Looking for a new bank

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Looking for a new bank

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629 posts

Ultimate Geek

#605515 5-Apr-2012 09:15

My wife and I recently changed all our banking and mortgage from Westpac to Kiwibank. I was very very impressed with the process that Kiwibank seem to have refined very well. No hiccups at all, even changed over all the saved payees in our Westpac accounts. Not to mention the offset mortgage option they have which Westpac can't do. I didn't consider ASB because the nearest branch is over an hours drive away. If you are in a small town then Kiwibank makes a lot of sense because NZ Post shops are so common. If you avoid going to the branch between 12 and 2 then the lines aren't usually too bad.

jonherries

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#605517 5-Apr-2012 09:17

I am with Kiwibank, and I am happy with the service I receive. Few caveats/considerations:

* kiwibank exists to make a profit for the government and the taxpayers of New Zealand, most other banks make money for their shareholders (TSB and the Cooperative Bank are others which are community owned I believe). Worth considering fees and motives for your bank.

* I have been able to do every thing I need for a long time without going to a branch. The only things I have needed a non-digital service for recently have been depositing cheques (you just use your eftpos card no forms) and our mortgage, which we had a mobile guy come to our house one evening.

* They can even incorporate your kiwisaver account into your internet banking view

* Kiwibank have stopped the hotlink service to your mobile, which sucks.

* Bare in mind most of the headline rates are just that for all banks, treat it like a negotiation process at Noels or Dick Smith's, try to knock the fees off the account or bump the interest on your savings account.

* interest.co.nz compares all savings accounts and mortgages regularly

Good luck choosing.

Jon

Handle9

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#605522 5-Apr-2012 09:27

We changed from ASB to Kiwibank about 4 years ago. ASB really annoyed me when our mortgage came off fixed by wanting to charge me fees to refix and their interest rates weren't competitive. They chose not to negotiate so it was see ya later.

The Kiwibank internet banking system is excellent and for simple banking tasks their branches are OK.

For anything to do with our mortgage we deal with an account manager remotely which works well. We've been pretty happy with Kiwibank and their interest rates were significantly better when I last looked.

keewee01

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#605526 5-Apr-2012 09:33

jbard: ...

I also find the line is really long as it is combined with NZ post (this might just be my local shop though)

...

Nope - I think it is nearly every Post Shop these days. I'm getting annoyed that they seem to run out of post products (A5 bags for example) and then have difficultly getting them into stock again!

martyyn

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#605529 5-Apr-2012 09:37

After having been a National customer for almost 15 years they shafted us royally when buying our house eight years ago and so we moved to Kiwibank not long after.

I cant recommend them enough. They have been utterly superb with everything weve needed to do and I think Ive been into a branch twice.

The bloke who managed our switch was excellent and more importantly is still there so we just email him whenever we need something. If he cant do it he makes sure he gets the person who can to call us.

We are in the middle of selling our house and buying another at the moment and they cant have been more helpful with extra cash to tidy ours up for sale and theyve provided several options for buying the new place.

dclegg

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#605561 5-Apr-2012 10:20

cisconz: I am really surprised at all the positive ASB customers here.
I have had ASB and BNZ for a very long time, and due to limitations in ASB's system I have changed things across to BNZ time and time again., BNZ I couldn't recommend more, but ASB i find that everytime I am there, even working on someone elses account they try to sell me something.

My personal and business accounts are with BNZ, but I'm the treasurer of our local athletics club, and we use ASB for that.

After one of my weekly visits to deposit our athletics takings, I came back extremely frustrated by the bank teller trying to upsell me everything under the sun, and also get me to migrate my BNZ accounts across. I vented on Twitter, and the next day I had a call from the local branch manager to discuss my concerns. She has since held training sessions with staff, and this upselling has never happened again.

She also now goes out of her way to greet me every time I walk into the branch, and all the staff know me by name and are very friendly and helpful. If I wasn't already happy with the services that BNZ offer me, I'd definitely consider switching to ASB.

keewee01

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#605563 5-Apr-2012 10:21

johnr:
insane: On the Credit Card front I do miss not being able to have a EFTPOS/VISA card all-in-one!

My ASB credit card / EFTPOS is just one card now, ASB have been able to do this for a while

John

National Bank did this for me 10+ years ago. Was a very useful facility.

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jonherries

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#605587 5-Apr-2012 10:57

keewee01:
johnr:
insane: On the Credit Card front I do miss not being able to have a EFTPOS/VISA card all-in-one!

My ASB credit card / EFTPOS is just one card now, ASB have been able to do this for a while

John

National Bank did this for me 10+ years ago. Was a very useful facility.

Yeah I have had this for years (probably 10) at multiple banks and now Kiwibank. The tellers and frontline don't know it is possible. You need to politely insist and the technical staff will just do it. Takes them 30 seconds, they can do it on the phone.

Jon

nate

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#605672 5-Apr-2012 12:40

Call me a cynic, but I find banks (I've dealt with Westpac, BNZ, KiwiBank and ASB) a necessary evil.

For someone self employed, the chain of people they look after (with the best at the top):

"Normal" employed people
Beneficiaries
Unemployed people
Self-employed/business owners (<< this is me)

It's better to be unemployed than self-employed. Go figure.

mattwnz

20141 posts

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#605689 5-Apr-2012 13:04

Just a note about the TSB.; If you keep more than $5k in the account, all eftpos/cheque/deposits transactions are free, and you can make deposits at kiwibank/nzpost shops, or via freepost. Most other things are also free. I even get a credit card and don't have any fees on that or any annual fees either(that may not apply to new customers though).There online banking is not the best, but it has improved a lot, Also NZ owned so the profits stay in NZ. I am surprised at how many people want to support overseas owned companies, where they ship a lot of the profit back overseas, which does really help the NZ economy. For this reason I would recommend tsb and kiwibank.

geek4me

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#605697 5-Apr-2012 13:13

My top choices are TSB, Kiwibank and ASB. They all rate highly for different reasons and I have accounts with them all.

I hate Bank Fees and Charges and love Interest so my choices are largely based on fees and interest

TSB - Premier cheque account has no fees for using another banks' ATM. The minus is you pay fees to make Internet payments. Fees can be avoided by paying by cheque but that is so old fashioned. The interest rate is tiered, calculated on each month's minimum balance and only paid once a year.

ASB - Great customer service at their many branches. They make internet banking difficult if you have a 3.15% (on all balances) Interest earning Fast Saver account by forcing you to transfer funds to a cheque account to pay anyone apart from 1 nominated account. Payments attract fees unless you have more than 200K business relationship with the bank which not many have - but this 200K includes any mortgage.

Kiwibank - Their FrontRunner Account has to be the easiest to use and make Internet and Cheque payments from and has no fees if the minimum balance of all your FrontRunner Accounts does not fall below $4K. Interest is tiered up to 3.15% for over 100K based on the combined balance in all accounts. Customer Service at branches is bad as the queues are long and there is no Fast Deposit bin like other banks have (apparently it would cost extra to clear these and "kids put rubbish in them").

Finally I use BNZ just for my Credit Card as only they give Fly Buys!

mattwnz

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#605700 5-Apr-2012 13:26

geek4me: My top choices are TSB, Kiwibank and ASB. They all rate highly for different reasons and I have accounts with them all.

I hate Bank Fees and Charges and love Interest so my choices are largely based on fees and interest

TSB - Premier cheque account has no fees for using another banks' ATM. The minus is you pay fees to make Internet payments. Fees can be avoided by paying by cheque but that is so old fashioned. The interest rate is tiered, calculated on each month's minimum balance and only paid once a year.

Regarding the fees TSB charges for online banking. You can actually avoid these by 'faxing' them your request, and that is all free. I have template that I fill out so it takes no longer than doing it through online banking. It is rather backwards, and probably costs them more in time. I have complained to them about this before, that they shouldn't charge for online payments, as it would cost them a lot less for that, than managing a fax request.

stevenz

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#605702 5-Apr-2012 13:26

I went to change to ASB a few years back, but they wanted me to fill in and provide more information than I needed to when applying for a new passport, it was crazy and I gave it a miss in the end. Is this still the case?

@KnightNZ

Jaxson

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#605714 5-Apr-2012 13:54

As an aside, if you have a mortgage with any of the major banks, you shouldn't be paying fees for basically anything, especially transactions etc (other than manual in bank ones, which I just found out about the other day). Also, depending on where you work, check if they do a package for your company etc.

chiefie

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#605715 5-Apr-2012 13:55

stevenz: I went to change to ASB a few years back, but they wanted me to fill in and provide more information than I needed to when applying for a new passport, it was crazy and I gave it a miss in the end. Is this still the case?

I think a long has changed since then, check out ASB's http://experienceasb.co.nz on how quick and easy to switch.

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