UBank rate assurance ?

Danam on 10/05/2012 - 11:18

To all the folks who keep their savings in a UBank USaver account, I see the base rate has dropped again to 4.91%. Rabo Direct are still offering a base rate higher than UBank's (5.40%). Here is a copy of an email I sent to UBank. For those who are interested to see what they say, I'll post the reply when it comes in:

Hi, I was just wondering whether the base rate for USaver accounts (currently 4.91%) will be lifted to match the base rate offered by RaboDirect (currently 5.40%). The rate assurance policy says "If the USaver base rate is lower than any of these competitor products, we'll raise the USaver base rate to at least that rate. "

I understand the max UBank rate of 5.51% is not required to match the 6.01% max rate offered by RaboDirect.

Thanks.

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Comments

  • snappy1234 on 10/05/2012 - 11:48

    Cheers for letting us know…will be interested in reply myself.

  • alwayscheaper on 10/05/2012 - 11:59

    Great, will be interesting.

    Prehaps post to their facebook page you will get quicker response, they first announced the rate drop on fb anyway.

    • Danam on 10/05/2012 - 12:55
      +1

      I see on the UBank facebook page that others have raised the same question. So far their responses are:

      "We also try to compare rates with other savings accounts with similar features, but we do aim to be among the most competitive rates on the market."

      and

      "just want to confirm that we do review this rate at least every Friday as per our rate assurance, and remain committed to an ongoing great rate."

      Sounds like the base rate should be lifted tomorrow… It will be interesting to see if the .6% bonus is reduced to compensate.

      • FatGPT on 10/05/2012 - 14:17

        Thanks for the update :) Let's check tomorrow!

  • FatGPT on 10/05/2012 - 12:51

    Thanks mate, am also interested to see their response. And I agree with Alwayscheaper, if you don't get a response back on email should post your msg onto their FB page!

  • Danam on 10/05/2012 - 15:52
    +1

    Well… here is the official response:

    Thanks for getting in touch.

    Our USaver rate is reviewed daily and can change from time to time. Please refer to further details listed under our Rate assurance as RaboDirect isn’t one of our competitors that this applies to.
    The competitor accounts covered by this rate assurance are:

       ING Direct Savings Maximiser 
   Bankwest TeleNet Saver 
   Commonwealth Bank NetBank Saver 
   Westpac eSaver 
   ANZ Online Saver 
   St George Direct Saver

    I'm surprised by this because RaboDirect are listed in their compare rates table… http://www.ubank.com.au/ub/web/usaver/online-savings-compare…

    • Danam on 10/05/2012 - 16:04

      p.s. This nonsense with base rates and bonus rates is getting out of hand. Commbank seem to have started it a few years ago with their Netsaver accounts. They never disclose your current rate and force people into chasing the highest bonus offers every few months. UBank gave off a different vibe, especially with their rate assurance policy. However…

      6 accounts offer better deals than UBank today. This silliness with bonus offers means they feel justified in saying their product has the second best rate.

  • [Deactivated] on 11/05/2012 - 11:57

    Yeah, on the comparison site I use (www.infochoice.com.au), UBank isn't even showing on the first page anymore. Darn - I hate switching, because you lose a couple of days interest while neither bank "has" your money. I guess it's time to make a spreadsheet to see how many days it will take to make up the loss.

  • [Deactivated] on 16/05/2012 - 19:00

    Anyone (like me) that was waiting too see how low other banks would drop their savings interest rate, before making a decision if to leave UBank… I asked Rabo some questions the other day. They replied today and also mentioned they have dropped their rate. So I checked the banks again and did some calculating.

    The highest rate is now 5.7% from Citibank. I worked out that if you assume it takes 3 days for your money to transfer from UBank (5.51%), and appear in your new Citibank (5.7%) account… It would take about 174 days to recover the interest you lose while switching. i.e. The 3 days you don't earn any interest, because neither bank "has" your money.

    Now 174 days is 5.78 months. And the Citibank interest rate is only that high for 4 months, then reverts to 4.25%. So you actually lose out by switching.

    This of course doesn't count interest earned on any Citibank deposits you make during those 4 months. If those were several thou$and, then that might make it worthwhile?

    • CuteBirdy on 19/05/2012 - 10:26

      That's why banks keep changing their rates relative to others, they know you won't move your money around easily. They will have a good rate to pull customers in, then the next reserve bank rate change, they will have a bad rate to make up for the previous good rate.

  • cheapbloke on 24/05/2012 - 09:54

    RAMS now offers RAMS Saver, a high interest savings account with the highest bonus variable interest rate currently available in the market, at 5.75% p.a. (conditions apply*) and a high base variable rate of 4.95% p.a.

    to get the maximum rate the following conditions must be met.

    you deposit a minimum of $200 per month
    you make no withdrawals in the month
    your account balance does not drop below $0
    your account is open for the entire month

    By the way, I'm surprised you guys are having problems with missing interest when switching between banks. With Ubank, you can have pay anyone so it can go in straight to another bank without losing a day's interest. Otherwise, you can schedule the transfer to and from your nominated bank account (credit and debit) to happen on the same day.

    • mickeyk on 26/05/2012 - 18:41

      I talked to RAMS over the phone and the supervisor told me that you are not allowed to withdraw from RAMS Saver more than $5000/day - not even over the phone. The only work around is setting up a recurrent payment plan - something that doesn't make sense if you want to get the bonus rate. I told him this doesn't make sense and makes the account unusable but he insisted that is their policy. I still hope that this person doesn't know what he is talking about, but be aware before putting larger amounts into RAMS Saver account.

      • cheapbloke on 27/05/2012 - 22:55

        Yes, the person obviously does not know what he is talking about.

        http://www.rams.com.au/savings-accounts/faqs/

        No Limit on 13 RAMS(over the phone)

        Fund Transfers to other Australian financial institutions whether the account is in your name or not, however to “pay anyone” the payee must already be in your “pay anyone” list.

        • mickeyk on 29/05/2012 - 11:38

          I have confirmed with RAMS that you can do a regular transfer (make sure you leave "save payee" option as checked) to another bank account - that should create a payee in your list and allow you to do larger transfers over the phone in the future.
          However, they actually didn't know that you could do that - I think their people have not been made aware of this and that is why they are talking about recurring payment plan.

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