Balance Transfer Credit Cards

Balance transfer credit cards are no doubt one of the best methods to consolidate your credit card debts and save potential thousands on your interest repayments. Listed below are the 6 month, 12 month, and permanent (’for life’) balance transfer offers available in Australia.

These credit cards allow you to transfer your other balances and repay at a much lower rate over a set term. Make sure you repay it all off in given time period, as you’re likely to be hit with fees and charges if you go over. Remember, unlike in the US and UK, balance transfers in Australia do not impose a transfer fee (unless specifically stated in the PDS).

Since all these cards offer 0% for 6 months, it basically comes down to annual fee, or which provider you’re currently with or have a personal preference towards.

Best Balance Transfer Credit Card*

The St. George Vertigo is the ideal choice for Australian’s who want to consolidate their credit card balances and pay the minimum on their repayments - 0% p.a. With a 5 star credit award from Cannex Australia, and Winner of Money Magazine’s ‘Best Balance Transfer Credit Card 2009‘, you won’t find a better offer than the Vertigo MasterCard.

The ideal credit card for Australian’s who love shopping with a low rate on purchases.

• 0% p.a. balance transfer rate for up to 6 months
• Low $55 annual fee
• A standard purchase rate of 10.99% p.a
• Awarded Australia’s ‘Cheapest Balance Transfer Credit Card by Money Magazine 2009‘
• Up to 55 interest free days on purchases*
• Instant discounts with St.George Instant Benefits
• Good credit rating required for application approval

0% p.a. for 6 months Balance Transfer Offers

Credit Card	Card Details	Interest Rate (p.a.)	Cash Advance Rate (p.a.)	Balance Transfer Rate (p.a.)	Annual fee	Interest free days (up to)
St George Vertigo	Super choice for St George customers and popular Australian credit card. Awarded Australia’s ‘Cheapest Balance Transfer Credit Card by Money Magazine 2009.	10.99%	19.99%	0% p.a. for 6 months.	$55	55
Citibank Platinum Visa Card	A quality and low-cost platinum card after the balance transfer expires.	10.99%	20.74%	0% p.a. for 6 months	$85	55
ANZ Low Rate MasterCard	Prime choice for ANZ customers for short term balance transfers. You don’t even need to be an ANZ customer to apply.	11.74%	19.99%	0% p.a. for 6 months	$58	55
ANZ Balance Visa Credit Card	For people interested in a reward’s program after they’ve repaid their balance.	12.74%	19.99%	0% p.a. for 6 months	$79	55

12 month Balance Transfer Offers

These credit cards allow you to transfer your other balances and take up to a year to repay your balance. Typically, the interest rate will be higher than a 6 month offer, but lower than a ‘life’ offer. However keep in mind you can’t claim reward points till you’ve completely paid off a balance transfer.

Credit Card	Card Details	Interest Rate (p.a.)	Cash Advance Rate (p.a.)	Balance Transfer Rate (p.a.)	Annual fee	Interest free days (up to)
Citibank Silver Credit Card	Lots of automatic Citibank benefits and services. The lowest annual fee of all Australian 2.9% p.a. balance transfer offers, hence the cheapest.	19.99%	19.99%	2.90% p.a. for 12 months.	$69	55
Citibank Gold Credit Card	Lots of automatic Citibank benefits and services. What the silver card provides, with more insurance, travel bonuses and luxury benefits.	19.99%	19.99%	2.90% p.a. for 12 months.	$119	55
Citibank BP MasterCard	Another competitive annual balance transfer rate offer. 0.5% cash-back on all purchases.	19.89%	19.89%	2.90% p.a. for 12 months.	$79	55
ANZ Frequent Flyer Visa	Transfer your credit card balances and repay a transferred balance of 2.9% for 12 months.	17.99%	19.24%	2.90% p.a. for 12 months.	$95	44	N/A

Balance Transfer ‘For Life’ Offers

These credit cards allow you to transfer your other balances and take as long a you like to repay the balance. The term ‘for life’ means for the life of the credit card (as long as you own it).

Credit Card	Card Details	Interest Rate (p.a.)	Cash Advance Rate (p.a.)	Balance Transfer Rate (p.a.)	Annual fee	Interest free days (up to)
Citibank Emirates Platinum Card	For high balances that need to be paid off over more than a couple of years, you won’t find a better offer than 4.9% for life.	19.99%	19.99%	4.9% balance transfer for life.	$199	55
Citibank Platinum Credit Card	4.9% balance transfer for life. Minimum annual earnings $70,000.	19.99%	19.99%	4.9% balance transfer for life.	$250	55

Credit Card Debt Sufferers: Reduce your interest payments and save $1,000’s by Switching credit cards to a New Balance Transfer card

Credit Card Finder has compiled this step-by-step guide to help you compare the best* 0% and long term (Transfer balances for life) offers, takes you through choosing a deal and what to look out for.

What is a balance transfer?

It’s when one credit card repays debts on other credit or store cards; so you now owe it the money instead, hopefully at a special cheap rate.

Example of a Balance Transfer

• Old Card: American Express Platinum MoneyBack $3,000 at 20.49% and a Commonwealth Bank Platinum $2,500 at 20.74%.
• New Card: the St.George Bank Vertigo Mastercard 0% for 6 months on balance transfers with a 10.99% interest rate.
• The Process: You apply for the St.George card and in the application ask them to balance transfer you American Express ($3,000) and Commonwealth bank card ($2,500). (You can also just transfer a single card if you only own one.)
• Results: The American Express and Comm Bank cards are now zeroed out, the debt on these cards has been transferred to the St.George card. You now owe $5,500, although will not have to pay interest on this for 6 months i.e. you are now being charged 0% interest on this debt.

TIP It is best to make your balance transfer within a couple of months of opening the new card account otherwise the opportunity could expire. It’s important you don’t confuse cutting the interest with paying less each month, as that’s determined by the minimum repayments.

How to Choose the Best Balance Transfer Deal

Following is a step by step guide to selecting a balance transfer deal. Just answer each of the questions and follow the tree to our recommended areas.

Question 1: Have you got a good credit history?

A good credit score will give you a much better chance to get a Balance Transfer If your credit score isn’t good, the likelihood is you’ll either be offered a much worse rate than advertised, or be rejected. If you’re commonly rejected for new credit, a balance transfer won’t work for you. There are some tips you can use when you have bad credit, take a look at our bad credit balance transfer guide. You can check your credit score with Veda.

Question 2: Are you able to payoff Your debt within 6 months?

You have 2 options Get more time to payoff debt - Consider a longer term life time balance transfer or perhaps a 12 months balance transfer to give yourself more time to payoff the debt Switch more than once - If your credit rating is good enough you can consider retransferring your balance transfer after the 1st 6 month deal is finished. This way you can buy yourself enough time to payoff your debt. You need to be careful with this as it will require careful management of your cards and you will need a very strong credit rating. Recommended Deals 12 months balance transfer offers Lifetime balance transfer offers 6 months balance transfer offers

Top 0% p.a. Credit Card Calance Transfers*

BEST Deal: 6 months Balance Transfers*

In Australia 6 month 0% balance transfer deals are normal. There are not many 0% for 12 months deals although there are some 12 month deals where you will pay between 3 - 7% p.a. In Australia there are no fees for transferring a balance from one card to another.

• The Top Deal: 6 months deals: * The following providers have offers that last for 6 months at 0%
  • St.George Vertigo - Reverts to an interest rate of 10.99% after the balance has been paid off. $55 annual fee.
  • HSBC Low Rate Card - Almost a free 6 month balance transfer - a $0 annual fee and 2.99% p.a balance transfer offer for 6 months.

The longest balance transfer deals There are deals in Australia where you can transfer the balance of your credit card for life. This means that for however long you have that balance the card provider will only charge you the rate you balance transferred at. E.g. if the balance transfer rate is 7.9% for life like with the citibank personal account you will only be charged 7.9% on that balance until you pay it off. This is good if you want to lock in your rate and give yourself plenty of time to pay it off.

• The top deal: “For life” balance transfer deals: The following providers have offers that last for life
  • Citibank Emirates Credit Card - 4.9% for the life of the balance

Warning about long term balance transfers

There’s a hidden sting with these cards; if you spend on them, it’s at a high interest rate and can’t be repaid until all the cheap debt has been. They may try and tempt you with cashback or short term 0% deals on any spending; ignore it. The rule is simple; never, ever, ever, ever spend on these cards. If you do all the benefit will be lost. All these deals require you to pay a one-off fee when you do the transfer, the trade-off is you get it interest free for a long time.

• Say you have transferred a balance of $10,000 to your ‘for life’ offer credit card. You then spend a $500 purchase on the card, at a 15% interest rate.
• You will not be able to pay off that $500 purchase until the whole transferred balance itself has been paid off, thus accumulating a fair bit of interest.
• It is simply one of the techniques used by banks to profit from balance transfers. As mentioned prior there’s a simple solution to avoid the hidden sting - use a different credit card for new purchases.
• Banks often provide the incentive of an annual fee waiver if $X amount of money is spent on your card during a balance transfer.
• These offers should typically be ignored as the cost of the interest repayments will almost certainly not compensate for the cost of the annual fee in the first place.

How to avoid the biggest mistake with a balance Transfer

There is no single more important thing to remember about balance transfers than the following.

Why it’s such an expensive nightmare

Credit cards allow us to do a number of different things such as spend on them, shift balances to them or withdraw cash. These are all different transaction types and it’s the interactions between them that cause the problem.

• Each type of transaction has a different interest rate. While it might be 0% for balance transfers, any new purchases will get a much higher interest rate and cash withdrawals even higher.
• Your repayments will go towards clearing the debt you transferred first. You don’t choose what your repayments go to, the credit card company does. And lenders will make your repayments go towards paying off your balance which is at a lower interest rate first.

This means the expensive debts from spending are effectively trapped, speedily accruing interest, and you can’t repay them until you’ve cleared all the cheap debt. Thus you can be racking up debt which you will eventually have to repay later. Clearly credit card providers make their money this way because they want you to spend whilst you are paying off your balance you transferred to them. To avoid this situation it would be better to get a second card with a low purchase rate.

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A handy note to keep in mind about American Express cards commented on by one of our users:

Sandra wrote: “In the traps section you should add that with amex, if you miss a monthly payment they revert the interest rate from the changeover rate to their standard rate.

This is not disclosed until you sign up and get the final paperwork !!!”

Frequently Asked questions

• How do I do a balance transfer?
• Which cards provide the lowest interest rates?
• How do I compare balance transfer rates?
• Are 2nd Balance Transfers Possible?
• Long Term Balance Transfer Approval Requirements

* The credit card offers compared on this page are chosen from a range of credit cards CreditCardFinder.com.au has access to track details from. ‘Best and ‘Top’ are ratings which are subject to our consideration and is not rated against all Australian credit cards. We recommend you take this information into account when comparing credit cards.

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