Life In Australia

There are three main types of bank account in Australia:

• Cheque - this is similar to a current account in the UK or a checking account in the USA
• Savings - as the name suggests, a savings account with a higher rate of interest than the cheque account
• Credit - a credit card account - the most common ones are Visa and MasterCard.

I was surprised to find out that there is a monthly fee for the cheque account at the Commonwealth Bank. In the UK, there are usually no fees for current accounts. However, the fee is only A$4 per month, so it is not huge.

Another fee that you are bound to incur at one time or another is the fee for taking money out of an ATM (cashpoint) that does not belong to your bank’s network. The Commonwealth Bank charges $2 per transaction for this, which I think is quite a lot just for accessing your own money. I try as far as possible to withdraw money from a Commonwealth Bank ATM, but sometimes it is just not possible, especially if you don’t know the area or if you need cash right away.

One way around this is to ask a nearby retailer if they will give you cash back if you purchase something. You pay for the item by EFTPOS (electronic funds transfer at point of sale - similar to Switch in the UK) and ask for say $50 extra. You are given the cash and you do not have to pay an extra fee. I always try to do this to avoid using a non-Commonwealth bank ATM and I am surprised at the number of smaller retailers (such as newsagents) who offer this service.

If you have Commonwealth Bank accounts, all of your accounts can be accessed through your keycard (if you request it). This makes it easy to access all of your accounts at ATMs or EFTPOS points with just one card and one PIN number to remember.

When you pay for something at an EFTPOS terminal, nine times out of ten you will be asked ‘Savings?’ as the cashier swipes your card. I wondered why this was the case - are the Australians perhaps very thrifty and only spend small amounts of money from their savings accounts? The answer is that the Commonwealth Bank used to (I’m not sure if they still do) give savings accounts to everyone when they were at school. Most people just carried on using this account as their main account as they grew up and earned money and did not bother to open a separate cheque account.