How to Choose a High-Interest Savings Account in Australia

You've got some savings building up, maybe a buffer or money for a trip next year, and it's sitting in an everyday account that pays little or no interest. The savings accounts in the ads promise far more. Moving the money can be worth it, and a few minutes with the conditions first will tell you how much of that rate you'd actually earn.

What's inside the advertised rate

The advertised rate, quoted per year, is often two rates added together. The base rate is what the account pays with no conditions. The bonus rate is extra interest for any month in which you meet the account's conditions, such as depositing a set amount or keeping a minimum balance. Other accounts lead with an introductory rate: a higher rate for a few months, often for new customers, that then drops to the ongoing rate.

Neither is a trick, but both show the account at its best. Mia, a made-up 24-year-old with $3,000 saved, is choosing between two accounts that advertise the same rate. One pays its bonus in any month with no withdrawals, and the other has an introductory rate. Over the year she takes money out of savings twice, in June and October.

At the advertised rate all year, $3,000 would earn $144. The bonus account comes closer because Mia missed only two months, but if she dipped into savings most months, the introductory account would come out ahead. Which one wins depends on how often you'll touch the money, and no advertised rate can tell you that. To see what a gap in rates grows into over several years, our compound interest guide shows how interest builds on interest.

Check the conditions against your pay

A bonus condition only helps if you'll meet it in an ordinary month, including a tight one. If you move $200 to savings each fortnightly payday, most months get two transfers, or $400, and in a 26-pay year two months get a third. In that year, a $500 monthly condition would be met in only two months. If you're still working out what each pay can spare, our savings goals guide turns a target into a payday amount.

A withdrawal rule needs a closer look. Mia's bonus is all or nothing for the calendar month, so when she moved $80 back to her everyday account on 27 October, the 26 days before it lost the bonus too.

Losing $11 is a fair trade if the $80 kept a bill paid on time. For money you expect to dip into, an account without withdrawal conditions can suit better, so check the conditions before you open it. An emergency fund in particular needs to be reachable on a bad day more than it needs the top rate.

Whichever account you choose, the deposit has to leave each pay before the rest of the fortnight gets to it. Clova, our budgeting app, plans each pay into allocations, so the amount for savings has its place beside rent and bills from the day the pay lands.

Getting your money in and out

A savings account usually has no debit card, which is part of what makes it easier to leave alone. Money comes out by transfer to your everyday account, and some accounts limit how often you can withdraw. Some providers also ask you to open a linked transaction account with them first.

If the account you like is at a different bank from your everyday one, money moves between them by transfer. Try a small test transfer out soon after opening, so you know how long it takes before you ever need it in a hurry. Clova brings all your accounts from every bank into one view, so savings at a new bank still sit beside the account your pay lands in.

A bank you haven't heard of can still be a safe place for savings. Check that the account is covered by the Financial Claims Scheme, which protects eligible Australian-dollar deposits up to $250,000 per person at each covered institution. APRA, the banking regulator, has a Deposit Checker that shows whether yours is.

Fees and your tax file number

Look for an account with no monthly fee. A $5 fee each month would take $60 of the roughly $122 Mia's bonus account earns in a year, and it's charged in the months she misses the bonus too.

Interest counts as income for tax. It goes on your tax return even when the money that earned it wasn't income, such as a gift from family. When you open the account, give the bank your tax file number. Without it, the bank holds back tax from your interest at the highest tax rate, and you claim a credit for that tax when you lodge your return.

Once the account is open

An introductory rate has an end date, so note it when you open the account, along with the rate it drops to. Once a year, it's worth comparing your account with others and asking your bank whether it has a better one for you. Switching later is a new account and a transfer, so the first choice doesn't have to be perfect.

The rate decides a few dollars a month. The habit of moving money on payday is what builds the balance, and that part is already yours.

A note from us

A savings account should fit the way you're paid and the way you live, rather than asking you to rearrange both around its conditions. Clova puts each purchase in a category, so you can see which everyday costs keep pulling money back out of savings.