Student Banking in Australia

knowing about Banks and Banking procedures is very very important. As a student, you will have to balance your academics and your finances well at the same time. since you are eligible to work only part time, it is important that you manage money wisely.

What are the most prominent banks in Australia? what is it that you will need to know about banks and banking as an International student in Australia?

commonwealth bank is the most prominent bank in australia. In most cities, sydney for example, you can be sure that no matter where you are, there will certainly be a comm bank ATM near you !

next in line is ANZ (Australia and New Zealand Bank), which is good but my personal fav is still comm ! thirdly, I would rate NAB (National Australian Bank)

also there are the lesser popular ones like westpac, st.george bank and bendigo. these banks have fewer ATMs compared to the bigwigs mentioned above.

To open a bank account as a student, you will need to take your passport which will be your only acceptable ID proof ...to carry out banking transactions, the bank charges  its customers a transaction fee from 3$ to 6$ per month....however, for students this transaction fee can be waived once you produce an Id card or other proof that you are a student. if your course is over a year, you will need to renew the waiver of transaction fee every year. the banks provide you with debit cards to access your money from ATMs and also provide telephone and internet banking facilities which are very useful. internet banking is extremely useful since you can transfer money to your friends or parents back home or just about any one electronically. you can pay your rent or electricity or phone bills electronically by direct debit or pay individuals if you know the account holders name, bsb number and account number.

anz and nab offer visa debit cards which you should consider getting because the normal debit card can only be used in ATMs and for shopping etc. however, only visa debit allows you to do online transactions and is a debit card with the power of visa ! as a student it is highly recommended that you dont get a credit card.

all the banks have an account type called a saver account. in your normal account you can deposit,withdraw, do transfers,etc. however, you wont get interest for your money. but if you have a saver account, you will get about 7 % interest for your money. imagine that you maintain a balance of say two thousand dollars in your account for a year or more...how much is 7% interest for 2000$ for that period? this is for you to calculate ! this is the amount of money you would have lost if you had not put your money in a saver account. A word of caution for you is that, once your money is in the saver account, you cannot access it using ATM. you must electronically transfer money from the saver account to your normal account to be able to access those funds via ATM. this is the only catch. if you are planned and understand these banking procedures, you will certainly save lots of money which you can put to better use on other things.