Any suggestions which banks are the least shit?
Any suggestions which banks are the least shit?
I was switching to that Up Bank (by Bendigo), but they straight refuse to let me fund my crypto account, so that's out because I just want basic control of my own money.
I also have a Bank Australia account, but, while they like to pat themselves on the back about sustainability, their service and product is crap, imo.
So what else you got?
Edit: Just realised I should probably have posted this to AusFinance, but ah well!
they straight refuse to let me fund my crypto account
Sounds like they're doing you a solid
17Haha, I hear ya. But also, maybe not letting me use my own money how I want is a good argument for crypto? 🤷♂️ But they'd happily let me gamble my money away on a sportsball, or buy Funko Pops, so who's to say what should be 'allowed'.
3Well, you're not wrong in that regard!
Gotta admit, everytime I see yet another news story about some idiot transferring their life savings to a Nigerian prince I find it very hard to agree that they should be refunded by the bank. Why is it up to the bank to compensate you for being an idiot? Take responsibility for your actions, damn.
5The difference being people aren't regularly the victims of jerks getting into their Internet Banking and betting large sums of money on sportsball with their money. But they are victims of jerks transferring thousands into crypto where its out of reach of the classic financial system.
I do agree there should be some sort of opt-in flag that says "yeah bro, this account will transfer money into crypto. Let the transaction through". But it should be very non-trivial to opt-in, also. Like a branch visit where a human can sound you out to see if you're being scammed.
3
ING has always been good for me and I have never had any issues transferring funds to Swyftx or Cryptospend.
7Been with ING for... hell, 20ish years? My only issues with them are:
- They're slow to adopt new tech. Tap payments, Google Wallet/ApplePay integration, etc. takes a bit longer than the major banks.
- They screwed me over once on what should have been a routine (and totally affordable) mortgage extension to finance some renovations. I'm still a bit salty about it, but it was mid-covid and I suspect their competitors would have been just as cagey and risk-averse at the time.
For day-to-day regular transaction account stuff they've been super chill, and their front-line customer service is surprisingly decent.
4Unfortunately ING is slowly watering down or removing the features which made them great - like removing the rebates for international Atm operator fee, or requiring more hoops to jump through just to get the maximum savings interest rate.
Still better than the rest I guess but not as good anymore.
6
I've tried a lot. My two current faves are Macquarie and Up. Just realised I haven't changed for ages so they must be good.
Are Up giving you a reason for not accepting the transfer? I haven't transferred any to my crypto provider for a while, but it used to work fine
7Many of the Australian banks are starting to clamp down on crypto transactions due to scams and ransomware. Some of them won't allow transfers to "high risk" exchanges, whereas others are stopping them altogether.
https://www.bendigobank.com.au/media-centre/bendigo-bank-blocks-high-risk-crypto-payments-to-protect-customers/
https://www.commbank.com.au/support/security/cryptocurrency-payments.html
https://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/media/media-releases/2023/18-May/
https://news.nab.com.au/news/scam-strategy-update/5Yeah, seems like a blanket rule with Up. They said:
"Your account has been reviewed and unfortunately we are unable to allow you to proceed with payments to cryptocurrency exchanges. We apologise for the inconvenience, however the financial safety of our customers and community are our top priority."
2
No idea about crypto, but Great Southern Bank is excellent.
They are a "customer owned" bank - so all profits the bank generates from the money you deposit, fees you pay (there aren't many fees) are returned to you, as both a customer and partial owner of the bank.
5I think a lot of the 'customer owned' banks are usually good, they can be regional based as well. IE for Newcastle area Greater Bank and Newcastle Permanent Buildng Society both have lots of branches and good customer support for local. I used to like StGeorge until Westpac took them over, went downhill after that
6Good suggestion, credit unions are the way to go.
2Looking very good actually, thanks!
1
Gateway Bank lets me run their app on a rooted phone. They care about their customers.
They don't support google pay either.
4I rate ME bank, out of the banks my partner and I looked at they offered some of the better interest rates for us and they've been pretty good so far. Downside is there are no branches but AusPost has facilities to allow deposit and withdrawal iirc.
2I was going to say Bank Australia but it seems you've had some issues.
I've got a Savings account and Credit Card with them, I haven't had any issues.
2We've previously had a mortgage with Bank Australia and they were probably one of the worst in terms of the high interest rates they charged.
Everything came to a head recently when we tried to borrow some additional funds to purchase a new house. We'd signed a contract subject to 14 days finance and once we called Bank Australia they told us it would be 5 - 6 weeks before they could approve anything and would not even be able to start looking at anything for over a week.
Called our broker who got on to Macquarie and they had a valuer out at the property at 9am the next morning to start the approvals process.
Would never, ever use or recommend Bank Aus to anyone.
2