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ISCOVER
Staff Reporter
NAB is aggressively trying to position itself as the ‘bank of choice’ for borrowers, changing the way it treats repayments on its credit cards.
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From 14 January 2011, payments to NAB credit cards will be applied against balances that attract higher interest rates before balances that attract a lower interest rate.
At the moment when a customer makes a payment on their credit card account, that payment is applied to the part of the balance that attracts the lowest interest rate first.
The bank says it will save customers up to $170 a year.
The changes are expected to cost NAB up to $4 million a year, but the bank’s group executive for personal banking Lisa Gray said that is a small price to pay for consumer happiness.
"These are areas that both the Federal Government has been speaking about, both during the recent federal election campaign and more recently, and consumer groups have been asking about for a long time," she said.
The latest changes follow NAB’s decision to abolish bank fees.
Late last year, NAB removed exception fees on all personal and business accounts – forcing other big banks to follow NAB’s moves.
This initiative put a lot of pressure on over $1 billion exception fees which were collected by Australian banks in 2009.
On home loan sector, NAB has claimed 35 per cent of system growth in June 2010, the highest across all Australian banks.
