If you’re looking around right now for a new
bank account that pays a reasonable rate of return, ANZ bank has a hell of a
deal for you: 0%!
That’s right. ANZ is offering its depositors absolutely zero
interest.
Now, a bank paying
0% isn’t exactly abnormal in today’s banking environment. But what’s really
strange is that ANZ actually took out an ad in an Australian newspaper to
advertise this.
Yesterday’s page 10
of the Australian Financial Review (AFR) had a quarter-page ad from ANZ
boasting about 0% interest rates for accounts denominated in number of foreign
currencies, including Hong Kong dollars, Japanese yen, British pounds, and
more.
Curiously, in order to
qualify for this bargain 0% rate, you have to meet a rather significant deposit minimum.
For the 0% Japanese
yen account, for example, you have to deposit 23.5 million yen (currently about
$223,000 US dollars).
So basically some
manager at ANZ actually thought that paying 0% interest on substantial account
minimums would be an attractive offer…so attractive, in fact, that they should
brag about it in the newspaper.
This is so
completely ridiculous. But it really crystalizes what’s wrong with the entire
financial system.
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