Comm Bank has reduced the number of days you are given to pay your credit card. With slow postage delivery these days, I think the time they give you is completely unreasonable, but what can we do about it?
I received in the mail my monthly statement (for the month ending 18 July) on Friday 25 July. The due date for paying the several thousand dollars is Thursday 1 August. So I have four (4) business days to make payment. Further, if I pay by BPay, I need to pay it earlier than the 1st Aug.
As a self funded retiree, I need to sell some shares to make this payment, giving me no time for sensible trading etc.
Is the Comm Bank not making a big enough profit already???
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Two weeks from end of statement date, to some sort of payment due sounds reasonable to me. About the same as my bank’s credit card.
Now if it takes a week for your invoice to arrive by AP snail mail, then blame Austpost. Get the statements online and avoid the delay.
If one has a multi-thousand dollar debt racked up to a credit card, and one does not have the money to pay it off when due, then blame oneself.
If assets need to be sold off to service a credit card debt, then financial problems are apparent. Especially so if one does not even have enough money to pay the CC minimum and cop the interest.
Would it make any practical difference if one had a few days, or a few weeks to sell off some shares? Not as if the share market is in a state of turmoil at the moment. It is the best I have seen in a year.
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Get your statements from their web site with emailed notices and pay them by bpay or direct deposit/debit. It is a feature of our ‘online connected life’ for better or worse.
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Almost identical dates, Kenny and this after more than 50 years association with CommBank…
The number of days to pay from the statement end date varies with bank, card provider and card type/options. From 14 days up to 25 days.
EG CBA Credit card interest free period
We use the internet for banking which enables one to track spending on a card, identify any doubious/fraud transactions, and be prepared for the amount owing each month. We aim to always pay in full. From past experience we learnt that when we do not keep track of what we are spending the amounting owing will always be greater than expected. In the days prior to general internet access we kept every credit card carbon copy slip as a record in the one place in the home. At least weekly we did a tote of the total to date. These days one can also set SMS reminders/alerts based on individual transaction values, total owing on a weekly or other frequency and level of total spend/owing.
I doubt we could manage by ignoring on a daily basis what we are spending on the CC. Especially waiting for the statement to arrive in the mail nearly 6 weeks after the oldest spend it might show for a card. Something only Australia Post can remedy, and unlikely to improve. Also a greater risk given post seems to go missing more often these days. Letters in the wrong number for the street, or in our instance inadvertently placed in the incorrect PO Box. To note there are some service providers (utilities, electricity etc) who now charge extra to provide a paper bill.
It does reflect just another profit grab. They recently reduced it, one can only surmise to reduce the days they are giving customers free credit.
I think a term recently coined by Cory Doctorow & bestowed with 2023 word of the year adequately describes this type of thing… Look either up on wikiP…
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It is a seemingly creeping trend across many areas.
In accepted use now as a noun, not a rude word. Enshittification. Found in many mainstream sources and dictionaries.
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My Commonwealth Bank Platinum Credit Card has “Interest Free Period on Purchases: Up to 55 days”
I’m sure you knew that you used the card earlier than the date the statement arrived, so you had much more notice that you would have to pay
No you don’t, BPay payments are taken as having been paid on the day they were processed, not when the funds arrive.
You can also set up the credit card to pay itself from your bank account, although it is a bit of a pain with CBA (took me 1.5 hours in a branch when other banks just have a form to fill out).
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8 posts were merged into an existing topic: When is a bill paid using BPAY actually considered settled?
There is an existing thread within the community which discusses the timeframes and dates used by the Bpay payment method. It is worth reading this thread for clarification for when the payment date is that recorded by the recipient. The thread can be found here:
There is a wide assumption that many consumers use the internet and can access information almost instantaneously. This includes financial statements and using methods for their payments.
This is also often reflected in charges by some businesses to send paper copies of statements by post mail, which can take some time depending on where one lives.
We have moved to eStatements where possible, through accessing an account online. Many organisations send notifications when eStatements are ready which is a prompt to login and view them. It saves paper, resources and also need to have a large filing cabinet to store them in (for 7 years for tax purposes). We also find it useful for cutting and pasting payment details, such as references and amount to ensure that the payment is successful and against our account.
We don’t have any that don’t send notifications, but, if we did, I would set up a reminder to check on the eStatement date. A simple process to remove delays caused by post mail.
One also has to remember that the interest free period is a maximum, and applies to those transactions which occurs immediately after the statement is prepared (possibly on the same day as the statement is prepared). Any purchases made immediately before the statement is prepared will have the minimum interest free period which will be the statement date less the payment date. It is also worth noting that it is likely that if the statement isn’t paid in full, interest will be accrued from the date of the transaction/purchase, nullifying any interest free period.
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