So I'm moving to Oz in a couple weeks. I need to open a bank account but I know nothing about banks in Australia.
In the US, I would normally prefer to open an account at a local credit union, or a smaller bank since they usually have more favorable policies and are less likely to treat me like an expendable customer.
Anyone have any thoughts on banking choices?
Posted Aug 15, 2011, 6:29 PM UTC
Depends where in Australia you are moving to. Check to see if there is ATMs and branches nearby. I'd recommend CUA, and get an account with a visa debit card. If you have savings, get an ING account. I've found their interest to be fairly decent and it transfers usually next day to CUA. Between both of these I pay no fees unless I use EFTPOS excessively but that's what the visa debt is for - unlimited free transactions. Also we got our car loan and insurance through CUA and they were VERY cheap and easy to pay off in comparison to the other banks.
I'll be based in Sydney, but there's a high likelihood that I'll be traveling to WA/V/QL for work.
I have a linked ING account - (no external access savings) + (visa account). I just transfer between the 2. I also have a CUA account I use as a second savings pool. I use ING Bpay to deposit into the CUA account and the ING savings (Its all automated). The ING interface is awesome!
Wages ------> ING Visa ---<%>--- Savings
...................... |
.......................%
...................... |
......................CUA
Best part is I only have what I need in the Visa. No one can take anymore. I take out most of the cash I need. The other accounts are inaccessible to outside parties and they pay good interest.
Because of Automation I can que up bill payments through Bpay. My account flags the payment and processes it for me. If its missed it tells me.
I haven't had to use the inside of a bank for years.
From next month they will be a bank
Were did you hear that?
I've been with them for more than 20 years (well, from when it was SIROCREDIT).
I can't find any information confirming this, and I really doubt it is true.
Being a "bank" doesn't actually mean anything. The only thing you want to care about is whether they're an Accredited Deposit-taking Institution (ADI). If they are then they're subject to the same checks and regulation as the 'banks' and your deposits are covered by the same federal guarantees.
Edit: For clarity, mecu is definitely an ADI.
Edit2: The gov was putting through some legislation to overcome this info problem (ie. allow most ADIs to call themselves banks), seems like it's come into effect.
Great, that's good news.
Since the government began guaranteeing deposits in Credit Unions with the GFC, I've just assumed that the difference between a bank and a credit union was the ownership structure.
As they've recently changed their constitution to make it even more difficult to de-mutualize, I'm glad to see that the members still own it.
I think you're right, the key difference between a CU and Bank is that the CU is owned by its members. Makes it difficult for CUs to expand (no IPO option) but the service tends to be a lot better!
I moved from the UK to melbourne 5 years ago. Joined NAB bank and have been thrilled at the service.
Do you use your PIN number at the ATM machine at the NAB bank? ;)
You magnificent cunt.
Thank you.
as with some of the notes below, its worth determining if you a re likely to want to 'walk into the bank' to talk to someone or happy to do everything online etc.
I use ING Direct Orange Everyday as well - and its all good
Yeah. I have an ING online-only account at their US bank. I don't really care that much about having a brick and mortar since I can do everything I need online usually.
For online savings accounts UBank (owned by NAB) and RaboDirect have the highest interest rates but don't offer transaction accounts.
For transaction accounts I'd recommend CUA or MEBank
The best interest rate is ubank or virgin
Check infochoice.com.au if you want to make your own comparisons
if your coming to Queensland go with Suncorp, was with ANZ but after the drama they put me through when i moved to QLD went with Suncorp, been very happy since.
Credit Unions are good, so long as you don't need to visit the branches very often, as there aren't very many.
There are generally ATMs with another bank you can use without paying a fee.
I use my credit union (Credit Union Australia) these days for domestic stuff and HSBC for US dollar transactions.
St George Bank (Now Bank of Melbourne) are very good in my experience.
St George only uses Australians in their call centres so choose them if you don't want to listen to a script reading curry muncher
They're also owned by Westpac, so don't think you're getting anything independent or unique.
Also, most of the banks and credit unions use Australian-based employees.
Also, fuck you.
It's a false-flag attack!
He's not really Mujahideen, he's a white urban terrorist!
ING Direct, Orange Everyday transaction account.
No account keeping fees.
No ATM fees on withdrawals above $200.
No branches but you can use post offices as bank branches in Australia.
Yup, fantastic till you need to make a cash deposit. Or when you need to issue a charge reversal on your account and they tell you "Sorry, we dont offer reversals for fraud protection on your visa card"
Go to a post office, deposits are instantaneous. I've done this multiple times.
Where are you getting this from? This is from the ING website
It was a chargeback. After about 8 phonecalls later they finally agreed to do a chargeback. I had to fill out a whole stack of paperwork, it took 3 months for it to actually get reversed. So I was out of pocket for about $400. Last time I had to do it with westpac money was refunded after one phonecall and was avaliable in my account within 2 days
Chargeback and fraud protection aren't the same thing
Is that rue about the fraud protection? We're looking at getting a homeloan with them with an associated Debit card. Nobody said nothing about no no fraud protection!
ING is great until something goes wrong. I only had a debit card with them with no overdraft (cards gets refused when account is empty). Well, I moved out of the country and spent all the money on the card, only to have them notify me like 2 years later that I've spent about $1000 more than I had in my account and I now owed them about $2000 since they were charging 40% per year penalty interest rates. :/