Just noticed that ubank is going to raise its savings rate again soon.
From 1 August 2022, we’ll be increasing our bonus interest rate to 2.25% p.a. for both our Save and USave accounts. Our base rate will remain at 0.10% p.a., meaning you’ll be able to earn interest up to 2.35% p.a. across all your eligible ubank accounts.
Referrer and referee each receive $30 after referee makes 5 settled card purchases within 30 days.
@Drakesy: say the current 12 month TD is 3.5 (by mid july), and savings rate is 2.4, you would have to have a savings rate of 4.6 depending if the increases are distributed across the 12 months, by xmas to out do the term deposit.
you may well get that, but may not.
main purpose is to delay entire income to the finc year as not planning to work. id rather a nice 6k tax free paid out at july 15th 2023
basic scenario to break even
https://files.ozbargain.com.au/upload/153936/96863/td_v_savi…
Not a bad deal for retirees and people without a mortgage.
If you have a mortgage with variable portion, better to put cash into the offset account, you are literally earning the bank's interest rate.
Well put mate! If you have home loan with redraw option leave your money there! Redraw is instant, the only thing is some bank will set minimum redraw amount. NAB sets it at $500.
Plus you pay no tax!
Each 'redraw' counts as a "mini loan",
so I tell people to just leave money in the offset,
instead of the redraw, as the outcome is still the same: pay less interest.
But there are some important differences, eg.
1) in redraw, it's bank's money,
in the offset, it's still your money,
hence "no guarantees" if bank goes under.
2) money in offset accounts still do not change
the 'loan amount', hence you still are not paying down on the principal portion,
but just offset-ing the interest payments.
so, money in offset accounts, although your money,
does not improve your borrowing capacity, in case you need to borrow more against the equity, etc.
Money in redraw doesn't improve your borrowing capacity either, as it is considered to be part of your loan balance for servicing purposes - eg $400k balance, $100k in redraw, will be treated as a $500k loan, simply because you CAN redraw it.
@miwahni: wow…I didn't know that.
the system really knows how to force you into 'owing' them all the time.
There are tax implications in the future if you ever swap your primary place of residence into an investment property, and want to claim the interest deductions from the loan. Any money that was put into redraw and then taken out again cannot be claimed as a tax deduction. If you will never, ever turn your PPR into an IP then it's not really something to be concerned about. Having an offset account doesn't have these tax issues, but mortgages with offset accounts usually cost more, either through annual fee, higher interest rate etc.
Great info! The reason I didn't opt in for offset was because of the $395 annual fee NAB charges.
Thanks for your wise input.
I haven't found much of a difference for loan products with an offset account.
I've usually looked at the smaller lenders, such as TicToc, etc…
…and their interest rates are already quite appealing, before the small offset fee (TicToc: $10 per month)
Having just switched to ubank at the end of June, I am extremely happy with this news 😁
Published an hour ago: https://www.canstar.com.au/savings-accounts/savings-increase…
TLDR; This is easily the best long term, set and forget, fully featured, high interest rate account there is - unless you meet age and transaction requirements of Westpac/BOQ or have a home loan.
OK if you don't have an owner occupier mortgage with offset or redraw to stash your cash.
Sweet! Just join in June and really like Ubank so far.
ING press release in 3… 2… 1…
Wondering if Macquarie will respond with a more competitive offer?
It's beyond a joke that Macquarie are still not fully on the NPP. Unbelievable.
Macquarie has opted to not pass on the rate hike on in full to savers with its transaction and savings accounts rising from 1.5 per cent to 1.75 per cent from July 14.
It's Macquarie. They don't have customers interests at heart.
ING will raise their rate .25% above ubank. A true ozbargainer will gladly jump through their hoops to gain the extra ~$20 per month
Nah, I'm right with Ubank
When you're in overseas for over a month, you'll find ubank is the best. Deposit $200 a month and it's guarantee bonus rate. I've been using ING and Ubank since they started and gave up on ING a few years ago due to too much hassle.
What rate does money over 250k at Ubank earn?
probably 0.1%
edit: just checked yes its 0.1% base rate.
Still better than Crypto
Signed up to ubank last week after Volt Bank announced they were closing. Very impressed so far and they seem just as prompt with passing on the rate increase as Volt was.
Don't normally like to have to jump through bonus rate hoops but $200 deposit is very easy, and kind of an incentive to save anyway. Can always setup an automatic withdrawal back out the next day if that's an issue for anyone.
I have also been pleasantly surprised by the transaction account, as well.
For those who are on the fence, opening an account is super easy via the app….
however note that if you put in a chunk of money this month, you'll only earn the bonus interest from next month…so maybe transfer at the last possible moment if you are getting better interest rates elsewhere? (https://www.ubank.com.au/help/current/everyday-banking/earni…)
I also would think it's safer to remove the app and just use online banking if you have a chunk of money in there…if you lose your phone and your passcode is hacked, then kiss your money goodbye i suppose because all your OTP etc. comes to your phone
I earnt interest on the 5 or so days I had money in the account I created late June with the bonus rate. I'm not going to go into how much, but it required multiple transfers to get there. Anyway, I earnt more interest in that week than I have for months on my old account. So not sure what you're saying is true, or perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.
Yep, you're right on that. UBank apply the eligible interest from day you have made the deposit. AMP, on the other hand, apply the eligible interest to the following month.
As do ING 😐
That used to be the case. It changed a while back.
yes, looks like i confused with the older info from Ubank on whirlpool which is outdated - https://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/ubank
The T&C indicate that you will earn bonus interest that month as long as you transfer >$200 before the month ends
was planning to open a Citibank account, can scrap that now and just stick with UBank
I've had a few reds and was never good at maths…
Is it more productive to use my spare 50k cash to offset my PPOR home loan (~$1M @ 1.89%), or deposit into a high interest savings account like this?
Definitely offset unless you don’t pay income tax or pay the lowest tax rate.
I thought so. Thanks for confirming. Definitely don't pay lowest tax rate.
If you are paying 1.89 I am guessing you are fixed. If so you can only offset against variable. If your 1.89 is variable please share the details
I have fixed (think it's up to 50% of the loan) with offset facility via Bankwest.
Looks like uBank is leading the savings leaderboard but it should be noted that ING has announced a 2.6% deal for amounts above $50k (capped at $100k).
In summary:
ING: 2.6% (from 12 July 2022) - Notes: min $50k/max $100k. Has the annoying $1000 deposit, 5 purchases and always growing account criteria to qualify
uBank: 2.35% (from 1 August 2022) - Notes: required $200 deposit p/m. Capped at $250k
My thoughts:
Looks like all the financial institutions are going to play hard to lock in your cash with them. Depending on how active you are with transferring huge amounts across FIs, I think the two main contenders are these two.
For those with excess cash, I'd probably consider dropping $70k-$80k tops in ING and use a set and forget deposit of ~$1,001-$1,100 per month and use the excess cash to do 5 x $0.01 Coles self checkouts or just your usual coffees etc to meet the criteria and the rest to go into uBank up to $250k. The reason why I selected the $70k-$80k range is more because of the opportunity cost of what to do when you hit $100k cap and the loss of bonus interest for that month when you have to take out maybe $10k-$20k to allow it to accumulate interest again.
ING 2.6% is for saving Maximiser and the same as now up to 100k, no minimum. The 50k is for the Accelerator account. Also, you should not take out 20k as you will not get the bonus rate on any of it. To reset you would have to take out all funds for one calendar month.
Thanks. Out of curiosity, what do YOU do when you hit $100k and do not get much interest on the cash you put into amounts above $100k? That 'always growing' criteria is what I try to avoid by only suggesting to put in about $70k-$80k.
I made mistake and went over the 100k. Since then I have been trying to pull it out for 1 month but their rates have been the best. On the 1st of each month I transfer the approx $1400 I am over by to another FI. Then in the last day of the month I deposit the required amount into the Maximiser. I do it from an account that has OSKO to make sure the money arrives and that I do not loose interest. You could do maybe 95k as you only need to increase by 1c so that plus the interest would still last a while.
do ubank referral codes change at all?
Mine is always the same one.
Are referral codes only available to new UBank customers on the new app?
Although a $200 deposit is required in the month for the bonus rate, your balance can fall with withdrawals etc and you still get the bonus rate.
I did a 'set and forget' of $200 pcm Direct Debit from my NAB account to Ubank.
Currently have my deposit savings with Macquarie, (unfortunately looks like I will not be able to buy anytime soon, property in Brisbane still out of reach). Would you recommend moving money to UBank, ING OR keep in Macquarie and put some in term deposit? (six-month interest rate 2.4% one-year term deposit rate 3.25%)? Thanks in advance
If you do not plan to touch your money for 12 months plus, I'd probably recommend putting about $85k in ING and remember to add in the $1k per month and 5 transactions per month thing. This will cover you for ~15 months before you hit the $100k cap and then you take the cash out and buy your property.
The rest goes into uBank up until $250k as it is easier to maintain the $200 per month requirements. If you are ok with the lower interest rate then I guess keep it in Macquarie. I used to use my Mac account for share trading but now most of my shares are on SuperHero so it is just a mini dumping point for excess cash.
Rabobank has 2.6% for new customers for four months up to 250k
Does anyone know if the new ubank (app) supports step up authentication? I was able to add an account and transfer money out without a sms or email code at the minimum
Nice.. lets all lose money given inflation is 7 per cent!
And the LNP did such a good job of depressing wages over the last decade… welcome to the mess that has to be cleaned up. It'll take another 10 years to get Australia back on the right track.
Is it possible to make cash deposit to Ubank via NAB or other ATM?
Since the recent cash rate increase to 1.85%, does anyone know if ubank will increase their savings interest rate? currently sitting at up to 2.35% from 1st Aug.
Probably, but also, probably won't kick in until September 1
Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
There's a new banner on their save account page (scroll down a bit until you see light blue). 2.85% from 1st of September.
UBank announced they are increasing to 2.85% on September 1st.
Good
Signed up for this today. Gotta say, really good app! Seems to be better than CBA also
Agree. A solid 9/10 for me.
Same, very easy process and the the new app is a lot better than the old one - can't login to the new online ver until receive the card (or call them). Still need to close the old account, prob have to wait for any interest.
would anyone know if you can use the uspend card in the same way at ATMs as a NAB card? (including using at big four banks for no fees and depositing cash etc)?
cheers
@Drakesy: Agree