This five-minute banking switch could put $800 back in your pocket

June 16, 2026 — 12:40pm

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If I offered you $800, you’d probably take it. Yet countless Australians are leaving that sort of money on the table by keeping their savings in the wrong account.

The big four banks alone reportedly have almost $370 billion in low or zero-interest customer accounts. That’s over $16,500 for each Australian adult (although it is not so evenly distributed in reality).

Currently, the best high-interest savings accounts pay just over 5 per cent. On a $16,500 balance, the difference between these high-interest accounts and a zero-interest account is over $800.

That’s more than three times larger than the new $250 WATO tax cut the government just announced. Worse still, these differences massively compound over time. If we look at a 45-year period (say from age 20 to age 65), the difference becomes almost $140,000. That’s more than two brand-new Teslas!

These 5 per cent savings offerings are not complex products, they are zero-risk accounts that provide you with access to your money whenever you want it, without penalty. The dirty secret of the banking industry is that they want you to keep your money in a low-interest bank account. It’s how they make their money.

There’s a term that bank CEOs obsess over that is unbeknownst to the public: “net interest margin” (NIM). It is the difference........

© Brisbane Times