Spring cleaning your debt, cashback offers & contactless garage sales: This week’s best banking news

• Expert tips to spring clean your debt

• P&N Bank offers $3000 cashback on home loans

• Aussies are happy with NBN pricing and speed

• Westpac cuts leading savings rate to 2.50% p.a.

• PayPal brings contactless payments to garage sales

All in this week’s best banking news recap: editor’s pick.

Expert tips: 3 ways to Spring clean your loan and credit card debt

Spring has sprung, so it’s time to get out the duster and give your finances a refresh! Mozo chatted to top industry experts and condensed down 3 easy personal finance tips to clean up your loan and credit card debt this Spring.

The first is to refinance your home loan. According to experts, if your rate doesn’t start with a two or lower, then there is probably a better deal available in the market.

Second: Consolidate your personal debt. If you are struggling with multiple debts, as long as you can make the regular monthly repayments, a single debt consolidation personal loan can save you money on interest rates and fees.

Thirdly, seek out a balance transfer offer. A 0% balance transfer offer can allow you to focus on paying down your credit card debt without worrying about being charged interest on your balance during the promotional period.

Read the full article: Expert tips: 3 ways to Spring clean your loan and credit card debt to get more expert tips.

P&N Bank offers home loan customers $3000 cashback

Announced this week, the Australian customer-owned bank is offering its customers a nice added incentive.

P&N Bank will provide new mortgage customers with $3,000 cashback when they take out a loan that is worth $250,000 or more and has a loan-to-value ratio (LVR) of 80% or less.

In addition to being available to owner-occupiers and investors, P&N’s offer is available on both new and refinanced loans - which is actually unusual.

Interestingly, in the recent wave of home-loan-provider cashback offers, the vast majority are only available to refinancers.

Read the full article: P&N Bank has a new $3,000 cashback offer, and it’s not just for mortgage refinancers for a full rundown.

Westpac cuts leading savings interest rate to 2.50%

This week, Westpac has made a slew of interest rate cuts to its savings accounts, including to the Westpac Life account, 18 to 29-year-olds, known for its leading rate.

The Big Four Bank shaved a sizeable 50 basis points off the rate, taking it down from 3.00% p.a. to 2.50% p.a.

Despite the hefty reduction, the savings account still takes out the top spot in the Mozo database for bonus savings rates. In fact, all other bonus savings rates listed in Mozo’s database are below 2.00% p.a.

Read the full article: Leading Westpac Life interest rate cut overnight to learn more about the Westpac Life account.

Affordable home broadband: Aussies happy with price of NBN

New research commissioned by NBN Co shows that most Australians are satisfied with both the price and speed of their home broadband when compared to other countries.

The average price of NBN only costs 1.1% of the average weekly Australian income, so it’s not surprising that 7 of 8 respondents to the research survey stated that they had no concerns with the current affordability of their NBN service.

Overall, Australia ranked well globally, with the sixth most affordable broadband across the 13 OECD nations compared in the report.

Read the full article: Affordable home broadband: Aussies happy with NBN prices to find out more.

PayPal brings contactless payments to Aussie Garage Sales

The Garage Sale Trail is going contractless!

What started as a grassroots Eastern Sydney community event over a decade ago, has now developed into a nationwide event, with around 25,000 Australians participating in more than 10,000 garage sales.

And now for the Garage Sale Trail weekend, scheduled for 13-14 and 20-21 November this year, the event is partnering with digital payment giant PayPal to go 100% contactless.

Here’s how it works: sellers download the PayPal app and use QR code payments (or send simple PayPal links for online purchases).

All buyers and sellers need to make the transaction is a smartphone and the app, and customers can choose their preferred payment method - debit card, credit card or PayPal balance

So, get ready to grab your smartphone and get bargain hunting!

Read the full article: PayPal partners with Garage Sale Trail for two weekends of contactless secondhand shopping for more info on the exciting partnership.

Looking for a contactless option for shopping online? Then check out our top credit cards below to see what’s around: