Australia's Best Term Deposits 2016

About the Mozo Experts Choice Awards

Mozo considered at call savings accounts, transaction focused bank accounts, and fixed term deposits. Awards have been awarded for each of these product types.

Mozo has been researching and comparing financial products since 2008, and hundreds of thousands of Australians use our comparison services each month.  Our research team is headed by our Research & Insights Director and our Product Data Manager who have over 50 years of financial services experience and 21 years in online financial comparison.

More information on the methodology and deposit awards criteria can be found here.

Choosing the best term deposit

With any kind of term deposit account, one of the top priorities is to find an account with the best interest rate as this will mean more interest and therefore more money in your pocket. Mozo’s Experts Choice Awards have made it simple to find the best term deposits in the market for anyone saving for the short, medium and long term. But before you sign up for a new term deposit account there are a few additional things to consider.

1. Access to your money. With a term deposit you are locking your money away for a set term which means that if you need to withdraw your funds earlier you’ll need to pay costly fees. If you do have funds to put away consider splitting the funds between a term deposit and a high interest savings account. That way if you need to access the money in an emergency you can do so via the savings account without any penalties.
2. Term deposit rollover. At the end of your term deposit, your financial institution will give you the option of rolling over the balance into a new term deposit account. Before accepting this be sure to do a quick scan of the term deposit market on Mozo because term deposit rates change and the bank that had the best term deposit rate 6 months ago could now be way down the list. And with accounts only taking around 15 minutes to set up online there is no excuse for not putting your money in the best term deposit on the market.
3. Fixed versus variable rate. With a term deposit your interest rate will be fixed for the duration of the term. This can be a great savings tactic as you’ll know exactly how much interest you will earn but it also means that if interest rates go up over your term you won’t benefit from the rise in rates.
4. Deposit guarantee. All term deposits listed on the Mozo website are covered under the Australian Government’s deposit guarantee. But please be aware that each customer is  only covered for $250,000 per institution, so if you are depositing more than this amount it might be a good idea to split funds across multiple banks to reduce your potential risk.