The 5 best savings account in Australia as of June 2023

Bryce: [00:00:26] Welcome to Get Started Investing a podcast where we attempt to answer the most common money and investing questions from the community to help us all become better investors. Now, if you're joining us for the very first time, a huge, huge welcome. Congratulations on starting your investing journey. We do recommend that you scroll up and start at episode one. Now, while we are licensed, we're not aware of your personal circumstances. So any information on this show is education and entertainment purposes only. Any advice is general advice. Let's crack on. My name is Bryce and as always, I'm joined by my equity buddy, Ren. How are you? 

Alec: [00:01:05] I'm very good, Bryce. Great to be here. Excited for this episode. This episode is inspired by a few Instagram posts that we've done which have just gone off. And sometimes you don't need to overthink it. All right. It is simply. What are the best savings accounts? 

Bryce: [00:01:22] Yeah. We're in an environment where interest rates are going up. And while it is hurting those who are with mortgages, it is also providing a little bit more opportunity for us to have some cash and get a little bit more of a return in our savings account.

Alec: [00:01:38] Yeah, I think the 2010s was a real lost decade for the savings account. You just didn't really make any money on your cash. And for the first time since I started taking my money seriously, there's money to be made from just having a savings account with a good interest rate. And that ties in well with my hundred dollar challenge task for this month, which is to actually take advantage of the better savings accounts out there, because right now my savings account isn't cutting. And so perfect time for us to look at what are the best savings accounts in Australia. We looked in February. Yeah, but interest rates have risen since then and now you can get 5% plus from your savings account. So if you're not, this is a good one to this will be a good task for you to join me on this month and upgrade your savings account. 

Bryce: [00:02:35] That's it. So as of early June, what we're about to go through the top savings accounts now, this is regardless of qualifies, as we've discussed, a lot of these accounts come with bonus interest. You must deposit 1000 here or you need to be with us for four months or whatever it may be. Please, whatever we discuss here, you should go and make sure you look at the terms and conditions for the interest rates. However, these are just the best, regardless of qualifiers. And as Ryan said, there's some pretty juicy ones in there. 

Alec: [00:03:04] Now the data source we're using for this is an unbelievable Google sheet that is updated pretty regularly as all the banks move their interest rates. We've shared that Google sheet both on the Equity Mates forum and in the Equity Mates Facebook discussion group. So if you want to say this sheet, it's got, I think, 64 rows of different possible savings accounts and their interest rates and their conditions and all of that stuff. So head over to the forum or to the discussion group to look at it yourself. But Bryce, with that said, we've got two honourable mentions and then the podium finish. 

Bryce: [00:03:41] Yes. 

Alec: [00:03:42] So hit me. Hit me with the honourable mentions. 

Bryce: [00:03:45] Honourable mentions go to the Macquarie Savings account with an interest rate of 5.05% and then the Rabobank High Interest Savings Account with 5.15%. So immediately ran straight off the back 5% savings account. Love to see it. 

Alec: [00:04:02] Now both of those are bonus rates for the first four months. But with that said, let's move to the podium finish. We said we were going to do the top five. We're actually sneaking in the top seven because third place has three savings accounts. All on equal footing.

Bryce: [00:04:21] Yes. Now, this is a bank that I hadn't heard of before. Love to see them sneaking in. Equal third is the Move Growth Saver account. It is offering 5.25% on its savings account. 

Alec: [00:04:35] That one requires a minimum deposit of $200 per month and no withdrawals. 

Bryce: [00:04:40] Yeah. So they're really encouraging you to keep that money in there. Coming in equal third again is the Great Southern Bank Youth eSaver account. Now, this is great for all of you who have kids and you really want to be encouraging them to save. This is for kids between zero and 17 years old. 

Alec: [00:04:57] Yes. 5.25% for your first $5,000. 

Bryce: [00:05:03] Stoked. If you're a kid 17 and you have five grand in your account. 

Alec: [00:05:06] Yeah. 

Bryce: [00:05:06] Forester loves to say that coming in at an equal number three as well is the ING savings maximiser account 5.25%. That is the account that I use. And you need to just be depositing $1,000 a month and using the transaction account for a minimum of five card transactions. You don't have to keep that thousand dollars. In there, though. Oh, really? You just have to transfer. 

Alec: [00:05:33] Oh, that's a bit of a loophole. 

Bryce: [00:05:34] A lot of them actually are like that. 

Alec: [00:05:36] So you get paid to a different bank account. You transfer $1,000 into your savings account, and then you take that thousand and put it in your transaction account, and then that's your spending money that would you take. 

Bryce: [00:05:47] Yeah, you could take it. 

Alec: [00:05:48] Very interesting. 

Bryce: [00:05:50] But then you'd have no money in your savings account. 

Alec: [00:05:52] Well, no, the assumption is you've got savings, but it's like the money that you just need to pay for your life. Yeah. Yeah. Goes from your paycheque to your savings to your transaction. But then you've got a pool of money in your savings that is set up like that. You just leave that. 

Bryce: [00:06:07] Well, yeah, if. 

Alec: [00:06:07] You didn't want to add to that when you can. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But if you, you know, if the cost of living is hurting, if you know, you got a 25% rent increase last month, like a lot of people right now are struggling to add to their savings. But doing it that way they could get the benefit and just use their paycheque for transactions still. Pretty good. 

Bryce: [00:06:29] Yeah, it's very handy.

Alec: [00:06:31] So as I said at the start price, this topic is quite close to my heart this month because my task is to improve my savings rate. Mm. Going through what we've looked at so far , Macquarie at 5.05 and Rabobank at 5.15 are both bonus rates for months. I know myself well enough that I'm not going to in four months, be active enough to then go and move to another bank. I'm lazy and I'll let it lapse and then I'd be getting a poor interest rate as well. The Youth Saver one. Unfortunately I might look 17, but I'm not 17. But there's two options there that I think are quite interesting for me. MOVE Growth Saver 5.25% and ING savings Maximiser of 5.25%. It does reassure me that you use that one. 

Bryce: [00:07:22] Yeah, well, I also would suggest that the transaction card that you that it comes with because you obviously need the transaction account is, I think, the second best travel card. 

Alec: [00:07:33] Well that's another. But Bryce, the third place on the podium. I'm surprised Mr.. I've got my money locked. Doesn't have the account with number one on the part here. Hmm. Let's take a quick break and then talk about number two and number one and find out why you're in third place. But first. All right, Bryce. Well, we are back and we are talking about savings accounts after a decade, maybe more, where you couldn't really get a lot of money from the bank with your cash savings. Now you can. Now there are accounts that pay you 5% or more interest on your cash. And so we're counting down the best at the moment in early June, because it's important to note that these do change over time. We've talked about two honourable mentions, Macquarie and Rabobank. We've talked about the third place on the podium, equal third move, Great Southern Bank, and I think we've got two to go. Give us the silver medal. Who came in second? 

Bryce: [00:08:40] Silver medal, also a bank. A bank which is the Bank of Queensland Future Saver Account. Now it gives a juicy 5.3% if you are between 14 and 35 years old. Similar conditions to the ING savings maximiser the deposit a thousand a month, make five or more eligible purchases through a linked transaction account. But if you are 14 to 35, you're going to get 5.35% if you meet that criteria. 

Alec: [00:09:08] No, just 5.3. 

Bryce: [00:09:09] Sorry, 5.3% if you meet that criteria. 

Alec: [00:09:11] Now let me ask Bryce. You said you bank with Bank of Queensland. People who are familiar with your bio may know that you worked at Bank of Queensland. Why are you with age rather than BOQ? 

Bryce: [00:09:23] I still operate through my BOQ.

Alec: [00:09:25] You're a multiple bank operator?

Bryce: [00:09:26] Yeah. Yeah. I still work, but I actually use mainly that every day to account for their transactions. All of my savings and whatnot is in the ING. But great to see. They were always in the top when it came to their savings offer. Yeah. Yeah. So good to see they're still up there. 

Alec: [00:09:44] Now what we haven't seen so far is any of the big four banks. 

Bryce: [00:09:47] Commonwealth not surprised.

Alec: [00:09:49] NAB, not ANZ. Westpac hasn't been featured so far. But that begs the question, Bryce, will one of the big banks with their fortress balance sheets and their billions of dollars that they could share with customers, will they come in at number one? Let's get to it. Gold Medal at the time of recording best interest rate in Australia. Whoever we got. 

Bryce: [00:10:14] Ren, we've got the Australian Mutual Bank Young Saver account. There's no hope with this. It's paid up to $5,000 and it is 5.5%. 

Alec: [00:10:26] So, Bryce, there is one big hope. You have to be between 12 and 17 is quite. 

Bryce: [00:10:31] Limited, quite limited. So technically they are number one, but yes, great.

Alec: [00:10:34] If you've got teenagers.

Bryce: [00:10:35] That's great if you've got teenagers. So 12 to 17 year olds, if you're lucky enough to be in that bracket and you're looking for a decent savings account, look no further than the Australian Mutual Bank. Young Saver, 5.5%. So that's it. When they are, they're the top savings accounts here in Australia, regardless of qualifiers. You did mention big banks, the biggest bank in Australia to appear on the list is Macquarie. So there they, as we said, honourable mention to those guys. Yeah.

Alec: [00:11:06] So Macquarie Savings account 5.05% for the first four months. We should give a shout out I think at least according to this data source that we're using is Google sheet that you can access on our forum or in our Facebook discussion group. Macquarie's transaction account pays 4.25%, so looks like they're the only, the only bank listed here for that. So that's not bad. As I have said a couple of times in this episode, for me, the hundred dollar challenge is to move to a better savings account. I think the three that I'm going to walk away and look at more ING, Bank of Queensland, I've never heard of Move, but I feel like they're going to be on the list, so they're probably ones that I'm going to go and have a bit more research. 

Bryce: [00:11:51] Nice. We're looking forward to hearing about it. If you know someone who is in a poor savings account and could do better, shoot this episode through to them. And also check out our Instagram page. You'll find more information here. Ren as always, looking forward to picking it up next week. 

Alec: [00:12:06] Sounds good.