New Zealand Credit Union product reviews

A few years ago I thought it would be a good idea to have a separate account for Christmas savings to try and make Christmas special for the kids, I had a look at the services offered by all the banks and at that time none offered a Christmas Savings Account.

I had to travel to Manukau from Waitakere as there aren't any branches out west so made a day out with the kids. The opening process was easy and the forms were easy to fill in, I explained that I wanted a Christmas Saver Account and since I am so far away from the nearest branch I would be doing my banking mainly online or by use of Eftpos and ATM so need online banking set up and a ATM card. I like that my name is not on the card and that there is no expiry date on the card so I can use it without having to worry about if it is expired or close to being expired.

I got home and logged in so I could try out the online banking and found that I had a normal savings account and a Christmas saver when I had only asked for a Christmas saver but it is easy enough to transfer from one to the other and the account number they supplied was to the normal account. The log in process is a bit complicated, you need a PIN and the first time you log in you get to choose three symbols from a few hundred so that should make it harder for someone random to guess your symbols. I have tried in the past to use the correct symbols but not in the same order I choose them and it wouldn't log in, I now know it has to be in the same order I selected the symbols in.

There are other services but I'm only using it to help make Christmas more affordable.