Ratings and detailed comparison of the top mobile banking apps in Australia
When it comes to banking, us Aussies sure are a loyal bunch:
If you want to break free from the mould and see what else is out there, we've pulled together a detailed comparison of the features of the top mobile banking apps in Australia. There are already plenty of websites available to help you compare interest rates, so this article focuses solely on the app features that can help you take control of your finances and achieve your savings goals.
As at October 2024, Up is our top rated mobile banking app in Australia. The Up app has great customer reviews, plus heaps of features to help people better manage their day-to-day spending and achieve their savings goals sooner.
Banking apps are getting more competitive though with five apps receiving an overall rating of 4+, including: Up, ME Go, CommBank, Westpac and ANZ Plus.
Bank app | Overall app rating | Google Play Store rating | Apple App Store rating | Max savings accounts1 | Set savings goals | Auto-split salary into accounts | View spending by category | Set spending targets by category | Category budget alerts | Auto-categorise transaction | Re-categorise transaction | Direct debit from savings account | View upcoming bills | Enhanced merchant ID | Round-ups | Tag transactions2 | View other bank accounts3 | Export transactions | Biometric login | Transaction notifications |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ANZ | 3.9 | 4.5 | 4.7 | 99 | Yes | Scheduled only | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ANZ Plus | 4.1 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 99 | Yes | Scheduled only | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Bankwest | 2.6 | 4.2 | 3.5 | 11 | Yes | Scheduled only | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Bendigo Bank | 2.0 | 3.0 | 2.5 | 99 | No | Scheduled only | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
CommBank | 4.2 | 3.7 | 4.7 | 99 | Yes | Scheduled only | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ING | 1.4 | 2.6 | 1.8 | 9 | No | Scheduled only | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Some |
Macquarie | 3.7 | 3.1 | 4.0 | 99 | No | Scheduled only | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
ME Bank: Classic | 1.3 | 1.9 | 1.9 | 9 | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
ME Bank: ME Go | 4.2 | 4.3 | 4.5 | 9 | Yes | Scheduled only | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
NAB | 3.1 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 99 | Yes | Scheduled only | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
St George | 2.6 | 2.6 | 3.1 | 99 | No | Scheduled only | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Some |
ubank | 3.7 | 4.4 | 4.7 | 11 | Yes | Scheduled only | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Some |
Up | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.9 | 99 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Westpac | 4.1 | 3.4 | 4.4 | 18 | Yes | Scheduled only | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Last updated 14 October 2024
1 99 actually means unlimited for all banking apps except ANZ Plus where 99 is the specific limit
2 Unlike the pre-defined spend categories, you can choose any tags you like to help you with tracking your spend in an area (e.g., #christmas, #tax, #eurotrip, #reno, etc.).
3 With the introduction of Open Banking, banking apps can now display accounts and transactions from your other bank accounts (with your permission), so you can view all your financials in one app.
Yes, we are independent with no conflicts of interest: no kickbacks/commissions, no review fees, no licensing fees, no gifts, and no interest in any provider.
We aim to keep the review as objective and balanced as possible by focusing on the facts (i.e., what each banking app can and can't do).
While any assessment of "best" always contains an element of subjectivity, as it requires selecting what factors are more/less important, we've tried to make our approach as balanced and transparent as possible. We have selected and weighted each criteria based on what we feel would be most important to someone wanting to take control of their day-to-day spending and hit their savings goals sooner.
Westpac was rated the best among the five Australian banking apps reviewed by Forrester in 2023 and Westpac have been crowing about it ever since.
However, there's a few things to note:
We want to be upfront in acknowledging there is no perfect banking app that will tick every box for everyone, so there is no one "best banking app".
The ratings here are simply an attempt to identify the Australian banking apps that provide the most useful functionality for someone wanting to take control of their day-to-day spending and achieve their savings goals sooner.
The overall app rating is based on a combination of:
To be clear, this article simply aims to arm you with balanced, factual information about Australian banking apps. These are purely an assessment of the apps - it's NOT an assessment of the bank overall, specific account types, bank fees, or bank interest rates. This is NOT intended to be financial product advice.
Let's face it - we're often not great at sticking to our plans.
By getting your banking app to automatically split your pay up amongst your savings accounts, you're effectively putting your savings on auto-pilot and reducing the need to rely on willpower, self-control and memory (all of which are limited!).
There is plenty of behavioural economics research on the importance of making the "good" option the default. In our case, this means making saving the default option. Otherwise, the default is a pile of money landing in your transaction account every pay day ready for you to spend. Which option is more likely to help you achieve your savings goals sooner?
In theory, you could schedule recurring transfers to your savings accounts for the day after your pay day, but this becomes difficult to implement if your payday isn't 100% consistent and/or your pay isn't the exact same amount every time. This is where pay splitting functionality can be useful as the transfers are only triggered when your salary is received and you can set rules for how to allocate any variable income above your base pay.
Round ups are a way of automatically saving a small amount of money every time you make a transaction. For example, when you spend $5.50 on a latte, your banking app can round it up to $6 and put the extra 50 cents into savings for you. It's meant to be a way of saving money without noticing it.
Personally, I prefer to be more deliberate with my savings and immediately transfer my savings every pay day, but round ups can be a good way for some people to get started.
You know when you're looking back at your bank transactions and you see $314 spent at "Shop 3303 Macquarie Park NSW", or $20 spent at "QSR Pty Ltd", and you have zero idea what it was for... well this is where "Enhanced Merchant ID" can help.
It provides you with more useful information about the merchant, such as the trading name, logo, location, website, etc. This means you can realise the $314 was spent at Lorna Jane and the $20 at KFC, so you have a better chance of accurately categorising the transactions and staying in control of your finances.
While there's a variety of services that banking apps use to enhance their merchant information, the most common is Look Who's Charging.