UBank USaver Ultra

A simple bank account with a high interest rate.
To qualify for the high interest rate deposit $50 dollars a week or $200 a month, easy.
If you don't like having $100 in the sweep account, open a second UBank Saver that's not linked to the sweep account.
My account setup:
Sweep account: used for everyday spending. Sweep settings: if balance exceeds $1000 & Maintain balance of $100.
UBank Saver1: Income deposited here and is linked to sweep account.
UBank Saver 2: For Savings and Bills. Not linked to sweep account.

I signed up for the Usaver ultra savings account for one of the highest interest rates around. There are other banks that offer similar interest rates however you have to jump through hoops with loads of rules and restrictions.

With Ubank ultra all I need to do is add 200 dollars every month and keep my savings under 200,000

The customer service is great!

Transaction not easy with Ubank and not reliable very careless customer service they don't care your urgency you can not withdraw money in overseas ATM money won't come out but your statement show you withdrawn money they will put you nab fraud investigation it will go up to 45 to 60 days you never get back your money it is hectic with them and i order new card but I didn't receive pin month now I received a card but they send pin to my old address not once twice very careless bank in Australia this is my experience up to you guys.

I joined Ultra saver on the 25 June. First card and pin did not arrive, Reordered. Card arrived but no pin. reordered pin but still no pin! 5 weeks since joining and still no functioning card plus lots of phone calls and e-mails to Ubank to try to obtain card and pin!

A couple of reviews of this account appear to give details which are now out of date. Ubank only require $200 or more per month deposited from an external source to receive the bonus savings interest, not $2000 as stated.There is nothing to prevent you depositing the required amount then withdrawing it later in the month if you wish.I like the 'sweep' idea, it means that most of your money is earning interest and not sitting in a transaction account earning nothing. The minimum balance you can keep in Ultra is $100, not the $500 as stated. I think that is very reasonable these days. I have only experienced good service from Ubank and better than average interest on Usaver. I guess you have to sacrifice some convenience, being an' online only' bank you can't get a cheque book (who uses them these days?) or counter service. I like the idea that it is backed by NAB and is an Australian bank.

I had this account forced on me if I wanted a higher interest rate for my existing USaver account. The sweep function cannot be turned off and as a minimum I have to keep $100 sitting in the Ultra account doing nothing except being isolated from all their other money friends in the other account.

Poor form UBank that the control of the account is taken away from the account owner. One size does not fit all. Not everyone wants another card. Mine is still deactivated and will stay that way.

I've had one of these accounts for a couple of months. So far I have been quite happy with it. I would summarise it as being a NAB Classic Banking account with extra features.

To start with, the account overall seems to be a high-value account. It hardly has any fees (read the T&Cs for details). In practice the only fees it has that affect me are its international transaction fees.

It comes with a Visa debit card with payWave. You can also open it as a joint account by attaching it to a joint USaver savings account. This will get each joint owner their own corresponding card.

I think the highlight of the account is its sweep feature. This provides multiple benefits relating to situations where the account balance is too low. Basically it minimises issue that could arise as a result of not having enough funds in the account. It does this by automatically using/transferring money from the corresponding savings account.

The first function of Sweep is if you make an EFTPOS purchase without using Visa (the Credit option) or have a direct debit taken out, the additional required amount of money is used from the savings account to allow you to complete the purchase.

The second function of Sweep is it automatically transfers money between it and the savings account at the end of each day to ensure its balance is within user-defined boundaries.

The online facility also has a couple of interesting features. You can view direct debit agreements and cancel them yourself if you want. Each of mine only showed up after the first payment had been deducted.

You can also temporarily cancel your card if you lose it. Additionally, you can view its Visa card number in the account details section, which could be handy if you don't have the card with you but want to make an online purchase.

Besides this, you can do typical online functions such as viewing transactions, statements, making payments, arranging payees, viewing account details, setting up transaction alerts, changing details, and others.

It also supports BPay for outgoing and incoming payments. Obviously the outgoing support is useful, but the incoming support seems useless to me; BPay doesn't even support transaction descriptions, and normal electronic transfers seem fine anyway.

You can also get a good interest rate in a corresponding USaver savings account if you deposit over $2000 per month into either account from an external account (such as employee).

I did run into some problems, though. The main one is the sweep facility, which is mandatory, enforces a mandatory a minimum account balance of at least $500. Similarly, the maximum account balance must be at least $1000. You can't turn the facility off, and you can only increase these amounts. I also didn't find any mention of this limitation when I was reading the account information and terms and conditions; I only discovered it after creating the account.

This seems quite restrictive and I think it takes away some of your control of the account. I don't think the amounts are unrealistic, but I do feel that I would like to be able to decide for myself about the minimum and maximum account balances.

BPay for making outgoing payments actually doesn't work. Similarly, the card doesn't work with PayPal, and PoLi doesn't support UBank yet.

I've also noticed that, unlike NAB Classic Banking, uncleared Visa transactions don't seem to appear in the transaction history. The available balance reflects them, but only the cleared transactions are shown.

When I was investigating and signing up for the account, I experienced some customer service issues. All of the staff I spoke with seemed willing to help. However, some of them weren't as efficient as they could have been; each time I contacted them I was asked to check things on my end first before they considered their end. This makes sense, but it wastes time, and it would be nicer if they could trust me.

One staff member arranged a call-back that I never received. One e-mail I sent was never answered. E-mails were generally answered within 3 days. Call wait times were generally good.

In summary, despite the minor issues mentioned above, I'm quite happy with the account so far.
Visa payWave debit card, hardly any fees, sweep facility, bonus interest rate for corresponding USaver account, online facility features, supports joint account, direct debit
Can't make BPay payments, effective minimum balance of $500 due to sweep facility, aforementioned problem not mentioned before sign-up, can't view uncleared Visa transactions, minor customer service issues

I have tried the USaver Ultra and it has problems. A VISA debit transaction is repeated. The auto transfer amount for a BAY transaction was more than the required amount. Rang them three times and told the story to three different customer service representives. The problem was eventually rectified but they could not explain what caused that. I doubt if their system still has bugs.

It is up to you whether you want to be the white mouse of this new product.
Handy
I think the system has bugs.