Suggest High Interest Savings Account

0FoxGiven on 02/09/2016 - 13:18
Last edited 02/09/2016 - 13:27

Hi All,

I'm looking to start a savings account and i'd like to know your suggestions for the same.

My criteria for selection:

  • Must not be a term deposit account. I would want to regularly deposit varying amounts (but always a minimum of like AUD 1000) and also be able to quickly make withdrawals in case I really need it.
  • I'm not really interested in introductory bonus rates that last just for 3-4 months (Because I only recently started working in Australia and my starting amount wont be more than AUD 3000)
  • Preferably no account fees (If there are, I should be able to get that waived if I fulfill some condition like a minimum deposit per month or something)

I checked out recommendations on sites like Mozo and even went through some forum posts in Ozbargain. But everywhere I looked, I never came across anything that suggested NAB Reward Saver

The way I see it, as long as I fulfill some conditions, NAB Rewards Saver offers 2.95% interest and not just for 3-4 months. Am I missing something here? Do you guys have a recommendation for a bank that offers more?

Btw, I have an NAB everyday transaction account already.

Financial

Comments

  • atris17 on 02/09/2016 - 13:35

    Have u try Me Bank? Or Rams?? …

    • 0FoxGiven on 02/09/2016 - 13:41

      I did check out Me Bank few weeks back and I could have sworn the rates were lower than what they are right now. I will check it out more in detail.

      I did come across Ram suggestions in another topic… sorry if i sound like a noob, but what is a RAM account?

      • atris17 on 02/09/2016 - 13:45
        +1

        RAMS is an online bank account. 200 deposit every month and has the highest interest rate at the current market.

        Also guarantee by government up to 250k

        I split my bank saving to UBank and RAMS

        U might consider investing in shares , just do some research and learn about dividends

        • 0FoxGiven on 02/09/2016 - 14:40

          Sweet… will definitely consider this

      • bluesky on 02/09/2016 - 19:06

        Yes, Me Bank dropped their rates to 3.1% on the 25/08.

  • NancyCat on 02/09/2016 - 13:58
    +1

    Given you already have an NAB transaction account, I think their Reward Saver is the way to go. We have the same. But remember if you make a withdrawal, you'll only get 0.5% interest.

    • bluesky on 02/09/2016 - 17:47
      +1

      Depends whether you mind losing a bit of interest under certain circumstances … pls see my comment below. Sure, in my case, the loss was not much, but the fact that their advertising (at the time of my post) was not being forthright with consumers bothered me. Especially for a big bank.

  • [Deactivated] on 02/09/2016 - 15:15
    +1

    Also bear in mind the top rates swing regularly, such as Rams hasn't been top rate for perhaps a year, and may change tomorrow.
    So convenience and quality of support and features AND one of the highest %rates, may be better than Rams who have comparatively limited use for direct payment, bpay, atm etc, as bonus will be lost.
    I still like INGDirect with 2.75% at the moment, and it has been the top rate at times.
    Anyways most of my savings is in rams, but Ubank and ING are still used for various purposes.

    • Master Bates on 02/09/2016 - 15:44
      +1

      I find the RAMS ecosystem (accounts, conditions, website and app) quite clunky in comparison to UBank and ING.

      • [Deactivated] on 02/09/2016 - 22:46
        -1

        Hey I think I know your brother. Wayne Kerr right ;-)

  • Mad Max on 02/09/2016 - 15:48

    Rabo used to be the best but no more…

    • wombat1955 on 02/09/2016 - 16:53

      Why is that? I've just opened a high interest savings account with them, but have yet to deposit any money in it. Would like to know what's bad about them before I do. Tried opening an account with Citibank, but after 16 days, they are still processing my application. Numerous phone calls and no answers as to why it should take so long drove me to cancel the application today.

      • Mad Max on 02/09/2016 - 18:57
        +1

        Service and website are very good, but the interest rates are only good on the HISA for the first 4 months of the 0.7% bonus. After that I think ING is better

        • wombat1955 on 03/09/2016 - 20:39

          The thing I noticed is that ING only pay interest up to $100K, whereas Rabo pay up to $250K. My plan was to put all my funds in Rabo for the 4 months, then pop $100K back into ING for the 2.75% and still get 2.1% from Rabo for the rest.

        • Somnus on 04/09/2016 - 08:39

          @wombat1955: I did not know this! Myst check it out…

  • bluesky on 02/09/2016 - 17:39
    +1

    But everywhere I looked, I never came across anything that suggested NAB Reward Saver
    …
    Am I missing something here?

    That is because NAB Reward Saver calculates interest different from everybody else, and you could lose interest.
    Please see my past post.

    It advertised one thing (which any reasonable person would understand to mean one thing), but did something totally different. Worse still, when I went to speak with a staff to find out, staff came back with the booklet with the fine print which exonerated them for doing that. I got the feeling the staff was well aware of this, and others have approached them before.

    I believe it was false advertising to say "If you earn bonus interest, we calculate it using your daily closing balance throughout the month.", when clearly it was not …

    Besides, all the banks I know of calculate interest in a standard way, I do not understand why NAB should use a different approach. (But I suppose why change, if it means they can save on interest in some circumstances? :-) And for the few who realize, they just point them to the fine print section which has this covered …)

    I decided to warn others via my post, and not take it any further, other than not using it anymore.

    Note: this was a while back, I haven't checked, perhaps they use different advertising language now?
    Anyway, I have been bitten, so I will be staying away from NAB reward saver.

  • gza on 06/09/2016 - 12:28

    The rates are changing all the time. Just find the best one and go with that. One bank is not consistently the best day to day, week to week.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join