In our monthly Ratehacker round-up, Jeremy Cabral from finance comparison site finder.com.au highlights recent credit card offer changes, plus the best savings accounts and home loans.
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Christmas has come early with some deals that we haven’t seen in a long time being released to the market this month. Each category has been broken up by feature this month making it easier to highlight offers across a broad section of the market.
Credit Cards
Feature: 0 per cent Balance Transfer
St.George Vertigo MasterCard: 0 per cent per annum for 12 months on balance transfers. St.George is back in front with its latest balance transfer offer released yesterday. 0 per cent per annum for 12 months is the longest 0 per cent balance transfer in market with no balance transfer fee and a low revert rate of just 13.24 per cent per annum. (If you’re in Victoria you may prefer Bank of Melbourne for the same offer or BankSA for those in South Australia.)
Feature: Low On-Going Purchase Rate
McGrath Pink Visa: 8.99 per cent per annum on purchases, balance transfers and cash advances. Besides having a low purchase rate, half the annual fee of $40 is donated to the McGrath Foundation every year you hold the card.
Feature: 0 per cent Introductory Purchase Rate
St.George Platinum Visa: 0 per cent on purchases for 12 months and 0 per cent for 9 months on balance transfers. Currently the longest 0 per cent purchase offer in market, just released yesterday. Includes overseas travel insurance, extended warranty on purchases for select personal items and 24/7 Visa Platinum Concierge. (Same offer available from BankSA and Bank of Melbourne)
Home Loans
Feature: Variable Rate
Loans.com.au Blackboard Special – 80 per cent to 90 per cent LVR: 4.66 per cent comparison rate. Available for new purchases only. Borrow up to 90 per cent of the property value. You can also benefit from a 100 per cent redraw offset facility and an option to pay interest only for up to 10 years.
Feature: Discounted Interest Rate
UBank UHomeLoan (Variable Rate): 4.62 per cent comparison rate. There is an option to either get the upfront discount of 0.25 per cent per annum. off the variable rate or get a loyalty discount of 0.10 per cent per annum. off the variable rate after 3 years. You can borrow up to 80 per cent of the property value.
Feature: Fixed Rate Home Loan
Newcastle Permanent 3 Year Fixed Rate Home Loan: 5.33 per cent comparison rate. This loan has no establishment fee and the option to make interest only repayments for up to five years. It is possible to borrow up to 95 per cent of the property value.
Savings Accounts
Feature: Introductory Variable Rate
RaboDirect High Interest Savings Account: 4.51 per cent per annum for 4 months. Available to new customers only for balances up to $250,000. There is no monthly account keeping fee or minimum balance requirement.
Feature: On-Going Bonus Variable Rate
RAMS Saver Account: 4.51 per cent per annum. If you are able to deposit a minimum of $200 per month without making any withdrawals you will benefit from a high on-going interest rate of 4.51 per cent per annum.
Feature: Low Monthly Deposit, Regular Savings
easystreet Bonus Saver Account: 4.08 per cent per annum. If you want to commit to a regular savings plan but with a lower deposit amount, this account gives you a bonus interest rate so long as you deposit at least $50 a month and make no withdrawals.
Transaction Accounts
Feature: No Foreign Transaction Fees
Citibank Plus Transaction Account: Fee free bank account, no foreign transaction fees. This account has no monthly account keeping fee, dishonour fee or overseas ATM withdrawal fees. When you are using a Citibank, St.George, Westpac or BankSA branded ATM you won’t be charged an ATM withdrawal fee. Also includes free international money transfers and a free bottle of wine when you pay with your card at participating restaurants in the Citibank Dining Program.
Feature: Cashback Transaction Account
ING DIRECT Orange Everyday Account: 5 per cent cash back on contactless purchases. No monthly account keeping fees. A unique benefit of 5% cashback on purchases you make under $100 using contactless payment. Additionally, if you withdraw over $200 at any ATM machine you won’t be charged an ATM withdrawal fee.
Feature: Linked Transaction Account
USaver Ultra Transaction Account: Bonus 0.80 per cent interest on normal USaver rate. A newly released transaction account from UBank. Deposit $2,000 or more each month to receive 0.80 per cent per annum. on top of your normal UBank USaver account interest rate. You must have $10,000 deposited into a UBank USaver Account or a settled UBank UHomeLoan.
Jeremy Cabral is the Personal Finance Publisher at finder.com.au which includes popular comparison sites CreditCardFinder.com.au and SavingsAccountFinder.com.au, helping over 4.8 million Australians compare financial products every year. Connect with Jeremy on Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Comments
10 responses to “Ratehacker: October’s Best Credit Card, Bank And Home Loan Deals”
No personal Loans?
NAB has no application fee and no monthly fee with them at the moment. Plus there Interest rate was better then my BankWest loan.. Win-Win
Thanks for the comment. Great call! We should totally include some personal loan offers. Perhaps we could include a personal loan, car loan, debt consolidation loan for the next ratehacker – stay tuned.
Our extensive research suggest that Citibank Plus is currently the BEST transaction account in Australia.
Citibank is also running a promotion on their Citibank Plus account whereby they will pay you $120 in cold hard cash for opening the Citibank Plus transaction account together with the fee-free online savings account (which also has a very competitive promotional rate) and depositing a minimum of $3,000 every month for a period of 12 months. The money does not have to stay in the account and can be withdrawn the day after being deposited.
http://citibank.com.au/aus/packages/starter_package.htm
And just to make it clear to everyone reading this: we do NOT have any advertising or other relationship with Citibank and do not receive any ‘kickbacks’ from them.
Thanks for sharing this ginmi. It’s a great account for all those reasons and more 🙂
I like the Westpac flexi-loan, it’s less a loan and more a line of credit, but since I’m not exactly sure how much I’ll need I like this option. I only have to repay what from the total line of credit I’ve actually used, and I only pay interest on that amount too. The downside is that the rate isn’t competitive, and there’s an establishment fee of $150. Also, for any period where you’re repaying the line of credit there’s a $10 monthly service fee. Still, it’s working well for me, though if there are similar but less fee driven options around I’d be interested to know.
Thanks for sharing this Ju!
Also, 28 Degrees Mastercard from GE money will START CHARGING A FEE for cash withdrawals starting from January 1st. This means Citibank Plus will become the only option available to Australians who want to withdraw cash at ATMs outside Australia without paying ANY fees.
http://www.28degreescard.com.au/faqs/cash-advance-fee.html
Thanks for sharing this ginmi!
Car loan would be very helpful. I’m looking at the market at the moment trying to work out what will suit me best and some help would be great.
@Dark00 thanks for the feedback – I will try to loop that in to the new personal loans section for November 🙂