Hiver dropped their Target Saver rate from 5.5% to 5.25% today.
Does anyone know if this is also for existing customers?
I only joined on 30/01/24 but haven't had a notice of the rate drop. I would expect that some prior warning would be required.
Thanks
if you have a substantial amount in there then it might be better to wait until the beginning next month before transferring out
Yeah. I just did my sums and losing 4 days of interest far exceeds any benefit of getting 5.4% with AMP for the remainder of the month.
Assuming you've maxed out AMP, I don't see any other alternatives with sane conditions to migrate to next month.
p.s. I've complained to Hiver about not showing you your current interest rate. This is why they don't.
I took all my money out on 4 March on principal only. I knew it didn't make financial sense to do so, but the Hiver move was so ethically wrong and morally bankrupt, I decided it was worth it regardless. Then I found the myriad ways they've breached their own Code of Practice and decided I have a very strong case to get all the lost interest back in compensation. Yes, it's going to take some time and work, but I'm going to make very strong points while doing it and I enjoy proving banks wrong, especially when I have the written proof of them lying to me.
So why did you join then??
This condition is buried in the FAQs its not mentioned on the main page or in the sign up process.
Yep, they suck people in every time!
unibank dropped as well, i'd say all the teachers mutual target saver accounts
gullible thinking good things last forever
It was so fast it was almost bait and switch.
I am going to start taking money out from 1/4 as that is a Monday, so even if it doesn't get to the other bank until next day, at least it isn't spinning wheels earning nothing over a weekend the 1/3 was a Friday and I wasn't having it possibly sitting in limbo all weekend). I have more than 1 target saver, so I can transfer what I am not going to send to another bank to another Target saver for the bonus rate and transfer the rest to the transaction account. That way I don't lose the interest for the month and it also does the deposit of $1000 requirement. 1/5 is mid week so I will transfer more then.
if you want it all out you can raise the limit using the online form. i haven't tried but it states it takes an hour or two to effect.
might just take what I need next month and leave the rest for now. I won't need the form for the amount I need. Do you know how long the increase is on for when you ring them? i.e 24 hours etc?
If you contact them via their secure messaging system or their online chat facility and ask for a phone number to call them, they will tell you they are an online only bank and that the online chat and secure messaging are the only means of contacting them to have your daily withdrawal limit raised. Up to 100K limit raises are effective for 3 days. Up to 500K limit raises are effective for only 1 hour (!!!). Over 500K requires forms and probably RTGS fees. The no phone number line is another lie. Hiver lie (a lot). Their phone number they won't tell you is in fact (02) 9735 9111 which will be answered as Teachers Mutual Bank Limited, but its the same number Hiver uses.
When you raise your limit and then perform a withdrawal, you will get an immediate SMS on your phone telling you your transfer has been 'held' pending the very same verification by phone you've just done with their staff to raise your limit in order to do the transfer in the first place. Yes, really. They send you on this endless roundabout in order to delay your transfers as much as possible so they can't be credited at another institution the same day. The phone number of the Cuscal fraud team they sub-contract to given in the SMS is (02) 9735 9544 (via an anonymous 1800 redirect number), but don't bother calling it because the hold time is always > 1hr, which means that if your withdrawal amount is > 100K and it's therefore only valid for 1hr, you can't get through to the fraud team to verify the payment before your raised transfer limit has expired, so now you have to start again and get back on the same roundabout.
Instead, call the 9111 number and ask a member of staff to put you through to the fraud team. When they internally transfer you to 9544, you will generally be answered within 15mins and the Cuscal fraud team member will commiserate with you and tell you how stupid the whole system is with re-verifying a payment you've literally just verified in order to put through and they will clear them straight away.
1/4 is also Easter Monday. You won't be taking any money out on 1/4 I can assure you.
damn, I didn't even realise that. Obv I would have by that weekend, but atm I hadn't thought that was the easter weekend (obv). I will now have to wait until May (which I am sure they realised when they did the rate change this month)
1st of April is Easter Monday/Fools Day - so they will get you for 1 day anyway - if you can wait until 1st of May or even better move the money to the new Target account (available to open from 28th of March) then you can take it out whenever. I am waiting to see what the rate will be on the new Target Account (new = old Target ressurected) and then plan/act accordingly.
The concensus is that most savers are extremely unhappy with Hiver. Not so much with the rate drop ( that was expected at some point) but with the total dissrespect to savers by not letting us know in advance (considering their strict NO withdrawal penalties).
the new "old" saver account is only 2.25% and now you have to contact them direct to find out the Target Saver rate as it is no longer showing at all. As of Friday it was still 5.25%, but who knows how long it will stay that way? They could change it on 1/4 and we wouldn't know until the next day contacting them via chat, as you can't see what the rate is online at all, and by that stage it is too late to transfer the money out, unless you had already transferred to the Saver account, which has a limit of 1 withdrawal a month before you lose the bonus rate.
Yes it is very bad - you can open 3 new saver accounts, potentially utilising 3 free withdrawals each month.
I plan to (at least try) to trial getting out $20K to Ubank, by using a $5K OSKO on April 1st from each of the Transaction account & the 3 new Saver accounts I created today.
I know that sounds brave & I do expect the worst (like OSKO payments held) etc. from this bank (even though I did a $5 transfer via OSKO to UBANK last week to try it out & that worked -:)
I will repeat on May 1st but this time doing $50K transfers & repeat until all money is out of HIVER (and good riddens - who wants or is expected to be with a bank with such financial uncertainty and zero consideration for its savers ?)
They have a nerve calling this a bank for & owned by essential workers - essential workers deserve more respect & are not stupid.
I have only been with them sice December and I have seen enough. Shame though as otherwise their Smart App & Online banking actually works well.
@souths123: I was able to do 2x$5K OSKO payments (no hold) to AMP on April 1st & repeat on April 2nd from the S1 & S7 accounts.
What others have experienced is that when you increase your daily limit (self serve or not) all payments get blocked & you have to call to release them.
I was fortunate enought not to experience any of that. I did a $5 transfer to the same accout mid March to avoid 1st time transfer holds.
@Ave Maria: Thanks @Ave Maria for keeping us in the know.
Managed to chat Hiver Customer Support.
Some information which might be useful. Answers quoted as from Hiver Customer Support. :
1. the current interest rate ( including Bonus rate) of previously available "Target Saver" accounts ( which are not available now as per Hiver website)
"5.25%"
2. In case the interest changes, will it be notified to me in the future?
"all you can do is check in on webchat"
Assuming the 'Hiver Saver' (available from 28/03) has the same rate, it might be worth considering opening one of these for any money you want to keep with Hiver and transferring out the rest on 01/04. The conditions appear to be better.
The 'Hiver Saver' bonus is paid "if during the month, you make one deposit per month and no more than one withdrawal in that same month and your account has a credit balance at all times."
You can't transfer anything out on 01/04. It is Easter Monday and no bank will be working.
as Legoman pointed out, unless you are willing to forgo interest for the 1st but transferring out on the 2nd, then you are better off leaving it for the month and doing on 1/5. I by then you will know the rate for the reinstated saver account, but I bet it is worse than the Target Saver
Yeah, it will all depend on the rate they offer for 'Hiver Saver', however since 'Hiver Target Saver' won't exist on their website I wouldn't be surprised if the 5.25% rate was set early to make the transition appear seamless. We should know all about 'Hiver Saver' on the 28/03.
At least 'Hiver Saver' allows one withdrawal, so you might not lose that day of interest transferring out on the 02/04.
Just a side note, internal transfers between accounts count towards limits.
so, you are saying if you transfer between accounts that affects your transfer amount to an external source that day? usually internal and external transfer limits are independent of each other
@souths123: No, I'm not referring to any dollar amount transfer limits, but the number of allowed transactions.
For example, if you transferred money from your 'Hiver Target Saver' to your newly opened 'Hiver Saver' account, you will lose ALL interest for that month on the 'Hiver Target Saver', even though the transfer was internal. In the terms and conditions they say "no withdrawals or transfers to other accounts (internal or external)". The same thing happens if you move ANY money to your 'Everyday Account'.
A 'Hiver Saver' account allows one transfer. The full terms for this account aren't yet available, however I would expect this one transfer limit includes internal and external transfers from the 'Hiver Saver'. Because the customer has no idea if they are about to lose all interest for that month, we need to be careful. Others have already wondered why they got $0 interest due to this condition.
Boy was I wrong! The 'Hiver Saver' rate is starting at 2.25%. Time to get away from this bank asap.
I just noticed this change. This sucks. I've only been with them for a handful of months. :(
Hiver are in compliance with the strictest, minimalist interpretation of their own T&C's. Morally and ethically though, they are bankrupt, but you will have trouble arguing against moral bankruptcy. They have demonstrated their means, ability and will to communicate changes to their accounts directly with their members quickly and for free via mass e-mail which they did with their change of terms e-mail literally 10 days before the rate change. However when it came to the rate change itself, they chose to spend the money on a public notice in The Australian newspaper in order to bury it so that no-one would see it in order to catch as many depositors out as possible and effectively trap the money for another month and prevent a 'run' of withdrawals. It is obvious to any thinking person what they've done here and why. What they've forgotten however, is that while they may have covered their arses with their own T&C's, they are also signatories to the Customer Owned Banking Code of Practice (COBCOP) and in this they are very much in breach. The COBCOP states in various places amongst its 188 points…
We will not mislead or deceive you either by what we say or represent, or by omission (what we fail to say or represent).
We will make general information about our products and facilities readily available in a timely manner to customers and the public. This information will be:
a) clear, concise and accurate
We are committed to timely communication with our customers
Interest rates and fees and charges applying to our products and facilities will be readily available to customers and the public. The information will be clear, concise and up-to-date. We will regularly review the effectiveness of our disclosure to customers of this information
They also state on their very own website https://www.tmbl.com.au/about/why-be-different the following:
We put our members first
At Teachers Mutual Bank Limited we’re owned by members for the benefit of members. What our members want aligns with what we deliver. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.
That is very clearly an out and out lie, which is by its very nature, yet another breach of their COBCOP they have signed on to. In fact, there are so many blatant breaches of the COBCOP it's actually hard to quantify them all.
I've written a complaint to their own internal complaints department ([email protected]). The reply took 5 days and it was predictably in the negative to paying the lost interest as compensation, claiming they are within their T&C's in what they did. They completely ignored their COBCOP responsibilities.
I have now forwarded the complaint to the COBCCC (https://cobccc.org.au/report-a-concern/) and am waiting their advice, but I expect this will be a simple handball to AFCA. When I get that it will be escalated to them. I recommend everyone do the same. If they get flooded with the same complaints about the same thing demanding payment of the forfeited interest for March as compensation, it will be a lot harder to ignore.
Good on you for having a go. Sometimes banks will pay you off 'just this once' to make you go away.
When I asked Hiver to confirm my current interest rate they just referred me to their website front page. They weren't able to tell me my personal current rate as they are just a banner change on a banking platform shared by many other groups. The fact that the interest rate was available on their website I expect will cover their obligations. They would consider this timely communication in the same way that a newspaper listing is legally considered making information publicly available.
They haven't stolen anything from me personally yet, so they haven't joined my list of 'NEVER AGAIN' banks (HSBC, CITI, RABO, BOM).
Their terms are fairly straight forward if you can be arsed rumaging around in the depths of their website to find them.
Could the interest rate change?
Yes. Interest rates can change without notice and are dependent on the current state of the market.
<very bottom of the Target Saver page in the FAQs, last question and you have to click on it to expand it to be able to read it>
Customer Owned Banking
Code of Practice
We warrant that we will comply with
the Customer Owned Banking Code of
Practice. Please see the section About the
Customer Owned Banking Code of Practice
at the end of these Conditions of Use for
more details.
<page 2 Conditions of Use PDF document - has to be downloaded as separate entity, not displayed on website>
Interest earned
If a variable interest rate applies to your account, this rate may vary from time to time.
Rates are set out on our website and the Hiver app provide information about our current interest rates.
We may at any time, subject to giving you the appropriate prior notice:
• vary interest rates on all accounts;
• vary and set balance amounts above which we will not pay any interest.
Changing interest rates
Day of change Electronically or by national media advertisement
<page 3 Conditions of Use PDF document>
I don't have a copy of the public notice they got published in The Australian on 1 March because whilst I have an online subscription (of sorts) for that paper, they do not publish public notices anywhere other than the print edition, just to make especially damn sure that no-one sees it because print editions of The Australian are only ever found in hotel lobbys, airport lounges, waiting rooms, private clubs, government offices and public areas. Fewer than 100,000 print copies of The Australian are produced on weekdays which represents less than 0.5% of the population, so calling this a "public notice" is taking the piss in the extreme.
That said, by the strictest interpretation of their T&C's, they have done the very least they had to do to get away with it. Morally they are bankrupt because they deliberately chose not to disclose the rate change when they advised the changed T&C's 10 days before. They chose not to use e-mail to advise the rate change when they had previously demonstrated they're very capable of doing so. They deliberately maintain both an online banking system and phone app that specifically does not disclose the current interest rate of held funds in order to keep members uninformed. They flat out lied to me in particular when they told me they have no phone number to contact (I have recorded and kept the written evidence). They deliberately frustrated and delayed the withdrawal of funds to ensure they would be very unlikely to be credited elsewhere the same day. But the thing that is going to trip them up is their promise to comply with the COBCOP. By doing the very bare minimum required by their own worded T&C's, they are also not complying with their COBCOP promises.
They also have no precedence clause in either the COBCOP or their own T&C's that declare which has precedence when they conflict with each other. With no precedence clause, the bank has to comply with BOTH and do not have the right to pick and choose which one they want to comply with.
Hiver has painted themselves into a corner because it is not possible to both comply with their COBCOP and the very minimalist interpretation of their own T&C's which are clearly worded and framed in order to make it as difficult and time consuming as possible to find a change in interest rate quickly enough to move funds without causing customer financial loss. As such, Hiver Bank are being deliberately deceptive in order to gain financially at their member's expense.
Here is Hiver's defence of their abominable actions (and non-actions) in their own words:
"Teachers Mutual Bank's long standing, but unofficial practice has been to perform savings interest rate changes on the 1st of the month. This provides members the opportunity to consider the best investments for them, without risking voiding their monthly accrued bonus interest on our reward products."
So quite literally, their defence is customer assumed knowledge. Because we've always done this in the past, we just assume that our customers know and expect this. Note that they don't actually publish or admit to this anywhere on their website or in any of their T&C documents. If they actually believed in their claims to "provides members the opportunity to consider the best investments for them" then they would include a line in their T&C's that says something like - "we strive to only make interest rate changes on a bank work day closest to and after the 1st of a month in order to limit financial disadvantage to our members". But is there a line similar to that anywhere actually written down and recorded? Of course not, because Hiver Bank doesn't give a rat's arse about their members or what's best for them, or a mutually beneficial relationship.
Got a response of sorts from COBCCC today. As expected, it was a straight handball across to AFCA dressed up with lots of polite flowery explanations about how powerless they are as an organisation and how they can't actually enforce or punish anyone of their signatory institutions for non-compliance with their codes. Their Code of Practice is therefore basically just a bunch of words arranged into sentences and paragraphs to look nice and official, but are actually meaningless. Compliance is completely optional and entirely up to the whim of each bank to decide whether they can be arsed operating within them or not.
So, in response, they've been sidelined and AFCA cases have been lodged instead. 29 pages the AFCA case dossier of evidence ran to. 6 pages of complaint description alone with 19 pages of attached correspondence evidence. We'll wait and see what response that gets.
Let us know how you go. I am trying to limit how many things I complain about to authorities given it seems so many companies are breaking the rules these days and no one does anything anyway. In my case a $50 or so loss is probably not worth the time it will take to complain.
You're dead right about the prevalence of lying and disregard for all regulations or code of practice or anything else basically. I blame Donald Trump for this seeming shift in attitude and complete disregard for long standing social norms and breakdown of what used to be considered socially acceptable behaviour. Donald Trump showed the world you can lie openly and blatantly and you can just openly flout rules and get away with it. All you need is a very thick skin and no shame at all and you will get away with it because it's just too hard and expensive for anyone to do anything to stop you. It used to be the case that shame and embarrassment were the main fences that kept people and companies from blatantly being dishonest. You wouldn't attempt to do that because the reputational damage incurred would be so detrimental to your ongoing business that it couldn't be risked. That isn't the case anymore. No businesses bother with repeat custom anymore. They don't care about bad reviews or repeat business because they've learned there's always more suckers around the corner of whom they can take advantage.
Coupled with the fact the authorities have basically no power to actually do anything punitive to them for breaking the rules and why would you even bother hobbling yourself with rules, when your competition across the street doesn't and is stealing all your customers by doing so?
I've just lost an open and shut warranty claim case against TP-Link too for a faulty EoP adapter I was sold. They agreed in writing to replace my adapter, so I posted it to them but when they received it, they decided it was all too hard and couldn't be bothered honouring their warranty promise, so they just told me nup sorry, changed our minds, not doing it, you can have your faulty adapter back. I had no recourse but to make a claim with NSW Fair Trading, who from the first contact told me in great detail they had no power to enforce or punish any firm for any breaches of anything at all under any laws whatsoever and that if I really wanted compensation through the Consumer Act, I would have to take the case to a tribunal court and pay the ~$250 lodgement fee, which of course is more than the adapter is worth.
All Fair Trading would do is attempt contact with the delinquent vendor on my behalf and if they refused contact twice, then they would give up and tell me they've done all they can and handball it back to me, which is exactly what happened, because if you got called by Fair Trading, would you answer? Of course you wouldn't. All the companies know damn well the so-called authorities have no power to do anything and if they just stonewall and refuse communication for long enough, then the 'problem' just goes away of its own accord with no consequences for them.
Nothing will change unless the authorites get some real power to cancel licences to operate and can shut businesses down. UBank should have had its banking licence cancelled and been shut down when they made such an abhorrent mess of the takeover of 86 400, but they weren't. They just continued and got away with probably the worst managed bank amalgamation in Australian financial sector history scott-free.
AFCA case 1/3 has just resulted in Hiver Bank missing the deadline for their response to AFCA entirely. No response whatsoever from Hiver Bank to a 32 page dossier of evidence against them. AFCA instructed this is considered admission of guilt and to issue them a letter of demand for the compensation payout sought.
Two of three AFCA cases against Hiver Bank have now expired their response deadlines with no reply from Hiver Bank at all. Both cases are being escalated now by AFCA to the next stage of intervention. Hiver are doing a good job of demonstrating their Lie-Deny-Delay complaints strategy here. Can't imagine adding their contempt for the AFCA process is going to help their case very much, but we'll see.
Hiver Bank are now three for three. All three of my AFCA cases against them have not been replied to by the required deadline. All three cases are now proceeding to AFCA's case management stage which I think just means a real human being actually gets involved now, instead of just forwarding complainant correspondence in a post office fashion. This is a new one for me and I am curious to see where this ends up. I've never encountered a bank that is so delinquent in their operations that they won't even respond to AFCA correspondence.
Interesting development today. AFCA advised that TMBL (Hiver) had questioned AFCA's juristiction to even hear the case at all and called for them to be thrown out completely. I know it sounds like a Donald Trump case, but this is genuinely TMBL's tactic. As a delaying move, it worked because it took AFCA another 2 weeks to decide my cases were within their juristiction to hear. The query TMBL went with was the complaint is about the general level or fairness of the interest rate applied to its savings accounts, which falls outside AFCA Rule C.1.2(a). Needless to say, I have never complained that Hiver was "unfair" in lowering their rate from 5.5% to 5.25% and I have never made a case about their chosen level of interest rate, because such an argument has no justification and has nowhere to go. TMBL have really gone to extreme effort to twist the interpretation of my complaint into one about "unfairness" or general levels of interest rates, when no mention of such was ever made. It's like they've gone full politician mode and read what they wanted to see in the complaint instead of what's actually there. Anyway, AFCA have to their credit seen right through that and on we go to the next stage.
new target savers cannot be opened from 28/03. as per advice from Ave Maria, you can open up to 3 target savers, so you transfer some out and shuffle the rest to another target saver account if necessary
Wow just notice my account and not happy! I’ll be moving it out asap!
First AFCA case against the rate drop no notice against Hiver has been decided and resolved. Cut to the chase… TMBL are paying me 3.7x the interest I lost in the rate change on 1 Mar as both repaying the lost interest + compensation for forcing me to take the case to AFCA. Case lodged 13 March, resolved 16 May. That's how long you typically will have to wait for a resolution via AFCA if you go up against a bank that wants to fight. I am now expecting this case to be a precedent and pave the way for my other two cases to be resolved the same way.
The payout comes with no apology, contrition, acknowledgement of guilt or remorse for their utterly appalling behaviour, lack of ethics and non-existent morals. As such, TMBL has well and truly been added to my list of 'never again' banks. It is worth noting that I have never been contacted by the case manager at Hiver Bank who was assigned my case after they promised to get back to me in their first and only communication. This perfectly illustrates their attitude towards account holders - ignore them and hope they go away. The only thing left now is to report their behaviour and the outcome to the Consumer Owned Banking Code Compliance Commitee with the case result and recommend the whole of TMBL be booted out.
Thanks for sharing the update
HIver/TMBL are the absolute kings of slow-walking, feet dragging, lie-deny-delay tactics. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Donald Trump himself learnt his MO from the likes of Teachers Mutual Bank in fact.
3 months almost to the day, they have finally paid the compensation due from their deceptive rate change on Friday 1 March. After agreeing to pay up 8 days ago they announced it would take them 7 days to organise that payment… because afterall, you just can't expect a bank with all the resources a bank has at their fingertips, to be able to organise a payment any quicker than 7 days, when any normal non-bank employee citizen with a mobile phone and free wifi can do the same thing in under 30 seconds. The 7 days was up yesterday, so last night I sent a very aggressive e-mail withdrawing my acceptance of the compensation offer and advising the AFCA case would be re-opened and the new compensation figure was now $100 greater and would continue to increase by an additional $100 for every 7 days until they did pay.
It would appear that got someone's attention, though you'd never know it because Hiver/TMBL steadfastly do not communicate with account holders once an AFCA case has been started at all. The only correspondence I ever got from them was back on 19 March where they (jokingly as it turned out) promised to keep in touch and continue to discuss the case with me. Unsurprising given all the lies they told which started the case in the first place, these were just more lies. To anyone foolish enough to consider depositing money with any of the nest of banks under the Teachers Mutual Bank Limited entity, prepare yourself to be told an endless stream of neverending lies until you lose the will to live.
Second case against Hiver bank just won. Interest lost plus $500 for pain and suffering paid out as compensation. They really are massive d!cks. The lost interest was only $35. I gave them the option to just pay that and I'd go away quietly and not drag them through all of AFCA and the COBCCC, but oh no, they knew best and wanted to fight. So now they get to pay $535 instead. Knobs. Still a third case outstanding which is going to go exactly the same way.
Third case finally settled and resolved today. Same as previous two. Lost interest+$500 costs for the time and effort to get AFCA involved.
Total lost interest across all three cases was $403. Gave TMBL/Hiver every decent opportunity to pay that straight away up front to avoid AFCA cases. They declined. 3.1/2 months later and their total loss payout after losing all three cases has been the $403 + $1500 in costs + 3 x $1,048.50 in AFCA fees. Total cost to TMBL/Hiver for being coques = $5,048.50.
And to think they could have just made it all go away quietly for $403 back in March…
FYI soon this BS of not telling customers when the rates change will end. Labor agreeing to some new laws so banks need to inform customers of rate changes:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jun/…
@Legoman
Thank you for sharing your wisdom . I've just embarked on my journey of fighting against UniBank/TMBL/Hiver with AFCA due to dishonest and unscrupulous business conduct . I am very glad that you've achieved a positive outcome with AFCA in relation to undeclared reduction in the interest rates .
I'd like to ask a few quick questions about your interest rate points since I believe TMBL will try the same tricks with me . Could you please send me a quick email to gpynreolink et gmail dot com ?
Thanks in advance
Gprp
e-male sent
I think i can answer my own question but I will leave this up so maybe other can be informed.
The Hiver website says the rates can change "without notice" so they won't even tell you when they drop and your locked in till the end of the month as if you do a withdrawal you get basically nothing for that month.
This is shocking and I have always been informed way ahead of time with all the other accounts I have.
Not sure who updates the leader board (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/145iM6uuFS9m-Rul65--e…) but if anyone knows how to message them it needs an update and should have this warning that the rates can change without any notice.
This is really dodgy behaviour as Hiver sent an email only a week or two ago about changes to the Target Saver account but the rate drop wasn't mentioned and I bet this was planed for more than a week so they knew it was coming but purposely didn't inform their customers.