So no loss of interest at all.
it's taking your money out where you lose interest
Are you sure about this? Have you actually tried it, or only guessing???
People have reported from their first hand experiences that their money is in limbo for 1 day when transferring out (even early in the morning), causing them to lose 1 day of interest:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1940454&p...
- vanleeuwen on 25/10/2012 - 09:56 ¶
just got this:
We've been working on more improvements to myRAMS and so we're writing to let you know what the changes are and when they take effect.
The details of the key changes - effective 24 October 2012 - are provided below:
Changes to processing times for funds transfers:
Transfers requested prior to 4pm on a business day (Sydney time) will be processed immediately;
Transfers requested after 4pm on a business day (Sydney time), the weekend or a public holiday will be processed the next business day. The payment will be saved as a future dated transfer.
+1 voteandyman1908 on 25/10/2012 - 12:15 ¶I deposited money into my rams account about 1pm yesterday (created yesterday) and its confirmed this morning when I looked (transaction date shows 24/10/12). Pretty happy with that.
-2 votesdudes and dudettes, compare the ubank savings account interest rate to the homeloan rate and you will see ubank is STILL offering one of the best variable rates in the market (no 2. on infochoice).
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jv on 24/10/2012 - 11:49
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slix_88 on 24/10/2012 - 13:14
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mrgq on 24/10/2012 - 12:04
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vanleeuwen on 24/10/2012 - 11:52
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YOTR on 24/10/2012 - 11:46
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Yep, I'm out of Ubank. Shameful!