ubank to increase savings rates
Another month of being the first to move savings rates following an RBA cash rate decision, ubank will increase its 'Save' account rate by 0.25% to a total of 4.60% p.a. from 1 April 2023.To receive ubank's rate of 4.60% p.a. customers are required to have a ubank Spend account and deposit $200 per month (excluding internal transfers) into any Spend and Save accounts.
Source: https://www.savings.com.au/news/rba-savers-march-2023
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Depends, if you have BOQ at 5.15% and Bank of Melbourne it works fine. Best to use a few anyway and also not to go over $250k per ADI.
Could you open a second account, and move your balance minus what you need to spend between accounts on the first of the month?
Oh, you said that. I should have kept reading before replying. 😂
I believe I used to do that back in the day, with RAMS.
that's why i dont have ing account, they know they can save money from those who fail to meet requirements. ING sav acc is only good if you have less than 100k and have only one bank account with them…and if you intend to keep the money not use it.
@izkai67: After the first month you can use ALL your monthly deposit less 1c with ING. ING also has no OS trans fees, and pays 50c every time you get cashout at (some) supermarkets (reasonable use).
Agree only dumb people don't understand what you explained
IMO the best bank to pair with the higher rate ones you're willing to jump through hoops for.
$200 monthly external deposit is super easy, the card is also good with no currency conversion fees (some banks do refunds if you meet monthly criteria but that's an extra step and another thing to keep track of).
Pretty much this. I moved away from ING years ago and split my savings and day-to-day funds between banks. Now that we're back in a world where interest rates matter again, I'm not willing to combine both of my funds again for a worse day-to-day experience, just to be able to jump through hoops, when banks like ubank are set and forget. ubank is absolutely fine, and 0.5% is hardly worth uprooting my entire financial automation for.
$200 monthly external deposit is super easy…
Barely an inconvenience!
As usual, the first to announce but the last to apply the rate.
They want the cheap headline lol
They also believe in delayed gratification.
bye bye macquarie. Hello Ubank.
I'm in the same boat seemingly. Am I wrong in thinking that Macquarie hasn't passed on all of the recent rate rises?
Yeah down to 3.8% after introductory months. I did enjoy the no hoops though
I will still have one month left of introductory rate of 4.5%. But this has fallen below market standards.
I only opened a Macquarie account last month. Guess at the end of this month, I'll be transferring my house deposit money back to Ubank.
Same
Been with Ubank since the start. No issues here. I also joined those neobanks like Volt but they all went kaput. Ubank has been solid.
Just be mindful, bank telegraphic transfers can take up to a week if you switch banks so makes it not worth it.
I transfer hundreds of thousands frequently and as long as you do it before each banks cut off eg. 7 pm for ING, and 6 pm for NAB the funds arrive before midnight 99% of the time.
Did one at the start of the month to switch to ubank, took a week to arrive. Very frustrating.
From where?
Still waiting to be changed to the new Ubank.
Me too but very happy to be the last. Enjoying the best features of both.
No I want to be the last. My precious sweeps!!
Love Ubank.
recommend uBank!!
With UBank now, IMO great for someone who wants a set and forget bank. I recieve pay check to Commbank, then ship it to Ubank to meet the $200 criteria. Not a fan of banks where its an intro period or need to make purchase with their card.
Is there any reason you don't just have it deposited straight into Ubank and skip Commbank?
$200 might be the reason.
Personally I'd pay to UBank, then have a monthly auto transfer between another bank account to meet the $200 criteria.
But having pay go into the account counts for the $200. Not sure what the difference is to have it go to Commbank first and then transferred to uBank.
My pay goes directly to one of my Ubank savings accounts. As soon as the first pay of the month happens, I'm eligible for the bonus interest, even if I haven't deposited any other money.
@DoaAn: Of course, silly me. My employer hasn't been paying me for a while, so I set up a monthly $200 transfer to maintain the bonus interest.
Commbank has a $2000 monthly requirement or you have to pay a fee.
That would explain it. Thanks.
So I could make a Ubank account and have my employer pay my wage into that and that would count to the $200 dollars?
Because I might do that and leave my NAB account behind. Or is Ubank missing features that I would miss from a big bank or is it just the same, because I'm not quite understanding the catch?
The big banks have physical branches and provide most functionality via website, whereas these smaller/newer banks are mostly app-only or at least app-required, and no branches. Other than that I haven't noticed any missing features I'd use.
You would lose ability for cheques and cash,
You can get cash out easy, but can't deposit
Open a NAB account for cash & cheques deposit. You can even use the app to deposit a cheque.
Yeah, I decided to move to most my funds to Ubank and just keep my NAB one on hand for cash deposits etc and see how it goes.
I figured I'm going to be changing cards because I got caught up in a data breach this week (the eye4fraud one brought to light by haveibeenpwned), so now is a good time to change anyway. Cheers for the feedback.
Wowowwww!!! Decision Decision.
This or Tesla
Save more cash, if you splurge on cars, Phil will have to hike again.
I think he meant stonks
Is the limit $500k if it’s a joint account?
need two accounts, one in each name
how about having the old UBANK with 250k limit + open a new UBANK with 250k limit.
I was told thef have not merged threfore you can have 250k max in ubank old + another 250k max on the new ubank
Not sure you can still open an old Ubank account.
If you have a joint account with 2 names listed it is $250k per person so can earn the special rate on up to $500k. Have confirmed this with Ubank myself via email to their team but cant say I have enough $$ to know for sure
Cheers!
having some technical issues with uBank after I made some changes but prior to that, they were pretty easy to use and good for earning bonus interest!
first to announce…different to moving
More rate rises please.
If the balance is 280k, and you deposit 200, I assume you get the interest on the 250k only?
Yeah, the bonus rate (most of it, something like 4.5%) only applies to the first 250k so the remaining 30k only gets the base rate (I think 0.1%).
Open another account at a different bank for the left over 30k and collect interest there.
Ok thank you! :)
I believe they work out an average rate and apply it to the whole amount. There is a convoluted formula to work this out in the terms document. There is also a bit of rounding that can go on.
In practice, you might see the rate in you account info drop by 0.01% or thereabouts for going over a bit.
If you remove the amount above 250k, it seems to return to the full rate the next day.
Their customer service is s***. I’ve been with them for missing bonus cash for months and this still doesn’t get resolved! Good luck guys!
i switched to BOQ 5.15%
Calling it. Saving accounts will go to about 8.5% in April 2024. Come back and tell me I'm wrong.
Hi, I'm from the future!
Sorry you were so wrong mate, but the future is bright!
what is the best rate you can get and from which bank where you don't have the hassle of doing transactions. doing deposit to grow is fine as can setup auto transfer
Macquarie savings 3.80
No requirements
Bankwest 4%
People replying with rates of 4% and under but the best rate with no transaction requirements (aside from monthly deposit) is the one in this deal - ubank at 4.6%.
you are right. totally missed it as i thought you need to transactions. this amount is the best one.
correct me if I'm wrong but all you have to do is:
a. deposit $201 each month. there is no limit on how much you withdraw.
b. technically you can setup auto transfers where $201 go into this save account at start of month, then end of month you move to another bank and then send that again.
so you can just setup the scheduled recurring transfers and that's it. no hassles.
would above work?
From what I understand, yeah that's right, the only requirement is that $200 enters your spend or save account at some point in the month. Should be very easy to schedule like you said.
Yes, it works and I have done it many times when I don't have work .. !
UBank don't have the best rate, but they are worthy of respect for having certain features unmatched by others. I think it's a powerful bank account, and it's one of my main accounts for these reasons.
The first is that you can transfer directly out of the savings account without it passing through the transaction account. This is powerful. You can set up direct debits to draw directly from the savings account, meaning that you can keep your interest-free transaction account balance very low without risking an overdraw (or bounced bill payments and the consequences that follow). Pair this up with a credit card with automatic direct debit payments. It's totally set and forget.
The second is you can set up low balance alerts on both the transaction and savings accounts. A lot of banks lack this basic feature, which again prevents overdraws and enables you to top up your savings account when it is low to avoid direct debits overdrawing the account, or failing. Again, it's probably not in the bank's interest to enable this (so that you keep a big balance in your transaction account earning zero interest).
The third is there are few hoops to jump through for the bonus rate, and a higher maximum balance, than ING or myBOQ.
Don't dismiss them because of the rate. It's an ideal account to have set up for automated bill payments, because few banks allow you to achieve the above - they force you to keep a sizeable reserve balance in your transaction account, earning diddly squat interest.
Tried to open Ubank account through the app. After entering all personal information always gets "Something's not right, call us to fix it" error message at the very end when account is being created. Called number 3x, every time, the agent says it's a timeout issue and I should try again. They are not able to help open an account or tell me exactly what was wrong. I guess I'll have to stick with Macquarie.
Opened one a week ago via the website, quite simple. Have you tried that?
Move Bank 5%
Except you can't withdraw your money and get the 5%? UBank allows withdrawals.
ING always shows Accrued Interest on a daily basis.
I've just moved some cash over to UBank. Is there anywhere in the App or Website that shows your Accrued daily Interest?
Not a dealbreaker, just nice if you can keep track of the interest…
No
Is the interest credited on the 1st day of the following month?
Yes
Having to increase balance each month is one of the worst hoops to jump. What if you have $150k saved but need to spend $5k one month? No interest then. You can move your money into the account at the start of the month and all of it (minus a bit) out before the end of month… and lose a day or two of interest on each side, and hope a delay on the bank's end doesn't cause you you to lose out the following month's interest by making too-high a barrier, etc etc.
What a pain in the ass.