Trending Financial News 30 July

Fixed rates fall under 3 per cent

Fixed home loan rates continue to fall as cuts sweep through the mortgage market. There are now six lenders advertising fixed loan rates under 3 per cent.

Reduce Home Loans’ ‘Dream 3 Years’ loan is charging 2.97 per cent pa (comparison rate 3.14 per cent).

Greater Bank’s Ultimate Fixed package loan has rates starting from 2.99 per cent pa (comparison rate 4.22 per cent).

Bank of Queensland has three-year fixed loan rates set at 2.99 per cent (comparison rate 4.09 per cent).

UBank’s fixed rates also start at 2.99 per cent (comparison rate 3.63 per cent) while Freedom Lend’s 3 year fixed rates start at 2.99 per cent(comparison rate 4.23 per cent).

Banks set high Term Deposit minimum balances

The Big Four Australian banks – Westpac, the Commonwealth Bank, ANZ and NAB have a minimum opening deposit of $5,000 on their term deposit products.

NAB owned online bank UBank requires $1,000 to open a term deposit. At the other end of the scale, Citi has a term deposit that you’ll need $250,000 to open.

Find out more about term deposits and compare rates, fees and features of term deposits from Australian banks and credit unions at InfoChoice.

Business loan rates fall under five per cent

There are lots of different business loans on the market, the two most commonly-used are unsecured and secured business loans.

The Valiant Finance Secured Business Loan has a variable rate of interest but the base rate is 4.5 per cent.

The BOQ Discounted Variable & Fixed Business Term Loan with Commercial Security offers a discounted variable rate of 4.79 per cent or a base rate of 8.12 per cent.

The Suncorp Business Essentials Variable Rate Loan requires commercial security and has a variable interest rate of 4.49 per cent and a base rate of 4.19 per cent.

Read more about business loans and compare loans at InfoChoice.

NAB “leaked” customer ID information

National Australia Bank has admitted to a data breach last week that resulted in the personal information of 13,000 customers, including their names, birth dates, addresses, phone numbers and other identifying information such as car licence and passport numbers being leaked to two outside companies.

The Australian Privacy Foundation (APF) chairman, David Vaile said NAB should tell customers who has their information.

“By not telling consumers who it gave their data to, the bank is putting its commercial interest ahead of customers.

“They say its two data service companies – but that could be anyone from Facebook to any offshore digital company.”

Banks must come clean when they lose customer data

National Australia Bank leaked the personal information of 13,000 customers to outside companies. licence and passport numbers being leaked to two outside companies. NAB has named the two companies to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner but has not released the information publicly. In 2016 the OAIC allowed Commonwealth Bank to withhold public disclosure of a data leak affecting 20 million account holders for two years.

The Australian Privacy Foundation (APF) chairman, David Vaile said banks should tell customers who has their information.

“It is critical that banks notify customers at the moment a breach is established because in the digital age damage can happen in only milliseconds or minutes.”