Best Australian High Interest Savings Account for 2023

scotty on 07/02/2023 - 17:56
Last edited 07/02/2023 - 19:59

Moderators at OzBargain are now running yearly polls to decide the best products in popular categories that get asked repeatedly in the forum. Our aim is to have a central thread where users can vote on the items, suggest options and also change their vote throughout the year. For more information on how these polls work, or if you want to suggest a new poll that isn't covered already, please refer to our announcement thread here.

Here's another interest rise from RBA, and let's do this "What Should I Buy" poll for this year.

Question

What is the best Australian Savings Accounts for 2023?

Making your own money is hard, so why not put your money to work for you instead?

Previous poll was from 2020, and the OzBargain community's choice back then were Up Savers, ING Savings Maximiser and ubank HISA. Some has ceased to exist (86400 acquired by NAB & merged with ubank) and some have changed their name (CUA becomes Great Southern Bank). Is it going to be different this year?

What is a Savings account?

Savings accounts, as opposed to Transaction accounts, are high-interest bearing accounts that give you more money in return for the amount of money you put in. Savings accounts differ from Transaction accounts in one major way; they specifically discourage you to spend money by reducing the interest paid to you if you withdraw from it, but might reward you if you regularly deposit money into it.

Some Key factors to look out for when deciding on a Savings Account:

  • The Interest rate, and how frequently you receive the interest
  • Honeymoon periods - also known as introductory interest rates, these are short periods of time that you'll receive a higher interest than normal before it reverts to a standard interest rate.
  • Minimum and Maximum account balances. Some Accounts don't pay interest if you keep too little in the account, and some won't pay you interest on balances over a certain amount.
  • Account keeping fees
  • What rewards you reap when you deposit in money regularly and what penalties you'll get for withdrawing money
  • There may be certain requirements to fulfil before you can apply for the account (such as having a linked account)

Bank Interest Rates Spreadsheet

This spreadsheet is maintained by users on Whirlpool forums, please note the figures are not updated in real time. All credits go to the maintainers of this document. Please note that it is your own responsibility to do your own product research before opening any bank account, no-one else can be held responsible for any adverse events (or financial loss) that you may encounter through the use of this list.

How do I suggest products/providers to What Should I Buy polls?

If you have a product that you would like to suggest for the poll (that is currently not in the Poll Options), you'll need to make a top-level comment (i.e. not replying someone else's comment) and type in the “Suggestions” text box just above your comment:

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Poll Options expired

This is part of What Should I Buy poll for 2023. Check out other recommendations from the OzBargain community.
Financial Bank Account Savings Account What Should I Buy

Comments

      • surfingboyo on 01/08/2023 - 15:49

        And what would the play be, to go back to the ING account I currently use, if say I open a Macquarie account to get the bonus interest for this next month?

        • non-core promise on 01/08/2023 - 15:56

          If you're keen on keeping ING, jump through the bonus interest hoops for this month so you'll get back to the higher rate in September.

          So, the 5 transactions and the $1k deposit, you can do that now.

          Set a reminder for yourself to transfer all your money back on the 31st of August + a bit more to satisfy the "grow balance" condition.

          • surfingboyo on 01/08/2023 - 16:05

            @non-core promise: So transfer balance over to Macquarie savings for the majority of the month, meet the ING conditions for the following month, and like you said, transfer back to ING around the 31st of August?

            Thanks for your help.

            • non-core promise on 01/08/2023 - 16:16
              +1

              @surfingboyo: I believe those are the ING conditions, are they not?

              Only correction would be to transfer your balance back + a bit more for the grow balance condition at the end of the month. Transferring the same balance back isn't good enough.

    • Stingo on 01/08/2023 - 17:27

      Here's a radical thought: ask them to waive the conditions for the month. They just might do it as a once off good will gesture if the CSR is sympathetic.

  • Grok on 08/08/2023 - 20:35
    +2

    UBank after the change is a huge downgrade in my opinion.

    There are hard limits on transfers of $20,000 per day to an external account and $10k for BPAY.

    That means it’s broken for share trading or any large regular transactions unless you want to go back to last century and call the bank and wait in line.

    The only alternative seems to be the Macquarie Savings Account but you lose .5% interest. Other than that there seems to be nothing, all rest expect you to jump through ridiculous hoops AND often not take any money out.

    What a state of affairs for banking in Australia? Pathetic.

    • Stingo on 09/08/2023 - 19:43
      +1

      I don't understand why UBank has over the double the votes of the second option. It was a decent product on the old platform and I agree it has gone backward with the new platform. I'm a bit more ambivalent about needing to call for withdrawals over $20K. It's an annoyance when you don't feel like calling but also gone is the need to wait 10 days after verification for larger withdrawals. I'm one of the relative few who miss sweep but I also dislike the new UI. My original objection is that it seemed designed by Fisher-Price but now I see important details about transactions are either missing or truncated and that receipt numbers are not provided for payments.

      The only alternative seems to be the Macquarie Savings Account but you lose .5% interest. Other than that there seems to be nothing, all rest expect you to jump through ridiculous hoops AND often not take any money out.

      AMP Saver has a similar hoop to UBank albeit $1000 rather than $200 and allows transfer limits as high as $250K once approved (approval may take a few days). Transfer limits are per account rather than a daily limit for all transfers. Pretty much what the legacy UBank platform offered except for sweep so you can't BPAY from a Saver account which is something at least UBank offer on their new platform.

      Depending on when you call UBank the wait is not long. Check out penypnch's and my comments on AMP Saver above or check out the product yourself. Note that you need to make deposits in the previous month to qualify for the current month.

      • Yola on 10/08/2023 - 07:44

        I also miss sweep but mostly the $100k transfer when accounts are linked. I used to have that on 2 accounts with NAB but also lost it. At least after you call it goes via OSKO.

      • Grok on 10/08/2023 - 10:56

        Thanks for the heads up about AMP.

        What do you mean by “allows transfer limits as high as $250K once approved”

        Are the limits overall or for a particular external account?

        • Stingo on 10/08/2023 - 20:48
          +1

          Limits are per account. They use Cusal for NPP transfers though and in my experience the Cuscal fraud team are quite trigger happy.

    • ginger-gin on 10/08/2023 - 10:49

      totally agree, Ubank is still struggling in migrating from 86400 platform to Ubank platform. Taking my exp as an example, I was with 86400 but barely use it until recently I'd like to reactivate and found out that it was migrated to Ubank without my awareness (no email sent). It turned out that I couldn't login as I dont have the card w me. Calling customer service 1st time, they logged the case and afterwards, I found my card and can login now. However, the system recorded my old address in VIC and I cant change to my current address in NSW on the platform, hence I called them the 2nd time. After the convo, they said we need to locked you out from the app for the investigation, which is fine. Have to be clear in here that there is no ticket number provided nor email sent.
      After nearly 1 month, I called up 3rd time then got advised that they escalated, then 4th time, said follow-up escalated then again and again and I totally gave up.
      So much broken process…

      • Stingo on 10/08/2023 - 20:56

        Apparently, a lot of 86400 staff left after the acquisition so one reason for your difficulty may be a lack of familiarity with processes. I've had a pretty smooth run with them for routine calls. I did need to call the legacy team more than once to get my migration deferred as they kept bringing it forward.

        • ginger-gin on 10/08/2023 - 22:48

          Wow wouldn’t know that you can defer by staying on the 86400 old platform? So out of interest, does it mean there are 2 parallel platforms running?

          • Stingo on 10/08/2023 - 23:54
            +2

            @ginger-gin: UBank customers could request deferral. All the migrations have been completed now according to UBank. The current UBank platform is the 86400 platform rebranded with a web interface added on and some other presumably minor changes over the last year or so. Once the 86400 platform was rebranded in mid-May 2022 there were 2 different platforms running in parallel though its perhaps more accurate to say two different banks each with their own platform given the requirement for legacy customers to be assigned new 86400 BSB-based accounts to migrate platforms. I can't definitively state the old platform has now been shutdown but I can no longer pull up a login page for it and there were reports that UBank would cease forwarding transactions from the old platform to the new in some short timeframe.

          • Yola on 11/08/2023 - 03:46

            @ginger-gin: I rang at least 3 times about different issues and asked for my transfer to be delayed and was told each time that it was not possible.

  • donbot on 10/11/2023 - 10:30
    +1

    Why do people rate ubank so highly? Their rate is .5% lower than others out there - yes, conditions exist - but if conditions arent a problem?

    Any of the HISA passing on the latest increase?

    • scotty on 10/11/2023 - 10:43

      I think you'll find that conditions ARE a big problem.

      I moved from ING to ubank earlier this year because I figure out I can actually save more and make my life easier at the same time. While the savings interest rate is lower, you can pretty much do everything with ubank's savings account — pay bills, bank transfer, etc. I can leave just minimum amount in my transaction account for card spending and leave the rest in the savings account to maximise the interest earning.

      Whereas with ING (and other banks with conditions), I can't afford to leave too little in the transaction account, otherwise I'll need to transfer from savers to transaction when I need to spend, and run the risk of not being able to increase the savers balance each month (one of the conditions for bonus interest).

      • donbot on 10/11/2023 - 11:24

        Fair enough - I wasnt aware you can do everything with a ubank savings account like transfer direct and pay bills/etc!

        An interesting proposition that may justify the slightly lower rate in my circumstances too!

  • Bap1337 on 15/11/2023 - 08:53

    I've got 150k in an ING maximiser. Depositing 2k a month. Earns $480 a month in interest.

    I've loved them since changing from suncorp. No atm fees and travelling overseas is a breeze although with the latest hack into their customers account with no tracing and return if the lost funds I feel a little worried (theres been more). I'm no dummy so I have loads of alerts set up. Dad just had 35k lost to invoice fraud and was able to have the funds seized and returned (with Suncorp).

    I know ING is only up to 100k but even Ubank is a tellerless bank. Worth switching for the extra interest or go with the big banks for safety or all the same? (tighter rules on transactions on interest accounts with bigger banks)

    • lightfoot on 28/11/2023 - 14:34

      What do you do to achieve the 5 transactions?

      • Yola on 28/11/2023 - 19:39

        You can do split payments at Colesworth or 5 payments to another account on Paypal.

      • Bap1337 on 29/11/2023 - 07:24

        I have the everyday account with ING as well and this is my main account.

        Any card transaction will count. $1 on eBay, $5 on Netflix, $5 at Coles etc.

    • Leanne59 on 15/12/2023 - 11:59

      That’s not good interest if you only earn $480 on $150k, I earn $680 on the same amount with Suncorp Growth Saver.

      • Yola on 16/12/2023 - 09:03

        ING max interest is $100k - $480 is interest on $100k as Bap1337 mentions. I get the same. Suncorp Growth Saver interest rate is 5.05%. ING is 5.50% if you meet their conditions.

      • Bap1337 on 18/12/2023 - 07:32

        It's hard as I am only working casually due to medical leave. Sometimes I'll take more out than I can return which cancels Suncorps Growth saver.

        • Stingo on 18/12/2023 - 18:11
          +2

          ING would still be an option. Your interest in the current month remains unaffected if you withdraw more than you deposit. However, if you nominate another Savings Maximiser to receive bonus interest which takes effect from the following month and grow that even by just 1¢ then that account will receive bonus interest next month and you can easily transfer your funds from the SM you withdrew from to the other SM on the 1st of the following month to receive full interest in that account. A more general strategy with growth accounts which would be applicable to ME Bank's HomeME is to minimise the closing balance at the end of the month to leave room for withdrawals in the months following while still growing the account. As an extreme example: Start of Month 1: Deposit $100,000, end of Month 1: withdraw $99,999. Start of Month 2: Deposit $100,000 - current balance (includes previous month's interest), End of Month 2: Withdraw $100,000 - start of month balance - $1. Month N; as for month 2. The account grows by $1 in each month per the bank's definition. You will lose some interest for one or more days between the month end and the start of the following month as large transfers only happen on business days and other accounts will pay less interest. In the case of HomeMe you also need to meet their condition of a $2,000 deposit into the SpendMe account from an external account but that can be withdrawn immediately.

  • GOB on 15/12/2023 - 11:40

    Any tips on how to move money in excess of the 100k out of your savings without copping a month lost in interest given you have to add $1000 each month + make the account higher each month.

    • Leanne59 on 15/12/2023 - 11:56

      I have two high interest accounts (only one has a large sum the other one only has about $10) and when I want to take the interest out I just move the interest to my everyday account and then move the the lump sum to the other high interest account on the first of the month so I don’t miss the high interest. I do this every 3 to 6 months going back and forth between the two accounts so I don’t lose the high interest each month. I’m with Suncorp and use their “Growth Saver Account”.

      • Yola on 16/12/2023 - 09:08

        If you are talking about ING you can do the same but have to activate the other account to receive interest for the next month and increase its balance before the end of the month.

        • Leanne59 on 16/12/2023 - 12:29

          Suncorp Growth Saver accounts and you only have to deposit $200 per month to get the bonus interest. I take out my interest and deposits for the six months out on the 1st of the month and then move the balance to my other Growth Saver account. Getting the bonus interest on the second account and only losing 1 day.

    • Stingo on 15/12/2023 - 18:46
      +2

      Details depend on the product. Worst case withdraw the entire account balance to another institution on the first day of the month and reset the criteria over a month or two. Custom recipes can be found in specific product discussions on Whirlpool.

  • Clarky77 on 23/12/2023 - 19:54

    I think ubank is best ongoing but atm I’ve got my savings parked with Rabobank for 4 months as they have 5.75% offer. Both don’t require any transactions either which was a selling point for me.

    • Stingo on 23/12/2023 - 22:54
      +2

      No. AMP Saver has a comparable hoop and currently offers 5.2% and will offer 5.4% from February.

  • seraphim64 on 30/12/2023 - 08:24

    Apparently uBank is only for Aussie citizens and PR. tough luck for international students and non-residents

    • Stingo on 30/12/2023 - 21:57
      +1

      Probably not a good option for them anyway since it doesn't accept international payments via SWIFT AFAIK.

  • umoddbro on 02/01/2024 - 14:30

    With the decent interest rates last year ATO hit me with a payg instalment…. Anyone else?

    • Yola on 02/01/2024 - 18:09

      Yes, I had that a few years ago. Just from interest. And now the Coles Mastercards do not seem to work at ATO. Double whammy.

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