Saving money always makes economic sense, whether it’s for a short-term goal, such as a holiday, or for long-term financial stability. And Canstar’s latest research reveals the best savings products in New Zealand can be found at Heartland Bank.
For the ninth year in a row, Heartland Bank is the winner of Canstar’s Bank of the Year Savings Award.
What is Canstar’s Bank of the Year Savings Award?
Our Bank of the Year Savings Award uses a sophisticated rating methodology that is unique to Canstar. The award is presented to the NZ financial institution that delivers its customers savings accounts that offer the best features, tools, flexibility and, of course, interest rates.
Because savers want different things from their savings accounts, our award covers two profiles:
Flexible Saver: for bank customers who want to maximise their savings while retaining easy access to their funds.
Regular Saver: for more active savers who are willing to meet stricter conditions to achieve higher levels of interest.
The award also assesses an institution’s term deposit products. Extra weighting is given to term-deposit performance over shorter fixed periods, from one to 13 months.
Why is Heartland Bank Canstar’s Bank of the Year Savings Award winner?
Our research team was, yet again, impressed by Heartland Bank’s market-leading suite of savings accounts and term deposits, which deliver some of the most competitive deposit rates in the market across notice and on-call accounts.
In the Regular Saver category, its 32 Day Notice Saver and 90 Day Notice Saver accounts earned top positions by offering meaningful returns for customers willing to plan their withdrawals in advance.
In the Flexible Saver category, Heartland Bank’s Digital Saver and Direct Call accounts were recognised by Canstar’s research team for pairing competitive returns with immediate, penalty-free fund access, a combination that can be difficult to find.
Which banks were considered for our Savings Award?
To be eligible for our Savings Award, an institution must have a credit rating of at least Standard & Poor’s BBB, or an equivalent with another agency.
The financial institutions included in our award research included:
- ANZ
- ASB
- BNZ
- Heartland Bank
- Kiwibank
- Rabobank
- SBS Bank
- The Co-operative Bank
- TSB
- Westpac
Find out more about Canstar's best bank account awards here!
About the author of this page
Bruce Pitchers is Canstar NZ’s Content Manager. An experienced finance reporter, he has three decades’ experience as a journalist and has worked for major media companies in Australia, the UK and NZ, including ACP, Are Media, Bauer Media Group, Fairfax, Pacific Magazines, News Corp and TVNZ. As a freelancer, he has worked for The Australian Financial Review, the NZ Financial Markets Authority and major banks and investment companies on both sides of the Tasman.
In his role at Canstar, he has been a regular commentator in the NZ media, including on the Driven, Stuff and One Roof websites, the NZ Herald, Radio NZ, and Newstalk ZB.
Away from Canstar, Bruce creates puzzles for magazines and newspapers, including Woman’s Day and New Idea. He is also the co-author of the murder-mystery book 5 Minute Murder.
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