The Australia and New Zealand Banking group, or ANZ, is among Australia’s biggest banks. They offer a wide range of consumer and small business services, including a number of debit cards.
ANZ debit cards are offered through VISA, the largest debit card provider in the world. VISA is accepted in a large number of places, particularly overseas where EFTPOS cards without a debit card function are not generally accepted, with 29 million outlets accepting VISA. There are various services that VISA is able to offer, such as enhanced security on the internet under the “verified by VISA” application which ensures that all internet transactions on registered cards are password verified.
VISA also offers a number of entertainment options including access to a booking window for many sports and music tickets before they go on general release.
The Debit card can either be used for Debit card payments or EFTPOS payments at the point of sale. It can also be used to withdraw cash which means that the large network of ANZ ATMs is an advantage. The debit card can be used in the same way as a credit card for most internet transactions. There are also three choices of colours, black, blue and pink.
ANZ also has a fraud monitoring programme, called ANZ Falcon which checks accounts for questionable activity. ANZ also offers an online shopping guarantee where card users are protected from liability for fraudulent use of the card as long as they inform ANZ within a reasonable time and they did not contribute to the fraud.
The ANZ debit cards are tied to one of three current accounts, ANZ Advantage Access, ANZ Access Select and ANZ Access Deeming. These offer differing levels of service for different fees.
All the accounts offer optional cheque books, although the ANZ Access Select account charges for cheques that are processed. They also all offer unlimited access to internet banking.
The ANZ Advantage Access is the full service account, and it charges $5 a month for the account. It offers unlimited access to the wide network of ANZ’s ATMs that cover most of Australia. Other services for which there is unlimited access include phone banking, branch banking and EFTPOS payments. Cheques can be written without an additional charge. There are concessions available to various groups such as pensioners which will lower the fee.
The ANZ Access select account is a cheaper version that only charges $2 per month. It has six free electronic transactions a month; this includes ATMs, EFTPOS and debit card transactions.