Great Southern Bank Home Saver

Unnecessary step(s) to earn highest interest – - Home Saver Account offers 5.25% with conditions - You need to deposit $2K (*you can withdraw) - The unnecessary step (*in my opinion): don't deposit direct into Home Saver [ where your bonus interest is accrued ] instead deposit into everyday account then transfer to Home Saver otherwise you don't meet criteria, therefore get zero bonus interest… Read more

- Finally when their interest rates change or drop, you don't get notified (apparently it's too costly to undertake such) so it just costs customers in lost interest. This is low hanging fruit for GSB to improve upon - GSB can just electronic communication of upcoming change to interest on the app/internet banking/email - it's not that costly.

Another payment, another block. Just a normal GSB day – GSB (or rather Cuscal the company they outsource all their automated fraud detection to) block every single payment from and too every single receipient all the time by every method but most especially Fast Payment (NPP). Last week I had finally had enough of every payment I tried to make failing instantly it was submitted, so I went through the… Read more

20min on hold phone call rigmarol to find out from someone why this was always happening. I was told there was a permanent block on my account for Fast Payments. No idea why and they couldn't explain it either, there just was and that was that. So got that removed after answered 1,001 questions and was told that would fix it and there would be no more problems. 2 days later and I try to do a fast payment for a trivial amount to a well established recipient I pay all the time and you guessed it, failed immediately. Call up again, another 20min on hold and yes, the block is back because paying $23.44 to a payee I use every single week which has been stored and saved in payee list for months is "suspicious" apparently. Was put through to their fraud detection team who told me they are actually just contracted by GSB to perform that service for them because GSB aren't big enough to do it in-house. Cuscal is their fraud detection service contractor and they just routinely block everything because they don't suffer any angry customers or blowback when they do, the GSB CSR's cop all that, so for Cuscal, there's no downside for them just being ultra conservative and blocking everything. Similarly, it's pointless complaining to GSB because they don't have any influence or control over their sub-contractor and you can't leave any permanent instructions to not block payments you want to make. The upshot is, don't go anywhere near GSB for your banking needs unless you love having every single payment you make blocked for no good reason and then being forced for endure 20min on hold each and everytime to speak to someone who isn't even a GSB employee, to unblock it for you, only to then have the next payment you make blocked as well. They may have a payment option called 'Fast Payment', but in practicality it doesn't exist, because they will routinely block every single attempt to use it. Avoid at all costs.

Great, as long as you never want to take your money out or pay a bill – GSB's fraud team appears to be run by primary school kids and works on a block first and then wait for the customer to complain policy. EVERY single withdraw or payment to any payee they haven't seen before will have the payment held and your login frozen. Then you get an SMS to your phone telling you to call them to find out why. They will never… Read more

call you, the onus is always on you to call them. When this happens, and remember it happens for EVERY SINGLE new payee without fail, you can safely write off the next 1.5hrs of your life because that's how long it will take to navigate their phone message labyrinth and the increasingly invasive questioning trying to trip you up. If that wasn't enough to put you off, then you can also expect constantly changing answers to the same question depending on which way the wind is blowing and which CSR you happen to end up yelling at over the phone. To the question: How can I increase the daily transfer limit beyond 30K? you will get all the following answers from various GSB staff: 1. You can't. The 30K limit is a hard ceiling and cannot be raised even by GSB staff 2. If you go in person to a branch, then the staff can process the transfer for you for any amount 3. If you call us we can raise the limit for you manually to do the transfer in online banking

Their aggressiveness in blocking transactions and account access is so fierce, you can't help but come to the conclusion there's an element of deliberateness to it which is enhanced by the non-industry standard low daily limits. They want your money, and they will hold on to it for all they're worth once they've got it! Too bad if you need to pay bills or your credit card on time. It goes without saying that like every other bank, you can never speak to the faceless 'fraud team' of 12yo's who wield all the power and answer to nobody. You can never be transferred through to a supervisor (their phones can't transfer calls), the supervisor will never call you back, they've never heard of AFCA and everything they do is for your own good and security and privacy (because isn't that always the new world way?). Nothing can ever be argued because your safety and security is always their top priority. The universal accusation get out clause that works for all situations. Avoid

Pretty average – I have been a customer of CUA and now GSB for several years. I had reasonable balances maxed out on their esaver and 55+ accounts meeting their onerous conditions. Alas it is not worth the effort now with pitiful interest rates and during the last couple of years these have dwindled away to an extent I had to move my balances out to receive decent… Read more

rates elsewhere which isn't hard to do. There are far better banking options out there with much better returns on savings accounts. Come on Great Southern wake up you can do better for your customers. Perhaps the Great should be removed to simply state Southern Bank as the name is a bit misleading in my view.

Interest on Saving not paid in full – Opening account was OK. Online desktop is OK. We deposited about $100k into Reward eSaver account. First problem occurred when we were charged Withholding Tax. I called customer service and they tried to blame this on me. They never asked me for my Tax File Number. How could I know to supply a TFN if it was not requested on the online… Read more

application form?!?! No refund there, the ATO has this money..... Then I was looking at the bonus interest paid. I ran a spreadsheet and I was being paid 0.8% instead of the 0.9% advertised. They had dropped the bonus interest rate. No email, no letter, no notifications, nothing... Now, they've dropped their bonus rate again. It is now 0.7%, no notice, nothing.... And with this they have grandfathered the account type, no notice, nothing.... And if I want to have 0.9% bonus rate, again I have to switch to a different account type with new conditions.... All this is less than a year.... Will I have to do this again in a year?!?!? I don't have the time to look at there website to see if and when this will happen again..... Because GSB gives no notice, nothing.... Customer experience was terrible, possibly due to the fact that their systems and communications are terrible. Or nice, depending on the customer service person you get, and how many times you call back to talk to someone who is helpful. The first guy kept on asking me the same questions and not waiting to hear the answer.... And then hung up on me.... This bank is an ametuer at banking. Do not trade if you are a serious customer. GSB is not reliable. AVOID. Go to an "adult" bank. GSB/CUA are the "new" kids on the block, considering they have been around for decades.

Waste of Time – Applied online for an account for my young son. Uploaded the requested ID documents. They couldn't verify his identity online, so they emailed me a form to take to the post office to get verified and mail to them, which I did. Didn't hear anything back from them for 2 weeks, then got an email saying the application had expired. Rang them up, after… Read more

25 minutes on hold the customer service lady said no record of the letter. I then gave her my application number, she said no record of mine or my son's name. She then advised I would have to go through the whole process again. No thanks

Deceptive dishonest SCAM – Customer BEWARE!!! They advertise a rate with a reasonable interest-rate on eSAVER reward account, I go to the bother of opening a brand-new account and become a new customer and shortly after transferring the funds and they clear into CUA just days later they reduce the interest rate with NO notice, nothing... no email.. no text message no phone… Read more

call... no notification through the app.. no notification through banking they just drop the rate & not tell anybody AFTER you sign up and the funds clear.

SCAM SCAM SCAM!!! Completely dishonest I would not recommend CUA it’s pretty pathetic that in age of digital world they can’t even give you a notification the day before or even the day of reducing the interest-rate but no... they do it BEHIND YOUR BACK hoping you won’t notice!!!!

With so many other places to get a much much better interest rate I’m assuming these guys don’t want customers.

Don’t bother with this mob

BYE BYE CUA