Comments on: Corporate Whinefest: nab edition

By: Carl Joseph » Blog Archive » Changing bank accounts

Carl Joseph » Blog Archive » Changing bank accounts — Tue, 12 May 2009 08:48:05 +0000

[...] Gans has explored the “switching cost” of changing banks on his blog before and more recently. After thinking about how bank account numbers work, I landed on what might be a simpler solution. [...]

By: blu-k

blu-k — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:05:03 +0000

I had similar things happen at nab and commonwealth. I am now with a credit union and they are fantastic. (no, I do not work for a credit union!)

I think the mistake you, and a lot of punters, make is to be all or nothing.

Don’t wait until you are totally frustrated with nab and have the hassle of changing those direct debits all at once. Keep your nab account and open a new bank account now. Transfer a little money to the new account to cover most of your debits.

Then, as you remember/have time/can be bothered, start transferring your direct debits across. When you’ve done most of them, transfer your pay to the new account.

Your final action should be to close the nab account.

While this involves being careful to make sure your debits are covered, internet transfers should make this relatively easy.

Don’t keep putting up with bad banks! It only encourages them!!!

By: Andre Sammartino

Andre Sammartino — Mon, 04 May 2009 01:38:01 +0000

I think I’ve experienced each and every one of those events from the exact same bank over the past 12 months.

We had promised ourselves that our recent real estate transactions (and thus the need for a new loan arrangement) would see us finally untangle ourselves from the nab web, but alas the great ease of managing mismatched settlement dates within a single bank has prevented this yet again.

Damn lock in effects and switching costs….

By: kme

kme — Mon, 04 May 2009 00:35:16 +0000

You know, it seems to me that there’s a market opportunity here.

You could open up a “virtual bank” – a place that issues you with Credit Card / BPAY / direct debit account numbers, but any transactions you put against them are just forwarded onto your real account at your real financial institution. You use the “virtual bank” numbers for all your regular payments – mortgage, bills etc – and if your real bank renumbers you, you just update the details once at the “virtual bank”, and all your debits keep on happening.