Next week Anz planning to start selling a new transactions account , offering a raft of banking and non-banking extras for an $18 monthly fee. Banks have given away a lot of revenue on retail transaction banking since dropping or reducing overdrawn account, late payment and other exception fees last year.
ANZ, which charges a flat rate of $5 a month on its standard transaction accounts, is hoping it can persuade customers to trade up to ANZ Extras, costing $18 a month, with an offer that includes dining and shopping discounts, bonus rates on savings accounts, emergency...
New transactions account at ANZ Bank...
Posted by admin in Credit Card News on 06 9th, 2010 | Comments Off
Credit Card Rates Update...
Purchase and cash advance rates on some credit cards, particularly some low rate credit cards, have gone up by more than the movements in the Reserve Bank’s official cash rate this year. Card issuers have also been changing their low-rate or zero-rate balance-transfer deals, shortening the periods for which the low rates apply. Many cards have purchase rates over 20 per cent now, with cash advance rates even higher.
After the Reserve Bank put up the cash rate by 25 basis points in April, Citibank increased its personal credit card rate by 60 basis points, from 14.99 per...
Posted by admin in Credit Card News on 05 3rd, 2010 | Comments Off
Criticism on Woolworths debit card Schem...
Woolworths should reverse its clumsy intervention into the payments system to prevent any further inconvenience and confusion for scheme debit users. “Woolworths announced on April Fool’s Day that it would force all Visa Debit and MasterCard Debit cardholders to use the EFTPOS system when shopping at Woolworths group stores, such as its supermarkets, BIG W, Dan Murphy’s and Dick Smith,” says Abacus CEO Louise Petschler.
Abacus is the umbrella organisation representing credit unions and building societies. “As the customer backlash builds,...
From credit cards to debit cards...
AUSTRALIANS’ love affair with credit cards is waning as people switch to using cash and debit cards.
Reserve Bank of Australia statistics show credit card use has dropped almost 17 per cent in the past five years and now accounts for just under 42 per cent of all card transactions. Debit scheme cards, which are increasingly being offered by banks and credit unions, are the main reason for the trend. This card use has increased more than 30 per cent in the past 12 months alone.
“Debit scheme cards give consumers the best of both worlds; accessibility...
Posted by admin in Banks on 04 12th, 2010 | Comments Off
Aviva cost savings emerge for NAB...
National Australia Bank is expecting to extract more “synergies”, meaning cost savings, from its takeover in late 2009 of Aviva, the Australian wealth management platform business purchased from the firm’s UK-based parent. In the course of an interview with Business Spectator, published on Friday, Cameron Clyne, NAB’s chief executive, said that, “with regard to Aviva, we are ahead of our business case synergies.
“In fact we just upgraded our synergies by 29 per cent and our synergy estimates are more aggressive in Aviva than they are in Axa, so I think we’re very...
Good times sting as interest rates rise...
BOOMING house prices contributed to the Reserve Bank’s decision to boost the cash rate to 4.25 per cent yesterday, with most economists warning several more rate rises are likely this year.
In a widely-anticipated move, the central bank notched up its fifth 25 basis-point rate hike in seven months, saying the global recovery, Australia’s rising terms of trade and the outlook for inflation also had forced its hand. The dollar responded to the RBA’s decision by leaping as high as US92.46 – its strongest level in more than two weeks.
The...
Debt stress on the rise...
DEBT stress has risen to levels not seen since September 2008, with one in five Australians finding it hard to make repayments, a survey says. Veda Advantage’s biannual Australian Debt Study reveals one in five Australians with debt are finding it difficult to make repayments or unsure how they will make their next repayment.
The survey of 1042 people, conducted by Galaxy research, found four in five Australians were worried about their ability to repay debt over the next 12 months – up from 76 per cent in September 2009. “This is the highest level of debt...
2020 vision for HSBC...
The appetite of foreign banks for investment in meaningful distribution capacity in Australia ebbs and flows. In the case of HSBC, it is flowing again. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that HSBC is working on a program of opening between five and 10 branches a year between 2010 and 2020. The bank’s network in Australia will grow from 24 to between 70 and 100 branches.
Even before the financial crisis took hold HSBC was rationalising its investment in Australia, though changing priorities, and upgraded projections of population growth (driven by immigration from...
Financial crisis didn’t stop flow ...
THE Reserve Bank says the global financial crisis did not stop the flow of credit to consumers looking to buy houses, although the costs of funding those loans increased and lending standards were tightened.
RBA assistant governor of financial markets Guy Debelle said the GFC had a “material impact in pricing and structure” in the Australian mortgage market, but it did not have a material impact on the quality of housing credit provided. “Housing finance has been readily available throughout the crisis period, with housing credit growing at...
Australians being mugged by banks over c...
AUSTRALIANS are being ripped off. These are the findings of research into how our credit cards stack up against rules being introduced in Britain.
The research has emerged amid a furore over Westpac’s decision to charge interest on credit card interest and fees. Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan said Westpac’s behaviour was exactly why people didn’t like big banks. “Unfortunately this bank seems like it’s becoming a serial offender when it comes to taking its customers for a ride,” he said yesterday.
“There are other credit...
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