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Credit Card - No Annual Fee - Balance Transfer for 18 Months, up to 95% of Credit Limit with No BT Fee @Bank SA & Melb/St George

350

Not one for the points chasers, but a great card for anyone looking to perform a zero cost balance transfer for a whopping 18 months.

0% p.a. for 18 months on balance transfers requested at card application.
No annual fee for the life of the card.
95% Balance Transfer of credit limit.
Credit limits starting at $500.
Low income requirements.

Example scenario
If you had an existing balance transfer or 0% purchase card coming to the end of an offer period and you balance transferred $10,000 across onto this card for 18 months, you would save approx $435 in home loan interest on a 4% home loan.

Bank of Melbourne
St George

Related Stores

BankSA (Bank of South Australia)
BankSA (Bank of South Australia)

closed Comments

  • Could you please explain the example scenario apric? How do you save $435 in home loan interest?

    • Yes, how? please.

      • I think he means that rather than take $10k out of your home loan, it would be better to use this card to pay off an already existing balance transfer. You would save money by having the $10k sit in your home loan for 18 months. Obviously this would only apply for people with a redraw option on their home loan.

        EDIT I just saw reply post. Looks like we are on the same line :)

    • +2

      (This scenario firstly assumes you don't carry any credit cards on which you are actually paying credit card interest)

      It require you to either:
      a) Have a balance on an existing balance transfer card/s coming to the end of its promotional period.
      b) Have a 0% purchase card that you have spent near the limit on.
      c) Be in a situation where you spend upwards of 5k per month on credit cards. Ie, Pay EVERYTHING you can on them.

      You also need a home-loan that has an offset or redraw facility.

      You are in situation A, B or C and your credit card statement is coming up. You can make a decision to pay off the balance in full by withdrawing the money from your home loan offset/redraw facility, meaning you will be charged more interest on your home loan…

      OR

      You can decide to defer the payment, by taking up a long term balance transfer offer at no cost. This allows you to leave the money you would have spent paying A, B or C in your home loan account reducing the effective interest you are paying.

      This scenario also assumes you have the smarts not to see this as 'play money in your account' and that you won't decide to spend it on a big screen Tv. It assumes you are sensible enough to leave the money in the home loan account for the duration of the BT offer, knowing that it is reserved for this future payment.

      • Paying the minimum payment amount each month, it would look something like this.
        Balance Interest Saved
        $ 10,000.00 Saving $ 33.33
        $ 9,800.00 Saving $ 32.67
        $ 9,604.00 Saving $ 32.01
        $ 9,412.00 Saving $ 31.37
        $ 9,224.00 Saving $ 30.75
        $ 9,040.00 Saving $ 30.13
        $ 8,860.00 Saving $ 29.53
        $ 8,683.00 Saving $ 28.94
        $ 8,510.00 Saving $ 28.37
        $ 8,340.00 Saving $ 27.80
        $ 8,174.00 Saving $ 27.25
        $ 8,011.00 Saving $ 26.70
        $ 7,851.00 Saving $ 26.17
        $ 7,694.00 Saving $ 25.65
        $ 7,541.00 $ 25.14

        • How come you stopped at 15 months? I thought the offer was for 18 months, which should save you $484 over 18 months.

        • @sp00ker:
          I got lazy…. No actually. I was using a template for a 15 month card I had previously and forgot to add the extra few months…
          So yes..it would be more as you indicated.

      • This scenario also assumes you have the smarts not to see this as 'play money in your account' and that you won't decide to spend it on a big screen Tv. It assumes you are sensible enough to leave the money in the home loan account for the duration of the BT offer, knowing that it is reserved for this future payment.

        Also assumes you don't buy anything on this card after the balance transfer. I didn't check the T&C for this offer, but most balance transfer offers have a catch where any payments are towards the interest free balance transfer before new purchases. This effectively means the only way to pay off a new purchase (without accruing interest) is to repay the entire balance.

        • 0% p.a. for up to 6 months on purchases

        • +3

          I think you'll find that's incorrect as I recall there being some federal financial legislation that came into play in the last few years which mandates credit card providers must apply any payment to the highest interest component first. In this case it would be purchases and then balance transfer. (Happy to be proven wrong however).

          But yes.. I would encourage people to use it only for the Balance transfer component and not make any purchases on it while the balance transfer is in place, as you will (after the 6 months at 0% purchase offer expires) start paying interest as soon as a purchase is paid.

  • -1

    with no BT fees.

    I hate Bull Tish fees…

  • For the people without a home loan offset account, you could just put the money in an interest bearing account. You'd probably finish up with ~$200 after tax (based on the 10k example). It's not a huge amount, but it's hard cash that you can spend as you like, compared to a number in an offset account.

    There's also several cards that offer cheap 'cash advances' for positive balances - westpac, nab … so you don't necessarily have to big a big spender to take advantage of these balance transfer offers.

  • +2

    st george
    bank of melbourne

    exactly the same product, they're all westpac subsiduaries.

    • I signed up for the above a couple of days ago so I can wipeout my combank cc debt.

    • BankSA for the grey card. FTW.

  • Are BankSA ok with doing a BT to cheque, rather than to another credit card?

    • Only Citibank.

  • Alternatively you can do this

    Let's say you already have a credit card limit 10k with zero owing.

    Withdraw the entirety of the card as a cash advance leaving you with a now maxed out credit card and $10k cash in hand

    Apply for this credit card and balance transfer the maxed out card.

    The end result is $10k cash in hand@ zero percent interest for 18 months.

    Things to note - you still need to pay the card every month, usually 2% of the owing balance.

    Credit score. Merely applying for a credit card will have an impact on your credit score. The best way to retain your credit score/improve it is to have no credit cards at all and minimize all existing liabilities.

    • +3

      You normally get a cash advance fee that would negate most of the benefit I think.

      I've done it the other way. Balance transfer to a card currently with no balance and that puts it into credit. Get a refund of the credit balance by cheque or EFT. No fees.

      Note not all cards will allow this.

  • "Credit card" in the title might help

  • Merged from Bank of Melbourne Credit Card 0% Balance Transfer for 18 Months, No Annual Fee, up to 95%, No BT Fee

    Bank of Melbourne currently is offering 18 months balance transfer across it's range of cards, including the 'No Annual Fee' credit card.
    This card offers the longest no cost balance transfer option that's currently on the market.

    $0 annual fee for life.
    No balance transfer fee.
    Up to 95% of the credit limit can be transferred.
    Minimum $200 balance transfer.
    Balance transfer from any credit cards/charge/store cards (excluding 'St.George, BOM and BankSA issued cards).
    2% minimum repayment each month.

    For every $5k balance transferred, you will save about $250 in interest on a home-loan over the 18 months, by only making the minimum repayment and leaving funds in your offset account.
    (If you're not sure how this works look at my previous posts for examples)

    It also has 0% p.a. for up to 6 months on purchases from card approval, so technically you could use this to build your next balance transfer amount as well
    For example; You get approved for 12k limit, but only have 6k to balance transfer, so you balance transfer the 6k to the card and then spend the other 6k on the card (during the 0% purchase period) and balance transfer that 6k to another card before the 0% purchase period expires / or alternatively just pay the purchases amount down to the original balance transfer amount

    • I went for this a couple of weeks ago seems like a good opportunity to wipe out my cc debt.

    • you could use this to build your next balance transfer amount as well

      You don't have to be in debt to do a balance transfer. Even if the receiving card has a 0 balance it will still be transferred onto it.

      • +2

        That is true Tarinedier.
        It's worth noting however that some credit cards have in their T&C's that they will not protect you against fraudulent transactions if your account is in positive balance, so unless you have plans to spend that money quickly to bring it back to neutral, you do play a potentially risky game.
        I am also aware some banks will allow you to move a positive balance across from a credit to a savings account, which is another strategy.

    • Is BoM strict on application? I applied for the ANZ travel adventures card last month and they declined, even with a good credit score. They indicated its because of my score!

    • Good deal again apric

    • nvrmind

    • Same offers from St George and BankSA in case anyone wants to go with their local bank:
      https://www.stgeorge.com.au/personal/credit-cards/no-annual-…
      https://www.banksa.com.au/personal/credit-cards/no-annual-fe…

      They're all subs of the same bank.

  • What sort of leeway do you leave between a current interest-free period ending and applying for the next BT just in case the application is prolonged?

    Arbitrarily, I'm thinking 1 month?

  • +1

    Yeah. Generally 4 weeks out from the current one expiring.
    This allows:
    1 week for application to process.
    1 weeks for card to be posted.
    1-2 weeks for balance transfer to be completed.

    • Thanks I will keep this in mind when I churn next year. :)

  • +2

    Seems to have dropped to 12 months 0% for balance transfers now

    • +1

      yep, not 18 months anymore.

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